Bungee's Orphanage

Consideration

2008-08-25T02:31:00.000-04:00

Even through the disorientating fog of slumber, Brian could sense, more than hear, the THUMP THUMPING echoing in Kay's room. As the fog began to dissipate in his mind he realized that the pulsating noise was actually the throbbing of his head. That discovery was quickly followed up with the unmistakable panic that precedes bile and, in turn, vomit rising up through the esophagus. With a burst of speed worthy of an Olympian, and none of the grace, Brian quickly threw himself out of the Purple Patterned comforter and rose-coloured silk sheets. With nearly heart beats worth of time to spare Brian's mouth managed to park itself directly above the room's small waste basket. Once he was quite certain that everything he had digested the night before had finished exiting his body, Brian casually wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt and climbed back into bed.

"Baby?" Kay's overly chipper voice echoed in through the cracked door. Brian limply brought his arm up near his face to try and discern what time of day it might be. He was assuming that Kay was going to yell at him for being passed out in bed all day. Much to his surprise his watch was AWOL. "Sweetheart," Kay's growing voice and the distinct shuffle of her slippers on the hardwood told Brian that she was almost at the door. He quickly flipped his body toward the nightstand to try and read the clock, hoping for a miracle that would reveal it was a "reasonable" time of morning. The nightstand, or what was left of it, was mostly smashed on the floor, and the digital clock was lifeless, its cord pulled out of the wall. A pained sigh exited Brian's nose, as he tried to calculate some defense to his slack-assery. All that came to mind was that the overly familiar THUMP THUMPING was not just Brian's head pulsing, but the noise was softly echoing through the room as well.

"Honey Bucket?" Kay called as she swung the bedroom door wide, and strode into the room. "Are you still in bed?" As she asked the question she put both of her hands on her hips, and cocked her head in an overly adorable fashion. Brian wanted the conversation to segue from his drunken laziness to the noise reverberating through the room, but somehow the words failed to make it from Brian's brain to his mouth.

"Well, uh, I -" Brian muttered. Kay's stern face broke into a wide grin, and she giggled.

"What-EVER. Get up, you promised me we'd go walking downtown today." Brian had no recollection of any such promise, although even in his stupor he knew better than to try and argue the point. "C'MON!" She pouted playfully as she slapped the edge of his feet.

"Kay," Brian began slowly, trying to fully prop himself up in her bed. "I know I promised you, Baby, but can't we just hang here today? I'm still so tired!"

"Tired?" Kay's head cocked back to the side, and she shot him a grimace. "Brian Francis McConnell, what you are is hung over!"

"But I, er-" Kay's hand shot up interrupting his clumsy rebuttal.

"If not STILL drunk! Now get up, get dressed, rinse the puke out of your mouth, and meet me downstairs in ten minutes." Kay's back was already to Brian by the time she was finished, as she headed back toward the door. Brian let his head flop back down unto the bed, and launched into the possible options that would maximize his time spent sleeping.

"AND!" the edge in Kay's voice made his head rocket back up and lock in an upright position. He could see that Kay had leaned back into the room from the hallway. "IF you ARE NOT downstairs in ten minutes, then I'm going to send Callista up here to persuade you." She shot him a sugary sweet smile and a horribly foreboding wink before disappearing from view. Brian's head rolled back unto the pillow, and his eyes slowly shut. No sooner were they closed then a terrifying image of Kay's overweight amorous roommate Callista flashed through his mind. With an air of disgust and resentment, Brian tried to force his eyes closed. Again the image assaulted him.

"Fine, fine," he muttered rolling slowly out of the bed, "I'm up!"

When Brian finally made it downstairs, he was greeted by the sounds of giggling coming from Callista and Kay, who were sitting on the couch in front of the television. Brian could not discern what they were giggling about, but had a strong suspicion that he was better off not knowing. He did his best to ignore the whispering and guffawing, and crossed the room to his green sneakers. Before he even managed to lace up the first shoe, he discovered that the snickering was causing the throbbing in his head to worsen. Almost as if she could sense his misery, Kay's whispers exploded into full laughter. The urge to attempt some clever sarcasm flashed through Brian's mind, but it just seemed like too much energy. Instead he just snatched up the remaining sneaker in his left hand, and clumsily stomped outside through the front door. The resounding laughter that followed him was radiantly audible, even after he let the front door slam behind him.

As his hands fumbled with the laces of the first shoe, Brian realized that he was tempted to be angry about the laughter. By the time the laces finally conspired with him to allow themselves to be tied, Brian realized he was too tired to really be mad. In fact, he was guessing that the image of his disheveled self stumbling down the stairs was fairly comedic. He dropped into a crouch, and began to tie the other shoe. Before he had even finished his second attempt, the front door flew open, and Kay practically skipped out onto the porch.

"Are you ready, Mister Attitude?" Kay chirped with an obnoxious amount of zeal.

"Well," he muttered, glancing down at his untied shoe, "Sure, let's go." Dismissively he stood, and made the conscious decision that sometimes it is not worth the effort to tie both shoes. If Kay noticed, she made no comment. She just slid her hand into his, and gently pulled him down the porch. Kay did a prance a half step ahead of Brian, dragging him as she moved. Brian was secretly grateful, because her little maneuver allowed him the luxury of paying no attention to where he was going. He let his mind comfortably zone out, while they walked. Almost immediately he felt, on the edge of his mind, the answer to what the Thump Thumping was up in Kay's room. Before he had the chance to further explore the topic, Kay ruined the silence that Brian was observing.

"Can ask you a question?"

"Huh?" Brian responded, disappointed that she was going to make him pay attention.

"I want to ask you something, but do NOT get mad at me, okay?"

"Huh?" Brian offered again, "No. What?" Brian's mind was moving slightly slower than his mouth. "I can't promise that something won't upset me. If I get upset, then I'm upset. You know?" Brian paused to sort out what else was bothering him about Kay's Panzer Tank subtlety. "AND, you just asked me two things. Come to think of it, I'm already upset too!"

"C'mon," Kay easily dismissed, "How much do you remember about last night?"

"Is this the actual question? The one that can't make me mad?"

"Yes, Silly, what do you remember?"

"I remember fun," Brian rhetorically spat, still slightly resentful that he was talking about nonsense rather than tending to the serious work of figuring out the source of the noise. "There was lots of drinking, and people, and it was fun. You were fun!" Brian added the last part on the fly when Kay shot him a look of dissatisfaction.

"Fun?" the tone signaled to Brain that he had fumbled his response. "Brian you don't remember anything, do you?"

"What? C'mon Kay, I remember last night."

"Do you remember hitting on Georgina?" Brian guessed that the look on his face must have clearly telegraphed his answer, because Kay just kept going. "Do you remember getting into a fist fight with my cousin? No? How about when we played Drinking Jenga and you decided that you needed to insult and berate everyone at the party?"

"Wait, I remember that, I pulled 'movie quote'! I was just quoting The Big Lebowski!"

"No, you idiot!" the switch to a hard edged tone caught Brian by surprise. "I'm talking about the part of the evening, maybe a half hour later, where the game ended because you made Missy and Franny cry."

"Oh, um, I guess I don't really remember that."

"Brian," alarms sounded in Brian's head as Kay's voice became gentle and saturated with sweetness, "No one thinks you're more fun than me. I swear. But there are limits, you know, and lately things have been going a little far."

"Kay, you're making a huge deal about one party!"

"Oh Really? Then this wouldn't be the third time in two weeks that you have forced someone to leave my house crying?"

"The only crying I remember was that time the bat flew at Missy, and that wasn't even my fault!"

"First of all, you pushed her into the living room with the bat! And second of all, you laughed for nearly twenty minutes because she was upset. How is that not your fault? Huh?!"

"Fine. Whatever, it WAS my fault. But that was only once. Who cares, it was just Missy. Geezum Crow."

"Brian," Kay sighed loudly and long. Brian could see that the conversation was far from over based on the glint of seriousness in Kay's eyes. "That was one time. Last night was two time. The party last Sunday, when you broke all of Callista's plants, was three. Three times in two weeks."

"Hmmm," Brain responded genuinely surprised. "I broke all of Callista's plants? I wondered what happened to them. Interesting."

"You are totally missing the point. You get too drunk, you get mean, and you don't remember it the next day. It isn't cool, Brian. You're stressing me out and you're pissing off my roommates and my friends. It needs to stop."

"Kay, you have to admit, sometimes your friends are a little over the top." Kay stopped short where she was standing, and pulled her hand out of Brian's grasp. Although oblivious when he made the statement, Brian suddenly realized that the wrong words just exited his mouth.

"Are you saying my friends deserve the ridiculous treatment you give them? That they're asking for it, or something?! What is wrong with you? Seriously!"

"Kay," Brian responded softly, trying to retake her hand in his, "That's not what I meant."

"You need to be aware of what you're doing, and you need to be aware of what you're saying. It is NOT okay for you to mistreat people. Especially MY friends." Brian wanted to respond, but had enough sense to keep his mouth shut. He knew that Kay was not finished. Past experience taught him that she was just regrouping during a dramatic pause. After a few more solid beats, she continued.

"You need to make sure that you are not going to be out of control. I cannot stand you being mean." The look on Kay's face cut into Brian in a way that he was not anticipating. He knew that he got out of control on occasion when he drank, and he did not really care. The fact that he harangued Kay's friends made it more funny that tragic, by his way of thinking. And yet, standing in the suburban sidewalk faced with Kay's look of anger and disappointment, he found himself regretting his actions. He actually found himself wishing that he would find a way to be better for her. He knew that he had to convey that sentiment to her. If for no other reason, than so that she would know he understood what she was saying, and that he was willing to set aside the bullshit for her. The opportunity to put his thoughts into words was lost when Kay's cell phone began to chime from her purse. She gave Brian one last stare, coupled with a sigh, then answered her phone.

Brian tried to maintain his composure, but was secretly relieved that Kay had taken the phone call. He did not want to say anything that was going to further disappoint her, and was grateful for the chance to gather his thoughts. Watching as she turned away from him on the phone, Brian was struck with a deep appreciation for Kay, and the various things that she did. He thought about the way that she spoke to him, the way that she always made situations twice as enjoyable as they would normally be, and even the way that she called him on his shenanigans all left Brian feeling grateful and impressed.

"We have to go!" Kay said simultaneously flipping shut her phone and breaking Brian's entire train of thought.

"What?" Brian said, still grasping for a way to work his feelings into the conversation.

"I guess Lisa's boyfriend left her at the Mall. He just left her there! Can you believe that? What kind of tool leaves someone at a mall?"

"Slow down. Lisa's at the mall?"

"NO! She was ditched at the mall, by Mike. Supposedly he dropped her off at the door, because he was going to go park, and he drove off. He just left her there."

"Um, alright," Brian said hesitantly.

"Not alright! We have to go get her!"

"Right now? I thought we were going to walk downtown. Something about ice cream and shoe shopping, remember?"

"I know, but we can't just leave Lisa. She needs us."

"But, right now? What if we just walk and get some ice cream? We could finish talking, maybe? And then go get Lisa."

"Brian! What if it were me at that mall? Huh? Would you want to make me wait while you got ice cream?"

"That's ridiculous! I am way too considerate to ditch you at a mall."

Kay did not answer right away, which Brian took to be a sign that she was considering the ice cream plan. Brian was really hoping she would go for it, so that he would have the opportunity to try and explain how much he felt for Kay. He even started a mental checklist of points that he wanted to make sure he clearly expressed to her. Right about when he got to the fourth item on his checklist, Kay let out a small laugh. Brian put the list on hold, and moved a half step closer to Kay.

"You know what," Kay said softly, "Forget it. I'll go get Lisa myself." Without making eye contact, or any sort of personal interaction, Kay moved passed Brian. She accelerated into a brisk pace back in the direction of her house.

"So, I guess I'll just hang out in bed till you get back?" Brian asked hopefully.

Over her shoulder, Kay called back, "Don't be here when I get back."

The Least Complicated

2008-08-25T02:29:00.000-04:00

The heavy oaken front door of the well aged brownstone soundlessly opened inward revealing a nervously smiling couple. They were both nicely dressed in clothes that I imagined had to be fashionable by some set of standards that well exceeded my means. In addition, the gentleman’s ensemble had a way of complimenting what his wife was wearing, and vice versa. It came off with a subtle flair that refused to be categorized as ostentatious, but, at the same time, demanded that almost anyone, even myself, would notice. As it stood, I found myself tempted to share my observation with a healthy dose of vomit, as was often my response to anything that came close to falling into the ‘cute’ category. Before I had a chance, however, the lady’s hand snaked out and snatched up mine in a flash, which, as she drew my right hand away from the safety of my side, also managed to shake free my preoccupation with being sick.

“Good afternoon, Sir!” she exclaimed loudly in a shrill voice that was a little higher than I expected. In addition, something about the way her mouth formed the word, ‘Sir’ rubbed me completely the wrong way. Not that she said it with a condescending tone, and I would have expected, but something about it was not right.

“It is so good of you to come on such short notice!” she continued, disappointingly unaware of my overly critical analysis. All the while her hand steadily rocked mine up and down. When she finished speaking, she let the handshake falter, although she still clutched firmly to my hand. The thought flitted through my mind that she could be an empath trying to emotionally read me through the physical contact, but I dismissed the paranoia just as quickly as it appeared. I had endured enough run-ins with psychics and empaths, and I was attuned enough to know when I was being read. As it stood, I let myself assume that her demeanor was on account of her being awkwardly nervous.

“Yes,” the gentleman finally chimed in, having the social grace to disconnect me from his wives’ grasp. “Thank you for coming. Won’t you please come in?” His voice was more akin to my expectations. It had a deep timber with a firm tone. I stood, for a few seconds, drinking in the sight of the two people standing in the open doorway. I wanted to be sure, before I stepped over their threshold, that whatever service they might ask of me, I would want to help these two people. Even if they were not empaths, that did not eliminate them from my very long list of nasties. I let my mind relax, and drunk in the emotions that they were radiating and hue of their auras. For the most part I’m shit when it comes to empathy and reading, but I knew enough to get by. The truth of the thing is that knowing enough to get by was sort of my standing motto.

“Sir,” the gentleman asserted, shaking my concentration, “Sir, would you like to come in?” There was clear hesitation in his voice, and I could tell that he didn’t know fuck all about what I was trying to do. “Your acquaintance,” he continued, “Mister Barriston assured us that you would be more than willing to help us out.”

That was the rub, right there. Mister Nicky Barriston was certainly not an acquaintance of mine. No acquaintance of mine has the pull to call me up out of the blue and insist, as a personal favor, that I help out a couple of friends. The truth of the situation is that Nicky is my sister’s husband. More to the applicable point, he is a sergeant with the Federal Beaureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. On multiple occasions Mister Nicky Barriston has gone out of his way to offer up precious aid to me in some of the random situations that I find myself neck deep in. Even if it weren’t for the obvious quid pro quo of the situation, I still would have come simply because he’s married to my sister.

Of course, standing there in front of the gentleman, having him wield the name of my sister’s husband like a bloody cricket bat left me more than a little annoyed. Nevertheless, it was par for the course when dealing with the social elite. And that is why, even without a clear read on the fashionable couple, I begrudgingly smiled, nodded my head, and stepped over the threshold into their house. Not so much because I fully trusted them, but because they seemed transparent enough to be harmless. That and the fact that I wanted the gentleman to kindly shut his mouth.

The second I was firmly both feet inside the foyer, I felt the all too familiar pit of regret and warning strike in my lower intestines. I made a slow fuss of checking my shoes, and while I did I began to go back over the couples emotions and auras. By the time I had my left New Balance unlaced, I was fairly certain that she was agitated and nervous, and that he was feeling impatient and upset. I wasn’t clear what the context was for any of those readings, but I mentally jotted the sensations down for future review.

“So, um, Mister John, is it? Tell us, how does this work exactly?” I let my gaze and my mind slowly focus again on the physical plane around me, and found myself making eye contact with the gentleman. His eyes were solidly locked on mine, but his body was jumpy and agitated. His fingers bobbed nervously, and his toe was practically ready to vibrate through the floorboards. Thankfully, none of that gave me any indication that he, or his wife, were any threat to me.

“For starters,” I answered with an intentional slowness to my cadence, “It is NOT Mister John. It is just John.” I gave a hard look over at the woman, and then let my eyes settle back on the gentleman, hoping that my pregnant pause was carrying enough weight to make my point absolute. Names are a funny thing, especially to those who dabble in magick. I knew that the two dimwits in front of me would be hard pressed to pose any threat to me, but years of working with mystics and paranoids had led me to a fairly heavy handed routine.

“Okay, sure, John it is,” the lady finally responded, breaking the silence of the gaze I had initiated between the three of us. I could see that look in her eye that betrayed her desire to shake my hand anew. My palm quickly slid into the tight pocket on my canvas shorts. Now that I was squarely within their domicile, I was reticent to allow further physical contact. When it was clear that another handshake was out of the question, the lady turned and softly elbowed her partner. “John will be fine, right Richard?” The gentleman immediately nodded his agreement, and took the lady’s hand into his own.

“Of course, of course. John is just fine. Completely fine. So, John, please, can you tell us how this is going to go? What can we expect?”

“Well,” I answered slowly, trying to attune myself with my surroundings. “Before we get to involved with anything, why don’t you describe your problem to me.” As I maintained the slow cadence, I tried to give off an air of clinical routine to my statement. The truth was that I would be hard pressed to care less about whatever they thought their problem might be. Instead I was more interested in acclimating to the interior of their spacious brownstone.

Houses are a funny thing. I like to think of them in terms of clothing. Some houses are gaudy and flashy and uncomfortable, just like some outfits. But there are other houses that tend to be an easy fit or practical. The bottom line is that every house is different, and the sort of house a person lives within can say a lot about the person. Ordinarily I have a sense of the person from their house within minutes. Oddly, I was more than two minutes inside the brownstone, and I was not really getting a sense of anything. I pushed my senses and tried to hone my focus on what I was experiencing, but still found myself picking up a lot of nothing.

“We’re pretty sure it all started shortly after that,” the gentleman droned on with his explanation of the supernatural. “Isn’t that right sweetness?” The lady’s head began to feverishly nod in agreement. He continued on about some neighbor and an incident that simply must have been the start of everything. It took everything I had not to scoff out loud at the gentleman’s deductions and connections. In my experience, there were two things that were always true about a mystical issue with non practitioners. The first was that they would have little to no valuable information about anything relevant, and the second was that listening to their boring rot was bound to be the hardest part of the job. My usual M.O. in a situation like this would be to poke around the house, while they jabbered on, but these two had not yet offered to let me do any poking.

My attention managed to stay with the droll account for almost a minute before my eyes caught a glimpse of movement deeper in the house. My head reflexively snapped to attention in the direction of the movement, and my eyes began to scan left and right over the area. Both the gentleman and the lady attentively turned to try and spot what had caught my attention, although I’m not sure they saw anything at all. If they did see it, they made no indication whatsoever. Truthfully, I could barely see it at all, even using my peripheral vision.

A fuzzy shadow floated about three feet off the ground, through the living room and halfway down a narrow hallway. At first I thought it might be a strong aura of someone else in the house, but there was a feeling emanating off it so strongly that even sixty feet away I knew it was not coming from another person. I absently took a step in the direction of the glow, but it immediately faded from view.

“John?” the lady asked tentatively. “Is everything alright?” For nearly a minute I kept my eyes scanning from side to side hoping for another hint of what I had seen, before I finally gave up.

“What’s that Love?” I switched into a quicker cadence, and tried to convey an air of flippancy. “Sure, sure, yes ma’am, everything is right as rain. Just thought I recognized that glorious vase!” I immediately moved past the two of them into the main living room. With my right hand I indicated a fair sized porcelain vase resting on top of a wide based pillar near their fire place. “My great uncle, the good lord rest him, had one that looked almost identical! But I can see now that this one is a little different.” Before I gave either of them a chance to respond, I moved deeper into the house, in the direction of the mysterious glow I had spotted.

“It’s alright if I take a look around, right?” I called back over my shoulder, refusing to wait for an answer before I moved deeper.

“Well, I-,” the gentleman called after me, which was abruptly interrupted by the lady.

“Don’t you want us to finish telling you about the incidents?”

“It’s all about frame of reference,” I called back to them, nearing the spot in the hallway where I had seen the glow. “I’m more of a visual learner, really. Once I’ve got a lay of the land, so to speak, those accounts will mean so much more!” I could not see them well enough to know if they were buying the crap I was selling, but I was too far committed to back out now.

In a profession like mine, assuming you are generous enough, or crazy enough, to deem what I do a profession, there are a lot of hunches. I have always been a firm believer that there is no such thing as luck or coincidence. If you have the focus and the practice being attuned to yourself, then your hunches will always prove to be rooted in relevant data. Of course, sometimes a hunch is as simple as the fact that this tosser managed to drag me out of my comfortable reclining chair on a Saturday afternoon. And even though that would not qualify as a coincidence, it also does not register as particularly relevant. Those thoughts flashed through my head as I spewed nonsense to the couple in the hall, who, for whatever reason, left me with a terrible taste in the back of my throat.

I pushed all of those thoughts aside, and tried to focus on the area in the hallway where I was standing. Within a half a dozen even breaths, my senses were bombarded with feelings of anxiety and despair. Fighting off the initial surprise of having such a strong reading after receiving nothing in the entrance, I let myself sink into the emotions, and tried to accumulate a sense of who they were coming from, or why. My mind slowly absorbed the feelings, and I took care to sharpen my focus and remain objective amidst the tumultuous chaos. A sense of identity was starting to form on my conscious, as were various visual smatterings, when, suddenly, everything went blank. I evened my breath, and meticulously kept rising shock and panic in check, while I tried to redouble my focus. All I was met with was a numbing sense of nothing.

“John,” the lady said, surprising me by placing a hand on my arm. Somehow she had crossed the room without me hearing her. “Why don’t you let us finish telling you about the incidents here in the house? Hmmm?”

“Yes,” the gentleman chimed in. He too had crossed the floor without me noticing. My brows furrowed and I found myself wondering if I was losing it. “It won’t take too much longer, I assure you.”

I tried to figure out a polite way to brush them off long enough to get a better read on whatever I had sensed, but I was suddenly feeling completely drained out of all my energy. I knew I could come up with something to buy me a few more minutes of snooping space, but it seemed so clear to me that the best way to go would just be to patiently hear them out, and then go from there. In fact, I figured that they might even have some valuable information that would help me understand what was happening in the house.

“Why don’t we just step back out into living room, and finish talking about it?” I found myself nodding in agreement to the lady’s words, and let her gently guide me by the arm back toward the spacious living room. After two steps, I reflexively glanced over my shoulder back at the spot in the hall, hoping that I would catch another glimpse of the emanation. As I looked, my arm slid free of the lady’s tender grasp. The second that I was no longer in physical contact with her, I felt a sharp stab of nausea lance through my insides. I was struck by the oddness of my decision to casually listen to the two people’s accounts, and I felt an all too familiar pinprick of anxiety creep up the back of my neck.

“We tried to do this the easy way,” the lady said, her voice growing higher in pitch as each word hissed from her mouth. Her hand snaked out and latched unto the front of my shirt. In complete defiance to logic, and the laws of gravity, her frail figure leaned back and lifted me clear off the ground. I found my breath ragged and hard to catch as the fabric of my shirt dug into my armpits. With as much strength as I could gather, I pulled both of my feet up and in, then I rocketed both limbs straight out into the lady’s chest. I can only imagine that the sight was fairly ridiculous as I flew through the air four or five feet before hitting hard unto the floor.

“I cannot believe that we were so strongly cautioned about this pathetic human,” the gentleman’s voice cut through the haze that was threatening to overtake me. I desperately groped both of my hands against the floor trying to secure some sort of stable purchase. I looked down and realized that a large portion of my shirt had torn free when I made my escape attempt. Much worse than the torn shirt was the set of lacerations running along my chest coated in some sort of dark ichors, and oozing blood. I tried to figure out how the slashes could have caused her hand to bleed so badly on me, and then I realized that the blood was mine.

Waves of light-headedness and nausea rolled over me, and I firmly felt the desire to curl up close eyed. It occurred to me that I was being played by some sort of overwhelming despair, and that if I did not up my game immediately I was going to be easy prey. The whole situation was quite mortifying and ridiculous, and I had been blind stupid enough to walk right into the midst of it. Even the shame and self pity I was currently feeling, I realized, was probably a by-product of the despair that the gentleman or lady were emanating. And, of course, it would probably be the last thing I felt and thought as they ended my life.

Now that I had a certain perspective on the situation, I could even sense the emotions pouring off the duo, and crashing down on me like wave after wave. Even though the raw emotion certainly lacked the potency to do permanent damage to me, it left me completely helpless while they physically picked me apart piece by piece. The temptation to laugh at the obviousness of the trap was not wasted on me, even if I lacked the will to act on it. I pushed myself and managed to mentally weigh my options, and found that there was really only one viable plan under the circumstances. Wallow in my overwhelming feelings of self pity and despair that these creatures, whatever they truly were under their human form, were drowning me with until I died. It was not a great plan, but even the thought of anything else seemed to strike jolts of physical pain through my body.

“Just do it, and end him,” the gentleman’s voice was almost unidentifiable at this point, and I dearly wished that I had lingered just a little longer in that doorway.

“Fine,” the lady’s reply was in a tone and pitch almost identical to the gentleman’s gravelly voice. I managed to rock my head back so that I could watch her approach. Even the way that her body moved had taken on an alien-like quality. Her hips seemed disconnected, and the legs, assuming that they were still actually definable as legs, swung way out to each side as she advanced. It gave me the impression of a drunk alien cowboy. That realization was followed by the understanding that my life was about to end at the ‘hands’ of said drunken alien cowboy, and my soul was probably in jeopardy to boot. As much as I wanted to resist, I knew that I was doomed, and that understanding brought with it a serene acceptance. After all I had certainly had a good run, and there were few regrets worth mentioning. The more I reasoned out the comedic inevitability of the situation, the more calm I found myself.

The lady’s taloned fist came at my midsection hard, and as much to my surprise as to hers, I managed to roll hard to the left. Her claws slammed hard into the wall where I had been, slashing deep into the drywall.

“What have you done?” the gentleman’s voice hissed. At this point the only way I could differentiate between the two of them was based on location. Not that it probably made any difference which of them had assumed which form, but my mind continued to categorize them. By the time the lady had her dainty fist removed from the cracked and badly dented drywall, I had already begun my cantrip. It was a simple one, but also one of the last things I figured they would figure on me doing. As the lady side-stepped in my direction, she proved my figuring to be one-hundred and ten percent correct.

The gentleman apparently saw it as the lady activated the cantrip, because he hissed the second before it was triggered. Not that it did any good to either of them as the lady’s body began to shake and finally dropped to the ground. I would love to believe that the lady was screaming in agony, but the sensible part of me knew that the cantrip wouldn’t have hurt anything but her pride. As her form finally stopped bubbling, I could clearly see that she had reverted to the human disguise she had started out as. Her own look of befuddlement and horror almost gave me cause to laugh out loud. The truth is I started with a hearty chuckle, but immediately checked it when I saw the gentleman leaping over the lady. I changed my laugh into a simple whistle, which caused the lady’s now human again form to slide across the floor in my direction. Another simple cantrip, but in my dispensed state simple was all I seemed capable of pulling off.

Her body half slide, half rolled across the floor in a snap, and the gentleman’s chitenous foot came down on to of her hip. The claws on the back of the foot tore into her flesh, and this time I was rewarded with screams of pain. The momentary hesitation from the gentleman, as he looked down to assess the damage done to his compatriot was all the break I needed. I pulled a piece of chalk off my belt, and sketched a hard circle around me. As soon as the line was drawn I could feel my will and reasoning return in spades. Each little sigil I sketched was accompanied by a chain of Latin. When the fourth sigil was done, I knew that I had the Mother Fuckers right where they had wanted me. As if the gentleman had sensed my cue, a taloned hand tore into the wooden floor in an attempt to damage my circle.

“You’ll still pay, you have my promise!” the gentleman spat as a second hand tore up floor board. I gave the tosser my finest Shit-eating grin, and gave my crotch an inviting tug to seal the deal. The gentleman almost seemed to fume steam, as both hands pumped up then shot down at the floor. With talons extended it was clear that a waggle of both hands would cause the protective circle to shatter. I think that the germ even paused to smile at me. I tried to feign fear, in order to better sell the ruse, but mostly just got ready to watch the shenanigans hit the fan. Both hands flexed up, destroying my protective circle, and in the process, triggered my ward of banishment.

It was hard to truly enjoy, because the broken circle meant waves of despair rolling over me again. Fortunately it also meant that the two dog-lickers slowly melted into a pool of de-pixelated trash. An intense exhale later, they were gone, and I collapsed unto the ravaged floor. I was almost sure that I was going to pass out, that is, right up until I felt, or maybe saw, I’m not positive, the faint amber glow of some aura thicken all around me. It came out of no where and quickly accumulated all over my body like dew on early morning lawn. I looked up at the two figures looming menacingly overtop of me, and could clearly see now that neither were human. They both had dark blotchy patches to their skin and face, and there were unusual growths about their temples and shoulders that looked to be a cross between bone formation and spindly vines. The two of them converged and attacked.

At first I thought that I had worked the banishment incorrectly, then I realized that I was watching them attack a young girl. And that what I was seeing was more like a spectral after-image. I tried to focus my thoughts, to determine how recent the death was, or how rooted the girl’s ghost was to the location. Instead I found myself vomiting up food I didn’t even remember eating. All in all, I was dead on about the day involving vomit.

The Full Story of Anastasiya Krasnoweikina

2008-02-15T02:15:00.001-05:00

So, what is to follow is the email exchanges between me and Anastasiya Krasnoweikina. Basically this IS the International Date Scam that I have become a "victim" of. Basically desperate American Men get emails from International Women (in my case "Irish"). The emails stregthen in intensity until the "international woman" manuvers the conversation to a point where "she" asks for money. The following is the first portion of the letters from my "Irish Girlfriend". I have not changed any of the grammar or spelling. Some of the formatting was slightly altered.

____________________________________________________________________

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 (Email from ASY. Email #1)

Hello.

I have seen your letter in my mailbox! Thanks for the interest. I am curious how you get my email address? I'm not sure who you, but I'm very interested new acquaintances. I'm lonely young lady, if you dont mind, we can continue correspondence.

Hope you have answered me on my letter!

Tell me a little about you... Who you, than are engaged, why you have decided to write to me? Where do you live? I live in Ireland.

I can see your picture?

Mon, 3 Dec 2007 (Email from ASY. Email #2)

Hello.

I am very glad that you have answered to my letter. Thank you that you have found time for answer.

I shall hope you will write in the following of the letter more about yourself.

I will be very grateful to you also if you will send me your pictures. So o.k. let me tell you about me know. I live in Ireland. At me blue eyes, dark hair.

I hope you are not disappointed very much, because I not the blonde or red. Many people deride blondes for their stupid (my opinion- color of hair does not influence wit), but many men like blondes (for stupid or for beauty?). Many men like beautiful but silly women. Who is your favorite? I would like to know your opinion. Joke, you can not answer, if not want.

I'm 29, my birthday is on the 2 of March 1978. When yours? My growth - 171 cm 5 feet 6 inches. My weight - 54 kg- 115 pounds. I am single, never married with no children. How you? But I am looking to meet a men for a serious relationship, hopefully one day get married and have a family. Those that know me respect my intellect, enjoy my sense of humor, and can always count on me to lend a hand where needed.

All people have various tastes and interests, but I sincerely hope that my picture and my appearance will be pleasant for you. But if my appearance doesn't conform to your tastes and interests, I will understand you, of course. If you are not interested in the further correspondence with me, let me know.

You have very much interested me, probably this female curiosity?

(smile) I hope to get hear from you and some more information about you to better find out you.

I shall wait your any answer ...thanks for the email.

Thu, 6 Dec 2007 (Email from ASY. Email #3)

Hi

I have not received from you, letters some days. I have offended you, or you do not want to correspond with me? If you any more are not interested in me, please let me know if you do not wish any further correspondence. If you answer me several words, and again will disappear, better do not write to me. I do not want to be a bother.

Fri, 7 Dec 2007 (Email from ASY. Email #4)

Do you received this my letter?

******************************************************************

Hello.

I am very glad that you have answered to my letter. Thank you that you have found time for answer.

I shall hope you will write in the following of the letter more about yourself.

I will be very grateful to you also if you will send me your pictures. So o.k. let me tell you about me know. I live in Ireland. At me blue eyes, dark hair.

You have very much interested me, probably this female curiosity?

(smile) I hope to get hear from you and some more information about you to better find out you.

I shall wait your any answer ...thanks for the email.

Asy

Fri, 7 Dec 2007 (Email from ASY. Email #5)

Hello!

Sorry, My name is Asy. I get your answer! You don’t forget about me and it is really pleasant for me! I really was glad. Many thanks.

I very much love cinema. I very much love the American films and I love many American actors. I very much love historical films. For example: Gladiator, Brave Heart and the Patriot. Mel Gibson the fine actor. He very much is pleasant to me. I love films the Sixth Feeling, The Rainman, One flight above jack of the cuckoo, Carried away by the Wind, the Magnificent Seven, the Godfather, Marmot day and more many other films. All to not list. I like Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, Sean Connery, Al Pacino, John Travolta, Kevin Costner, Nicolas Cage, Samuel L. Jackson, Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Demi Moore, Rosanna Arquette, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves. I love tragedies and comedies. I love mysticism and horrors. I love a fantasy. In any genre there are fine films. The main thing for me that film was clever and substantial. I do not love silly films.

We have a difference in the age of. For me age doesn’t matter but I didn’t know if it problem to you? I like mature men. Age shouldn’t be important, so long as the maturity level is there and both people share common interests and enjoy each other’s company. I like independent men that know what they want. I need the right man to fill the empty space in my life, a man who is searching for the right woman to help complete her. I have never understood why I haven't been able to find my better-half. Probably not there searched???:)Never know as where will find.

I shall continue the story about me (In replacements, I want from you same). I of 50 the Pole, 50 the Irish. I live in small provincial village named Carrigaline, (near to city Cork). Tell more about place where you live? I live very small country. More in detail you can find out on the Internet, I can be not in a rate of all events. The city and rural life very much differs. But I love a place where I live. I have never traveled outside of my own country.

I work as the trainer fitness. You know that this such fitness? These are exercises for women with elements of dance. I love my work it always holds me in the sports form. Well, I will tell you more about my interests. I like various types of music. I like to listen to classical music. I like Dire Straits. But my favorite is Pink Floyd. They are not similar to anybody. It is a great band. I like Robbie Williams, Madonna and many others.

My mum has died when gave birth to me. The daddy has died 2.5 year ago of a cancer. The daddy very much loved mum, he could not marry any other woman more. Therefore I haven’t got any brothers or sisters. Now I live alone, I

have no any other family. I have no family anymore and it really oppresses me. I always recollect my family. you meet your family often? I very much want to return that time when I had family. So I completely devote myself the job. I really love it. It is interesting job, my job is my hobby. I very much very much love water and to float. I also love a ski, a bicycle, and walks on the nature. I spend a lot of time on open air in mountains, I love nature, and it calms and enfeebles me. How do you entertain, you like nature? I have no computer of a house, I write to you from my work, and I can’t write you every day. I hope that it won’t be a problem for our correspondence.

What you do for the work, it is interesting, you like it?

Despite the fact that I work much, I’m really buxom and many-sided person, but I live in small village and there are really few amusements.

One picture of me with the girlfriend, another I in sport hall on work.

I wait for your letter.

Sat, 8 Dec 2007 (Email from ASY. Email #6)

Hello Michael!

I don’t know where to begin… But I will try. I do hope that we will continue to write and that we can get to know one another better.....

I didn't know your e-mail address until you sent it to me. I only responded to your message. The Internet is sometimes very mysterious. Apparently when you emailed to someone, it came to me automatically or erroneous. I saw your picture, and you look beautiful, I very much loved your picture.

What’s the weather like in your city? Now weather in my village cool. But I love it… I like all four seasons. I enjoy swimming, sun-bathing and camping in summer. In winter I often go skiing. I like cycling - I’m a very sporty

person. Sports bring health and beauty. I do my best to live a healthy life - I don’t smoke, reject drugs out of hand but I permit myself to have a glass of wine or champagne on very special occasions. I’m have very quiet and counterbalanced character. I am very slow to anger and am rarely upset with anyone or anything. I believe life is too short for bad feelings. What kind of character do you have?

What else can I tell you about myself? I am sociable person and any surrounding conditions very quickly becames close and dear for me. Because actually the full comfort to soul brings not surrounding world, but feelings, reciprocity, presence in a life of dear person. What else to tell.... I always very much get tired on work. And though my work is not heavy physical work but like any trainer, I am in constant concentration and movement. I am always waiting weekends with impatience. Weekends are the only one possibility for me to get a rest and to get new forces. Weekends I spend variously.

Sometimes I want simply to rest in my house. I live alone in my house. It is the house of my parents I have the one-room house with a toilet and kitchen. I like my house - small and cozy. On weekends I always clean house properly. I like purity. And though I always try to keep clean my house, all the same, always in the weekends I find what work to make in an house. But when I want really to relax I listen to music or read books. I like to read books especially historical novels. I like to spend time with my female friends. I have two best lady friends.

When we meet, the air is filling with laughter. We like to walk and to talk; we go to cinema and walk in the park. I like very much to spend time in nature in the open air. I live not very far away from the sea, I like the sea very much. In the past life probably I was the mermaid or a fish:))

And I hope Michael you are not angry with me that I talk to you about it? It is my life and it is a part of me. And how you would learn me more if I would not tell you it, really? And I as well would be glad to learn more about you. Your life is very interesting to me.

I hope that you understand my English. Irish my native language. I can both write and speak English. But on your letters, I have noticed English differs from American colloquial. Sometimes I cannot understand some your words, but I completely understand the general sense of your letter. Tell me, do you understand everything that I want to say?

I only hope that you would love my Polish - Irish accent that I have without any doubts.

I with impatience shall wait your answer.

Sun, 9 Dec 2007 (Email from ASY. Email #7)

Hi Michael. You waited my letter, I your much.

Our correspondence is young, but I start a like receive from you letters. You had awakened my interest, I know we have never seen each other, but I have a good feeling about you. I couldn’t find a really interesting and worthy man in my little village. Why can you not find a woman now where you live?

I do need good contacts and manly attention - just like any other woman. However, I don’t have it here......The things that all women value the most are attention and understanding. I’m a usual woman with usual desires which you managed to approach so gently and elegantly. I love your sensitivity. Thank you for it.

People take my kindness and good big heart edness as weakness a defect in my personality. I like to think that these attributes - my forces. I just wish that I could surround myself with people that I admirer in people. I must say that I admire you Michael, as you seem to know what you want and given. 2 years ago I broke up with the guy whom I had been dating for 1,5 years. He very much loved alcohol and women. The things that pushed us apart were a huge gap between views onto life and a lot of misunderstanding between us. We couldn’t keep on living together anymore, so we had to part. As people say, we couldn’t get on together. If you have ever experienced something similar, you will understand me.

Well, whatever - let’s avoid talking about bad things. Actually, I don’t want to remember anything out of this period of my life. I try to live with a smile on my face and with hope in my heart. I think I can consider myself an optimist. I saw a great deal in my life, and for 29 years I have passed through a lot of vital tests. And I know that I do not need many things to be happy. All I need is a man, friend, soul-mate, love. I live honestly, and it Brings pleasure to me. I know that happiness not requires many things. Likely the main thing that does not suffice me now is love. People without love cannot be happy.

And I speak not only about love between a man and a woman, but also about love to a family for example. I want to fall in love with a man that wants to be with me and love me with all her heart no matter how big a fool I am. I want to be with a man that I can care for and share myself with and know that I am not wasting my time or being unappreciated. I want a man that can find all the best in me and bring these charms out so that I can share them with him. I want to find the man that wants to be my man even after knowing all my faults and imperfections.

I want to find someone that will love me and teach me how to love them, how to care for them, how to make them happy and be able to do this without

breaking my will, my spirit buy to teach me about them and their world with a kind voice a gentle touch with an understanding heart. I want to believe in bright future and - I do believe in it! I always promise myself to do my best to make it so.

That you value in woman? What is your favorite feature on woman? What does a loving relationship mean to you? I have casually removed your the first email, therefore I cannot send you it.

Thank you for sharing your world with me. Even though I don't know you personally, I feel close to you because your writing is putting me in your world. I hope that we can become more than just internet friends. Your emails to me has left a lasting impression on me. I feel like I've know you all my life.

Your writing is so real and I can tell that you are a very fair and sincere men.

Good night Michael.

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 (Email from ASY. Email #8)

My dear Michael!

Today I had so much work that I was afraid that I wouldn't have time to get your letter. And I have to say that it is distressed me. But now I have found free time and I am madly glad to your letter, and glad to answer your letter.

Today I am very tired on work, there were many groups, but in it there is plus, I have earned for today 120 euros : ))) I wish Michael could see my face i have the biggest smile on it right now.. Since I started talking to you, I just can't stop thinking of you. Probably the reason of it my loneliness or something the greater...........

The mere thought of you sends such a warm feeling through my body. My heart and soul are now connected with regardless of where you may be. I have been writing to you for a short period of time yet it seems like I have known you for a long time. I think this is very interesting that we write each other.

Are you grateful to destiny for anything in your life Michael? How often you become tired on your work? Write to me about some other things that you like to do?

Soon Christmas and New year. In these days our village looks like one greater family. In our small village all know each other. All dance sing the canto have fun and fool about. I do not understand as people have fun in greater city, there so much folk??!!! I don't know where is better. Big city is a big traffic, fast rhythm of life, garlands of fires, lightning's of shop windows, high buildings, fountains, cinemas, parks, attractions, theatres. It is wonderful, of course I like it. But our village is a fresh air, a lot of trees and birds, silent and comfortable, cozy, quiet place, no hubris and vanity inherent for big cities. The places are very beautiful.

Christmas time of gifts, the last year my girlfriends have presented me of the big toy lion. I have been shocked by its gigantic sizes. (height 1.5 meters) I have lost the faculty of speech even. What was the best gift you got? Michael how you celebrate Christmas and New year?

I admired you. You are a wise man. I really like how you see things and talk about them.

I should finish the letter because right now I have no time, OK?

Sincerely yours and with best wishes.

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 (My Reply to Email #8)

Hello Asy.

I also was quite surprised and pleased to get your email.

You got over 100 euros in a single day of work? That is amazing. What is the name of the fitness center you work at?

You know that I lived in Cork for almost 8 months while I was going to School? I still have friends there. I wonder, sometimes, if there would have been some way that we might have seen each other. I may have even traveled through your village at some point. Although I am terrible with the names of the places I went while I was there.

I also have thought about you a fair amount. I wondered, when there was a delay in messages, if you had decided to stop corresponding with me. Perhaps because of some detail I revealed in my last email.

I do not know what things Destiny brought me. I honestly don't know. There have been many things in my life that have been unbelievably good, and things that have been unbelievably bad. I suppose I am thankful to Destiny for all of them. The good things and the bad things.

Many people curse the bad in their lives. They feel it is a burden. I think that burdens are quite good sometimes. They allow you to experience things that you would otherwise be oblivious to. They make you stronger and smarter.

The last time I dated a girl was almost two years ago. She and I were together for 7 or 8 months. She left me for my best friend. They moved out west together. It was a very painful situation. I was mad. I was hurt. I cursed the bad things.

Then I came to see that they were happy, and I learned new things about myself and life. It was good. I think that sometimes situations that are filled with dishonesty and treachery still have the ability to carry positive meaning. Although it is hard to see. I think that Destiny is what brings situations like that.

I wouldn't be surprised if Destiny brought us together. It certainly factors into the thoughts I have had about you.

Christmas is a simple thing with my family. My sister and mother and father get together. We watch movies together, and spend time with one another. That is all. This year will probably be a lot like that. I am hoping for a lot of snow!

New Year is usually spent at work. Last New Year I was at a meditation retreat. That was serene.

I am lucky because my work changes all the time. So, I rarely get tired of it. Because I am an independent contractor on projects, every job is new and different. The people change, the assignments change, and the locations change. The only problem is that I don't work as often as I would like to.

You know, I keep thinking about the things you wrote about what you feel love should be. From a couple letters ago. You wrote at great length about what love should be, or what you would like it to be. The thing that I keep wondering about is how perfect your English grammar was in that portion of the email. Ordinarily I can understand your writing, but the grammar is often odd. That whole section had perfect English grammar. How did you do that?

I hope that your day tomorrow is filled with rest and good thoughts. No matter where Destiny takes this correspondence, I hope that you will be blessed with much fortune in your life.

mike

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 (Email from ASY. Email #9)

Michael how are you today, your job? My job was well.

Life is not all work though, I always try to enjoy any situation. I like to laugh but I also know when to be serious . I think life should be lived to the fullest and I would rather have a smile on my face rather than a frown!

What's new happening in your life, possible amusing? Do you like when your friends come to your home or you prefer to go to friends? I very much, but it seldom happen. But I very much love guests in my house. Sometimes I think on what would resemble our meeting? One half me wants to see you in the person (it can only curiosity? I do not know) other half me is afraid, not knowing you completely. Probably I am very cautious because of the last relations. Also a problem of distance. But I would not start such relations if did not think of a meeting. Without a meeting there can not be any future. Now we write to each other and we tell about ourselves. Ours dialogue helps us to learn each other, to understand thoughts, feelings. Our dialogue helps us to express by means of words our sensations, feelings, to tell about life experience, to share the kind moments of a life. It undoubtedly helps us to become big friends and more. I know that when I will feel in my heart that the time for a meeting has come, I with the big pleasure and with happiness will organize our meeting if you would like the same. Probably we can meet in a month or two, can in half-year, all depends on us how quick will go our feeling and desires.

You would like to arrive to me? I understand about it early a speak, only thoughts in my stupid head : ))))) We have chance to start relations in such way, to tell to each other about life, to share thoughts, we can become friends; and the meeting after that would bring much more happiness. I understand that I must have a lot of patience in such relations, but if there is even one chance to find happiness in such way, I am ready to use this chance. Because all problems which can arise in any relations, independently if man and woman live in the next houses or on distance of several thousand kilometers, are insignificant in comparison with happiness that they will find when will understand that they are created for each other.

I want to walk and to feel a strong man arm holds me. I don't want to cook meals only for myself. I want somebody to appreciate it. But I think enough about it, now your letters lift my mood. But anyway, I think that it is impossible to live without dreams and hopes. When there is a dream, the life is filled with sense. Our dreams force us to think, analyze, choose and come to a conclusion. The Faith and Hope are eternal satellites of our lifes. And regardless of what waits you at the end, we remember joy of the victories better, than disappointment and pain of the defeats. Don't you agree?

I'm surprised that I write all this to you. I have never had a man, with whom I felt conveniently in sharing my thoughts. But now I have found you Michael, and I am very glad. Forgive me for my frankness. If I said something superfluous forgive me please.

I am sorry about your past relationship, It really meanly with their side. You have forgiven them, I again admired you. WOW it is probable we really met in carrigaline when you travelled through my village. I remember your face : )

Best Regards to you and your family.

Asy

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 (My reply to Email #9)

I am doing okay. There was a blizzard on Saturday night, and I had to go to work on Sunday and Monday in terrible weather and a bunch of snow. Ordinarily it would not have mattered much, but I am on a audio job in another city. I really have to go to work. Today was much better, although the roads are still pretty dangerous.

I like to have my friends come over to my house. I have a couple friends that I see pretty regularly when i am not working. Although I like to go to their house too. I suppose if I had a choice, I would rather go over to their house.

I would still very much like to see some photos of your house or your town. Just to see if I recognize anything. Could you take pictures of carrigaline and send them to me?

You seem to have thought a lot about us meeting in person. I have to say that I think meeting in person would be an interesting experience. Of course, it is always interesting to see if the expectations that we have constructed in our minds compare to the reality that may be in front of us. All of this made even more interesting by the fact that we have only really communicated via email, which makes it even more possible for there to be miscommunications and false expectations.

If we both reach the point where we feel like it is time to meet, then I would be happy to undertake such an adventure. Once we feel secure in a friendship, and I can put aside some money, then I would certainly love to come and visit you in Ireland! If that is what you would like. Maybe if we reach that point, we could talk on the phone once or twice, to further get to know one another. I would just want to make sure that we were friends, and very much what the other expects. Does that make sense?

Again, you speak very eloquently about companionship and relationships. Your words seem clearer, and you meaning is surprisingly stirring. Why do you suppose that is?

I am particularly moved by your words about a dream. I find myself compelled, despite my own cynical nature, to agree with you. Dreams do give our lives a flavor and a color that they would otherwise lack. Dreams and hopes are the paint used to fill in the canvas of our lifetime.

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 (Email from ASY. Email #10)

Hi Michael!

As always, I look forward to opening up my mailbox and getting a message from you. It’s really nice that you have found me. You seem to me like a really nice person! I would love to know more. I certainly know what both of us search correctly for the person, I've been very patiently waiting for the right one to come along. I not looking for perfection, just perfect for me. I like honest people because it doesn't keep you wondering.

I seriously looking for someone who can accept me for who I am and someone I can trust, faithful and always think of family, good sensitive, loving and caring, supportive and also has good morals. Honestly, you have definitely caught my attention and I am seriously very interested in you. If you are really serious with me (as I definitely serious with my intentions) and really want take this relationship to the next level someday. This is just to assure each other that we are not wasting each other's time. I am really interested in you and if you like what you see so far...then maybe there is hope for us.....

I think of love in many different ways. It the little things that truely make love work in a relationship. Knowing you can be open and honest with your partner and not worrying what they might think. Knowing that the other person is there to care for you in many ways. Like maybe having dinner ready or doing something special for that person with no reason. Being appreciated for all your efforts to make each other happy. That is another thing being happy with the person. Enjoying being with each other. Looking forward to every minute together and being able to communicate with each other. Having fun and enjoying life. Sharing goals and dreams. Building a future together and knowing you are doing it together. Feeling in your heart is now complete having the right person in your life. Being able to know what the other person wants or is going to say without asking.

What is your best feature? What feature would you change on yourself?

We can speak by phone. But I have no phone of a house, but you can call me in sport hall, I spend there a lot of time. But when I shall have occupations with group, I cannot approach to phone. My occupations last each hour, then 30 minutes rest, I am free and can speak with you 214- 60- 74 code Ireland 353

You can see my village here: http://wikimapia.org/17635/

I will wait your reply as always with anticipation and impatience....

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 (My Reply to Email #10)

You know, after all of the emails that we have sent I realized tonight that I do not even know your full name. What is your full name? It struck me hard, like a physical blow, when I realized that I only knew you as "Asy."

You mentioned that you would love to know more about me. I am certainly flattered. What more would you like to know. Sometimes when I start typing, I get caught up in my train of thought. So if you ask any questions that I do not answer, then please ask them again.

I do believe that your grasp on colloquial English is getting better and better. Have you been practicing? Your letters have contained more and more passages of clearer English.

Also, what you say about searching for someone who is perfect for you, I think that is still a big search. How can you know that I might be perfect for you? Those are big words that seem to be filled with even larger expectations.

Honesty really is the truest mark of any relationship. I personally believe that any relationship that is built on dishonesty is substantially flawed. But, more importantly, the ability to be honest with one's self about yourself is key. Once you are capable of being honest with yourself, then all you have to do is be open and share with others.

So, if I am not serious with you, would this time spent be a waste? Is getting to know one another and becoming friends a waste? Is the anticipation of receiving letters totally wasted if we are not destined to be together?

I would like to pursue this relationship, whatever it may be. I would also like to hear your voice over the phone. And hopefully someday meet you in person. See the streets of your village with you, and make the acquaintance of your friends.

My question is if those things NEVER happen, will all of this be a waste of time?

Let me be clear, what you have shared with me certainly intrigues me. And I am interested in you based on what you have said. But there is so much I do not know. Like your name! Or what your quaint house looks like. Or how you spend your free time. Or what your seventh birthday party was like. Or who was the first person you kissed that made you feel weak. So many things that I will only come to know about you over time. All things that I want to know. All of these things are important to me.

Does that make sense?

mike

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 (Email From ASY, email #11)

Hi, Michael.

I have today fine mood. How yours?

My day brightens tremendously whenever I see an e-mail from you. Ohhh I cannot explain to you in words on how you have made me feel inside over the past weeks. I should tell to you that I have ocean of emotions and sensations which I had no in my heart before. Hope this feeling mutually?

I see your kindness; and all that you want in your life is so similar to what I want. You are a most romantic man, and you are looking for in the life the simple pleasures which will make the soul of any woman a blossoming garden. You are a very funny man, and all your dreams are filled with desire to love and to be loved, to wish and to be desired to woman.

The woman who will win your heart will be the happiest woman. You are able to make a life colorful, varied, funny and romantic. You possess inexhaustible energy. Your heart is filled with tenderness and kindness. You are a man each woman would dream about. I never thought that I meet a man who is so similar to me in desires and dreams. I think the cultural distinction is a wonderful thing. I don't understand Irish men and their culture of dialogue with woman. They are not able to appreciate woman's feelings, her fidelity, love. They do not appreciate sincerity and aspiration of woman to do for a man absolutely everything. The only thing she need - the warmth and caress, which she wants to get from a man.

Probably many men think that any man is a King and a place of any woman – under foot of a true man. Hope you so you do not think? If you have disagreements with lady, can you apply roughness? Are you able to transform quarrel into the peace, pleasure and a smile?

To you probably Interestingly as my days go? At 6:00 rattle my alarm clock. I do not love my alarm clock. Because it so loudly rattle, that each time I jump as scalded. Then go to a bathroom I wash face and clean a teeth. Only then I have completely woken up:) . After cook a breakfast, as a rule strong tea or coffee (more often coffee if it did not end) and a sandwich. Then I go on work, my work to be in 20 minutes from a house. I always go on work on foot. I have very much a flexible hours of work, all depends on groups with which I am engaged. When I come home, I cooking a supper, I look TV and lie down sleep. But some times we go with girlfriend on evening in nearest wood park. In this park many beautiful colors and trees.

In weekend I am with my girlfriends likes to go on a sea beach. I already wrote to you, I very much like water. I much job, therefore I simply would like to lay hours on a beach and to sunbathe (I idler on weekends). I very much like beach volleyball and fool around in the sea. But now cool, we seldom are on a beach.

Where you like to spend your free time and what make?

I think at us with you much common. Reading your letters, I have come to a conclusion, that we search for one and the same objective and desires. I am very glad to this fact. It very much pulls together us. Hope I rights? You are really very interesting to me.

My full name Anastas's (Anastasiya), it in cyrillics, in Irish a written differently, but everyone calls me Asy.

Sincerely and with thoughts about you.

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 (My Reply to Email #11. Sent after email #12)

Hello Asy.

I am so sorry that I did not get to email you more recently. While I was at my parent's for the holidays I did not have access to a computer. I hope that you will forgive me.

How have you been? I got your email wishing me a good holiday! Thank you. I hope that you also enjoyed a good holiday. Did you work over the holiday?

A few emails ago you spoke about a woman's place being under the foot of a man. Is that really what it is like in your village? When I was in City Cork things seemed pretty equal between men and women. In fact, many of the relationships that I saw were very much run by the women! In fact, the only person I ever saw get hit by their spouse was a man who stayed too long at the pub, and was dragged out by his lady.

My opinion is that two people ought to be completely equal in a relationship. They both have tender feelings and valid thoughts, and they both deserve honesty and respect. As far as violence goes, I think that I would only act violently toward a woman who had physically attacked me first. Even then, I'm not entirely sure.

What do you think?

Were your parents from Ireland as well? You mentioned the home that they left you, did they grow up there? Please, tell me more.

I will wait for your letter with impatience

mike

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 (Email from ASY. Email #12)

Hi Michael!

Happy Merry Christmas!!!! Have a glass of champagne for me, as I will for you.

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 (Email from ASY. Email #13)

Hope you had a good Christmas. I had a nice Christmas.

Dear Michael, I’m so happy to talk to you again. And on this, my reason and my heart say me that I should answer by sincerity your constant sincerity. My heart and my reason says me that I should tell what I feel now because it is a part of our friendship and I should share it with you. In my soul, I feel contentment and joy when I think of you. I very much desire that you find it in your heart and are comfortable with sharing your personal feelings with me, I wish to know you on a more intimate level, I truly wish to connect with you on a level that goes way beyond mere correspondence......

I got a hand-written letter from my aunt today - she had sent it a month ago. I don’t know how come it took the mail service so long to deliver it. My aunt is an old woman (she’s 79) - she’s ill and feels really bad. She’s my dad’s sister. She’s very eager to see me - at least once in her life. In her letter she was begging me to come visit her. We’ve never seen each other before because she lives in other country. Thus, I will have to go to the aunt pretty soon. I have taken a vacation for this time.

I don’t know if I will be able to e-mail you from there, but I will try.

I have found my picture where I only 12 years, I hope you will love it. I profound changed?

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 (My Reply to Email #13)

Oh Asy!

I am very sorry to hear that your Aunt is not feeling well. Where does she live? How exciting to be able to see her for the first time! I very much hope that you have a safe journey. I also hope, that whatever you find, they are things to your liking. I wish you much luck.

Were your parents also from where you Father's sister lives? Where ever that is? Or did they live in County Cork all their lives?

If you cannot write to me, obviously I understand. It will be what it is meant to be. Your personal life, and the potential relationship with your Father's Sister is an honorable pursuit! I encourage you to do whatever you might need to do, even if it means we cannot communicate. I want for you to be happy and content with your choices.

I also am very glad for the friendship that we have made. I am oddly grateful that we managed to find each other. Of course, I had preconceived notions when I began to receive your emails, and I can honestly say that conversing with you has been a much more rewarding experience than I would have thought possible.

Right now, I am sitting at my computer and I smile because I am glad that I can share with you my thoughts and feelings. There are times that I want for you to see my smile while I type because I think it is the most sincere smile! There are other times when my smile fades because I know that now the only thing that connects us is our typed words. Typed words that represent our thoughts, transformed into letters that are not able to fully show the depth of what either of us feels. But, at the same time, I realize that the future holds no guarantees.

No matter what comes to pass, I hope that you find a very real sense of fulfillment and happiness.

mikel

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 (Email from ASY. Email #14)

Good day Michael. : )))

My flight to aunt is scheduled for today. My aunt lives in city Elblag. Elblag city be on border of Poland and former Soviet Union. It’ll be my very first trip abroad. Frankly speaking, I’m a little nervous about it. I never flied by the plane. Also I don’t know Polish, but I hope that people in Poland know English or Irish - I hope that I will be able to find my aunt as soon as possible.

I don’t know how long I will be at my aunt’s place - probably a few days or a week. I shall be orientated on situations. I would like to be in Elblag with you Michael and to spend with you several days. I cannot imagine at all how it would be wonderful.

We would learn each other in a real life. We would look into the eyes of each other, we could hold our hands, tell each other silly stories, laugh and tease each other, watch the stars in the night sky and have romantic evening, go to the movie or we could simply sit on a bench in the park, and who knows what else we could do together...

I would be happy to do all this together with you, instead of again be lonely without you Michael.

I shall search for the printer and to print your picture to have you always with me:)))

I shall try to write again as soon as I shall find a computer in Poland.

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 (My Reply to Email #14)

Hello Anastasiya.

I certainly hope that your trip goes well, and that you have met up with your aunt. I can understand you being nervous, but it sounds like you are doing a good thing for her.

I have been working extra shifts this week because of the holiday season. I am anxious for January to come so I will have more time to spend on hobbies and leisure. At least I hope that I will have more time to do things other than work.

Please, tell me about your adventure! Let me feel like I am there with you exploring a new city filled with new adventures!!

mikel

Tue, 1 Jan 2008. (Email from ASY. Email #15)

Hi my Michael!

My flight to Poland was safely. It a really beautiful country. Everything seems to be so interesting and unusual. Most probably, that’s how all first-time travelers feel.

The meeting with my aunt was unforgettable. I was so happy to see my close relatives for the very first time in my life. My aunt is a really joyful and kind old lady. She was very hospitable towards me. If only you could know how happy I was to meet her. Poles are really hospitable and kind. We spend a long time talking with my aunt - she doesn’t know English really good but we understood each other well anyways. My aunt is old - she doesn’t look too good these days. She has troubles walking and has some problems with

her heart - nevertheless she seems to be really joyful. Why I tell to you it?

I feel, we become very good friends and I really enjoy our friendship. I aspire to learn you more and I dare to hope that you too. I do not know, whether is correct I do, but you are truly the type of man I would love to meet once. Probably I hurry events???????

You know what came into my mind… I could also spend a week or two with you. I’m having a vacation, so I will have a couple of weeks to spend more after my visit is over. Would you like to meet me then? I might be able to come to you straight from Poland. It will save my money and time. What do you think about it? Are you ready to meet me? I asked once again, to make sure on 100 percent. I think it the only way we will know if we have true chemistry is if we spend some time together. It would give us a chance to know one another much better.

I think after out meeting, we would together understand if those things which are important for us or not! It is possible to answer those questions only if we will be face to face. Without a meeting we will not find out if we are created for each other or not. Without a meeting we will not find out if ours cultural distinctions are obstacle or on the contrary - a thing recovering life and bringing into a life a variety and aspiration to learn each other in all beauty of our various cultures!

I always want to think that I the courageous woman, but I feel that actually it is not so. I am ready to give my life for the sake of person who are close and dear for me, I am ready to donate my well-being for the sake of well-being of other person but when I think of myself, I often become timid and all my boldness disperses like the fire's smoke. I am often afraid to make something, to take some step simply because of fear that it will be an incorrect step. I am often afraid to ask people about anything simply because of fear to get the negative answer.

In any event I am so happy that I have in my life such a man as you Michael! Thank you that you are in my life! Thoughts about our meeting give me force and energy! I am sure that everything will be perfectly!

I would like to wish you and your family and friends a very Happy New Year. I will wait your letter! Please, write me because I need your letters and support more than ever!

Wed, 2 Jan 2008. (My reply to Email #15)

Hello Asy.

I am most pleased to hear that the meeting with your Aunt goes well. That is fantastic! I can only imagine how nerve racking and frightening it must be to submit yourself, completely and blindly, to a set of circumstances that are well beyond your control! I am really proud of you for making this trip. It is so incredible that you decided, at the drop of a hat, to take a vacation from your work and travel to a country you have NEVER been to before to visit with a family member that you have NEVER met face to face! Your courage and bravery is not only an inspiration to me, but I feel it is legendary!

How long is your vacation? How much time have you taken off from work? Obviously as an Irish citizen you would not need to worry about a Visa, but can you afford airfare to the US? I have been keeping an eye on flights to Ireland, and did some looking for flights from Poland to the US, and it is not cheap! I don't mean to offend you, but are you sure you could afford such a trip right now?

mikel

Thu, 3 Jan 2008. (Email from ASY. Email #16)

I would be overjoyed to receive yours and the letter, and to know that you glad see me in person. That would be incredible. See each other face to face and spend time together. You always know the right things to say, and you are a very interesting person to communicate with. You make me smile deep in my heart and soul.

Michael I want to tell that you are very beautiful for me. I mean, I find that you are not only attractive as a man, I also speak of the beauty that is within you, beauty of your internal world, and alas, this particular type of beauty is very special and rare. Most men have only appearances, but not have beauty inside, and this is where true beauty is. This, is that for me is the most important and significant in all limits of my character, my soul and my consciousness.

Michael have changed me absolutely! I began often to get my hairbrush and to correct my hairstyle! (Smile). I began often to immerse into the world of fantasies so, that sometimes I at all don't hear someone talks to me or asks me about something! (Smile). It is so amusingly, pleasantly and unusually! Every minute of my day I think of you and about our meeting. I so want to put my head onto your knees and to feel your warm hand on my face. For the sake of it I am ready to give off all my forces! I hope you dream and think of me as often as I think of you! (Smile). Tell me that you are dreaming to embrace me at the airport! (Smile)

Write to me 2 or 3 airports close to you for a correct choice, which should I be flying to? Also write in what states and city to be airport. It probably has to be a big international airport. I shall arrive to you at once as soon as I shall settle all things here.

I have flexible the schedule of a vacation, I the trainer. I can cancel my occupations with groups, change time of occupations. I only shall lose money. This much comfortable, not so whether?

I’m sorry but I have to finish the letter now - I gotta go to the pharmacy to buy meds for my aunt.

Thu, 3 Jan 2008. (My reply to Email #16.)

Paragraph in Italics was cut and paste from the script of the Russian Date Scam.

Greetings Asy.

How did purchasing Meds for your Aunt go? I hope that things are going well for you. You certainly sound as though you have adjusted to a brand new city and country with no problems what so ever. Good for you! I suspected, as we spoke more and more via email, that you were the kind of person who had a flexibility of the soul!

Many people fall victim to the classic blunder of getting caught up in the image of something that they construct inside their head. They invest emotionally and mentally into a constructed picture that actually has NO bearing on the true reality. Somehow I suspected that you were the kind of person who would be able to adapt to situations as they truly are!

Every single day makes me want to see you in person. I miss you so much that my patience is on a limit! I'm dreaming of our meeting as sleep! I found that all my thoughts are of you and no more else. I have always dreamed of finding someone really special who would come into my life wholly and uniquely, someone who understands me, someone to share my thoughts and dreams. I have finally found that person. It is so overwhelming the effect of your presence on my soul. You are like no other. Your heart is connected to mine and no one can change that. I love that feeling you give me. If we fated to become single whole, I believe that it will be. I can't wait for you to fill that void in my soul that has been empty for so long. I can't wait for the time of our meeting in reality. that's will be the most wonderful and happiest moment of my life at this world!!! I dream of meeting you. I’m starting to think that my heart will jump out of my chest when I see you! I’m afraid that I can swoon. But I hope that you will catch me before I fall… (LOL) I can’t stop dreaming of our first meet together.

Here are some close cities with corresponding international airports. Probably Chicago is going to be the cheapest option.

-Detroit, Michigan. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne

County(DTW)

-Chicago, Illinois. Chicago O'hare International

(ORD)

-Grand Rapids, Michigan. Gerald R. Ford International

Airport (GFIA)

Many hugs and kisses my Asy.

mikel

Fri, 4 Jan 2008. (Email from ASY. Email #17)

Hi my Michael!

I went to buy a ticket today, I looked flight at January, 10. Cost of the cheapest ticket 975,57 American dollars. But I faced a problem. I have only 315 euros cash, the rest of money is on my Check-book. On my check-book about 5600 euros. But Polish banks don’t service my a banker's checks. I cannot cash a check here. My check is not accepted at the airport as well. I can’t buy a ticket with no cash and come to you. I was confused and upset about banking system in Poland. I have money on my check-book but I cannot exchange my checks for cash anywhere in Poland. I’ve never had much cash with me, I’ve always paid with my check. But Poland is old-fashioned country in this sphere. People don’t use banker's checks here only cash. It’s like Stone Age!!!

I asked the help my aunt, but my aunt has no so much money, she lives on pension, and spends all for medicines. I asked the help my friends in Ireland, they also have no this amount of money. Most of my friends are only paid once a month, but all them money is gone. I did not find anyone that could loan me the money here.

Therefore I want to ask the help you. I know your country is a developed country and Banker's checks are easily accepted throughout the country. Probably you can help me in this situation? You can borrow to me of money for some days? I will give all your money back as soon as I come to you. I need 430 dollars. If you have this money and if you want us to meet, borrow to me of money. I don’t ask you to give me money on always, I ask you to lend it to me for some time. I can freely receive cash from my checks, in your country.

As soon as I come to you, I will give you everything to the last cent. I hope for your understanding and help. I very much want our meeting. If you have such desire please help me, our meeting now in your hands. I have the extremely unpleasant feeling to ask your help. But I cannot simply refuse our meeting because all my money in checks, but I have no cash. Silly situation, I have money but I can not receive my cash here. I understand that for you it is too big sum to lend me. You are not obliged to help me. However I hope you can borrow to me of money. I will give you back all your money at our meeting.

You can help me, you can borrow to me 430 dollars? If you have no money, I shall understand. But it will be very a pity to me that our meeting will not take place in the near future. I never knew, that the damned money can stop me in achievement of the desirable purpose. Trust me I do not want money to get in the way of or our relationship. I do want to be with you and don't take it wrong. Money should not influence our relationship and a meeting.

I was only trying to let you know what is happening to me at the event I came.

My deepest apologies again. Looking forward to any hearing from you.

Yours Asy.

Fri, 4 Jan 2008. (My reply to Email #18)

Oh Asy.

Please don't be sorry. After all, it is not your fault. It is entirely beyond your control.

To be honest $430 is a lot of money to me, and I will have to see what I can do. Perhaps I could borrow some money from my parents. If I can get the money together, how would I send it to you?

mikel

Sat, 5 Jan 2008. (Email from ASY. Email #19)

Hello.

My dear I again was at the airport and looked flights up to you. Now New year Holidays, many tourists fly to the different countries for a holiday and relatives. It is very difficult to buy the ticket somewhere, the prices for tickets also grow. I already spoke you that my aunt lives on border with former the Soviet union. I also looked flights from the Soviet airport. The Soviet airport to be closer to me, also the prices for the air ticket are lower than in Euro Union. I still need in 430-450 dollars, it depends when you will send money. Now NEW YEAR Holidays cost of tickets is more expensive also tickets come to an end. Now the best variant for me to fly from Russian airport. I found out as you can send me of money. An easy and fast way to use " western union ". The agent western union to be in Russian airport. You can send money under this information: Anastasiya Krasnoweikina (my full name), Russia (country). As soon as I shall receive money and shall buy the ticket, I shall write to you full details of flight, I still hope to have the ticket for January, 10 if all tickets are not bought up. It depends, as soon you will send money.

To get the money, I should know:

1 your full name

2 your full address

3 exact amount money

4 confidential numbers (Money Transfer Control Number), which will be given to you, when you send the money. Without this information, I shall be not capable to receive money.

Write to me this information as soon as possible.

Kiss, yours Asy.

Sun, 6 Jan 2008. (My reply to Email #20)

Hello Anastasiya.

I am very sorry to say that I do not have the money yet. I am still waiting to talk to some friends and see what they have to say. It distresses me a great deal that the price of the tickets is going up. I don't suppose there is any point sending the money if there is not enough there for you to buy a ticket. Again, I am very sorry. I am trying.

A piece of good news is that my sister was telling me that she had thousands of frequent flyer miles saved up. Maybe you could use those?

What is the airport in Russia? Is it difficult crossing the border from Poland into Russia?

mikel

Tue, 8 Jan 2008. (Email From ASY. Email #21)

Michael every single day makes me wanna see you in the person.

I miss you so much that my patience is on a limit! I'm dreaming of our meeting as sleep! I found that all my thoughts are of you and no more else. I have always dreamed of finding someone really special who would come into my life wholly and uniquely, someone who understands me, someone to share my thoughts and dreams. I have finally found that person. It is so overwhelming the effect of your presence on my soul. You are like no other. Your heart is connected to mine and no one can change that. I love that feeling you give me.

If we fated to become single whole, I believe that it will be. I can't wait for you to fill that void in my soul that has been empty for so long. I can't wait for the time of our meeting in reality. That's will be the most wonderful and happiest moment of my life at this world!!!

The airport in Russia in the city of Kaliningrad, not a problem crossing the border from Poland into Russia, I not the terrorist, I the tourist:)) I understand your situation of money, I shall wait from you for news, I shall search for a way to arrive to you also.

Many hugs and kisses my Michael.

Tue, 8 Jan 2008. (My Reply to Email #21)

Greetings Asy.

I have been so frantic the last two days trying to get together enough money to send to you so that we could have the chance to see one another. For some time now I have been trying to make a successful living working freelance on film and video jobs. I do okay, but my parents do not approve of this artistic lifestyle. My father, in particular, has been trying to persuade me for some time to give up movie making. He wants me to work in a respectable job. Well, they have offered to loan me the money that I would need to fly you over here if I stop working freelance production. I am having a lot of trouble reaching a decision. On the one hand I really love my work, and what I do. On the other hand if I give all of that up I would have the chance to see you face to face.

What should I do?

mikel

Thu, 10 Jan 2008. (Email From ASY. Email #22)

Hello.

I did not understand your letter, you can help me with the ticket? You can borrow to me of money? If you any more have no money, I should search money somewhere. But I already searched money everywhere, unsuccessfully. I only should know it. I wait your answer.

Asy

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 (My Reply to Email #22)

Hello.

I apologize for my last email. It is probably all for the best that it was not clear to you. Probably meant to be. Like a sign.

My Father did offer me the money we would need to see one another. I told him no. Your email, and a few other factors helped delay my answer long enough for my sister to propose a brilliant plan.

She has 12,000+ frequent flier miles from work. I wanted to give them to you, but I cannot because you are not family. She can give them to me! I can fly to see you!! Won't that be wonderful? What city should I fly into? And when?

mischa

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 13:09:31. (Email From ASY. Email #23)

Hello.

If you want to arrive to me to Poland, I meet you here. Arrive to me as soon as possible. My aunt lives in city Elblag, but probably you should fly to Warsaw. Or any other big city where is the international airport.

Asy

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:35:51 (My Reply to Email #23)

Hello Asy.

I am so excited that it is alright for me to come to visit you!! I have never been to Poland, and I cannot wait to see the country and your smiling face.

Please, tell me how long you plan to stay in Poland with your Aunt. You have already been there for more than two weeks, right? How much longer are you staying? I worry about how quickly I will be able to get time off work, and arrange my travel plans. I work tonight, and I will speak with my employer about arranging time off. Hopefully we truly are meant to see each other face to face. The honest things I yearn to say to you in person!

mischa

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 08:14:34. (Email From ASY. Email #24)

Hello.

I do not know how long I shall be in Poland. I already explained you, I have no money for the ticket to you or to come back home. When you can arrive to me?

Asy

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 13:10:46. (My Reply to Email #24)

Hello Asy.

Sorry my reply was so slow coming. I asked for time off from work, but the earliest I can take more than two days off in a row will be late February/ early March.

I have been reconsidering the offer my Father made me to get the money. I don't really want to stop working in the film/video production industry, but I don't want to miss out on the chance to see you. I know that being with one another in person will be eye opening in ways that neither one of us can truly predict. That is something I am quite excited about.

My roommate's girlfriend works at a bank, and she was telling me about direct transfers. If I get the money, I may go down and talk to her manager on Monday.

I hope that you and your Aunt are well!

-m.

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:31:07. (My Second Reply to Email #24)

Hello Asy. I have such great news!!

So, I went down to a National City Bank today and spoke with one of the bank managers. She was telling me that I can have money wired to you directly from your own bank account! With your full name, and the account number, I can have the bank wire you as much money as you need! Isn't that great!

You can come see me OR return to Ireland! She said that they can even wire the money directly to the Western Union at the airport. That a wire transfer is pretty much the same as an account transfer. The only stipulation is that you will need to provide identification when you pick up the money. But an ID or Passport will work fine!

Isn't that great?

-m.

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 10:43:06 +0300 (Email from ASY. Email 25)

Hello.

I did not understand you. As you can have money wired to me directly from Mine own bank account? I cannot do it how you can? My bank can send only my money for any account. Why you do not want to open the account or simply to send me of money through the western union?

Asy

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:26:01 -0800 (PST) (My Reply to Email 25)

Well,

You have money in your bank?

You cannot get money in Poland?

I can get to your money here, and send it to you in Poland.

-m.

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 10:03:26 +0300 (Email from ASY. Email 26)

Hello.

You cannot get to my money, only I can. I have no cash in bank, only my checks. But my bank in Ireland can exchange my checks for electronic money (not cash), and to send on any other account. From the account it is possible to receive cash. I am already tired to explain you it. I am tired from your inactivity in the help of our meeting. Why you torment me why you simply do not want to help me?

Asy

So, at this point I let her chill for a while. I was thinking about stringing it along even more, then last night (in the spirit of Saint Valentine’s Day) I decided to end it.

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:07:37 -0800 (PST) (My Reply to Email 26)

Okay! I am SO sorry for the delay. Please, please,

please forgive me. I know you were upset. And I feel

terrible that you should grow upset over that.

I have $500. Where should I send it?

-m.

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:16:40. (Email from ASY. Email 27)

Happy St. Valentines Day!!!

Michael will you be my valentine?

kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss for you Michael

If you have now 500 dollars, you can send money under this information:

Anastasiya Krasnoweikina (my full name), Russia (country).

To get the money, I should know:

1 your full name

2 your full address

3 exact amount money

4 confidential numbers (Money Transfer Control Number),

which will be given to you, when you send the money.

YOURS ASY.

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2/15/2008 1:54:01 AM. (My reply to Email 27)

Hello Anastasiya.

So, I went today to send you the $500 that I have for you. Along the way I was robbed!

I'm just making a joke! I would never actually send you $500.

I hope, for your sake, that a lot of people have already fallen for this scam, although I don't understand how that would be possible.

Your first mistake was telling me that you were Irish. You probably messed up every detail about County Cork that was possible.

If that wasn't bad enough, you cut and paste portions of your letters from the date scam script! Verbatim!? There was one email where I cut and paste the same script back, and you didn't even bat an eye. I wonder if you can actually read English.

Probably not.

That was another crazy mistake. Your English was primitive, broken and confusing, EXCEPT when you were quoting the script.

I won't lie, I actually had a good time conversing with you. It was fun. I learned a lot about myself along the way. But, I'm not sure how much further we can drag this out.

SO, in the spirit of Valentine's Day, I wanted to let you know I have reported you to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, FBI Cyber Crimes Division, the FCC, the American Embassy in Poland, and the Polish Embassy here in the USA. I have actually mailed certified letters to both embassies with copies of all of our emails. And all the information I know about you.

I figure you deserve a heads up, since you have been SO NICE TO ME!

Yours Truly,

mischa

A Slightly Different Kind of Story

2008-02-15T02:13:00.001-05:00

Take my love, take my land / Take me where I cannot stand / I don’t care, I’m still free

So, toward the end of November I found out that I joined the less than exclusive group of Americans who were being preyed upon by scam artists. Con men. Flim-flam experts. Etcetera. Sounds exciting right? I mean, what was the last movie you saw featuring a conman that wasn't loads of fun? honestly. I know I have enjoyed every con artist movie I have seen, even the really bad ones. Matchstick Men. Lies & Alabis. Confidence. The Sting! And that is just the preliminary list of best and worst off the top of my head. The point is that Con Artists are awesome! At least, that was what I used to think.

I know that I have already talked with some of you about this situation. Hopefully you won't mind sitting through this story a second time, because I find it amusing to no end.

The last week in November I receive this email from a very nice Irish girl thanking me for the email I sent her. She went on to express that she was very interested in me, and wanted to get to know me better. I do have a public profile on Myspace (obviously), Facebook, and also a personal profile on Yahoo Personals. As I read through her email, I found myself searching my memory trying to figure out if I had contacted this girl through one of those online sites. I think we can all agree that I am not always the most focused or retentive person, so it made sense to me that I may have sent her an email and just did not remember. So, I sent a short and courteous reply back to her asking how we knew one another and if I was missing something that was painfully obvious. (Let's face it, I do that a fair amount) She emailed back, completely ignoring my inquiry, filled with exuberance and joy that I had responded.

Obviously this set off every paranoid alarm inside my head, and I began to search for answers about who this woman was, and what her scam was. All in all that paranoia filled week was pretty tense. I was on edge trying to learn how to trace her IP address, which is fairly simple to do with a fantastic site called http://www.whois.org/index.php . Of course her IP address was masked, which made things even more interesting. From there I spent time trying to learn how to trace a masked or hidden IP address, researching the domain provider for the email account she had, and also researching ways to ensure that she wasn't piggybacking or hacking my system. Obviously I scanned every email and attachment with two virus scans and a spyware program. I knew that she was not for real, I just couldn't figure out what con she was playing. I figured that there had to be some kind of electronic mischief at play, and I was going to be damned if I was going to be beat. Maybe some kind of keystroke memory worm that she could use to hack my online accounts? Maybe some way to lift my credit cards or bank account information? And, of course, the ever dreaded identity theft which I am often known to make light of. After all, there is so little to be stolen, unless you count debt.

Perhaps I ought to back up for a brief second, and share a little bit more about the down home Irish country girl who was so happy to be speaking with me via email. Her name is Asy, which is short for Anastasyia. Both of her parents died when she was young, and she lives in a small Irish village outside of Cork in a stone building which was left to her by her parents. She works as a fitness instructor in the village, and loves the ocean. When she would write to me she always wrote with extremely broken English, explaining that English was her third language after Irish and Polish. Also, she always attached one or two conservative photos of herself with every email.

Going back to my stressful search of who this woman truly is, and what she wanted. I finally found a way to trace the host server for the IP address that the emails were being sent through. When I researched the host server I found some interesting information. Apparently the very same Host Domain was brought up on a number of formal charges in January and February of 07 for a Russian date scam. Apparently hundreds of people received emails from Russian women who were overwhelmingly grateful to find the love of their life in an American. The early version of the scam involved the women asking the men for $400-$800 for fees related to the process of attaining a Visa to come to America to visit. The later version of the scam, which was a little more involved, revolved around a large cash deposit needed to leave Russia or frozen accounts after the travel plans were established. That version would involve sums ranging from $300 to $1500. The bottom line is that these "women" would assure the men, via email, that they loved them and then ask for money. And, apparently, many men gave them money. Which, I don't think I need to mention, they never got back. And the women, obviously, never came to visit.

Imagine my dual shock and relief when I found out that the con I was being plied with was as simple as "Hey, I love you, can I have some money?" I was trying to insure that these people were not electronically stealing my tidbits of electronic self! I was terrified that I had somehow crossed a hacker or Billm Gates or something. Nope. Nothing of the sort. So, again, obviously I was relieved that I was still relatively electronically safe. At the same time, I was disappointed that the con was so utterly ridiculous. Could you imagine Paul Newman and Robert Redford stooping to such a ridiculous low? Above and beyond that, this person has been emailing me for over six weeks (numbering 16 emails) Who puts in that kind of time and energy for $400? Seriously? I suppose the same scam is applied to hundreds of people at the same time, and it is the volume that makes the payday worth it. I guess. I just wish that it was a little more inventive.

Just for the sake of Robert Jackson, in case he reads this, let me quickly address the possibility that this is ACTUALLY an Irish woman who is looking for friendship. And, in my jaded and cycnical condition, have written "her" off as a pathetic con-person. Well, that would be a shame. I have to admit, if that IS actually the case, I will certainly feel lower than a bag of dicks. With that officially out of the way, let me return to my rant, because this is totally NOT a real person. As I said, she wrote to me in broken English. But every once in a while, particularly when she would talk to me about love or her dreams, the context of her letters would become much clearer. That struck me as odd, so I did a Google search on some of the text that was almost perfect English. What I found was a series of posted emails from the Russian girlfriend scam. There were dozens of these, and most of them were contextually identical. In fact, I found that almost 50% of every email she sent me was paraphrasing one of these emails, or directly cut and paste from one of these emails. I couldn't believe it. Not only was the scam lame, but there was an official script for the scam. Once I found that out, I couldn't help myself. I even commented to her in one of my replies that I was impressed with the excellent leaps and bounds she had made in her English whenever she wrote about love.

Here are a couple of examples of emails received from "Russian" women. Keep in mind as you read through them that people actually fell for this. Maybe, when this has fully played out, I will post the letters she sent me, with some of my replies. Unfortunately I only started saving my replies to her about halfway through the interaction. I knew I needed to save her emails, in case I needed to reference the IP address or file some kind of complaint against the host domain.

http://www.stop-scammers.com/letter.asp?id=4248

http://www.stop-scammers.com/letter.asp?id=4331

http://www.stop-scammers.com/letter.asp?id=246

Some of you are probably wondering why I even continue to go along with this charade. I have found myself wondering that also. There have been a few times where I was ready to just stop. Send a complaint email to the host domain. Maybe send Asy an email letting "her" know that the jig was up. (Mostly just to have the chance to say, "The JIG is up!") And yet, despite my intentions to cut contact, somehow, everytime I got an email, I felt compelled to reply.

At first I thought it might just be an ego thing. At first it was an exciting mystery. I wanted to see if I was smart enough to figure out the threat and beat it. Then, once I realized that the threat was ridiculously simple, I basked in the knowledge that I was certainly not foolish enough to fall for the scam. Everytime I got an email, I enjoyed the knowledge that I knew what "she" thought I did not know. I even began sending little hints that I knew what was going on. My favorite was the email where I actaully parashprased a paragraph of the scam script back to "her". Every time hoping that "she" would give up, or come clean and admit that "she" was really a 47 year old man in Colorado. With each email, I realized more and more that "she" probably knows that I know. And ultimately it doesn't matter, because there is no actual crime until I send "her" money under false pretenses. So, "she" has nothing to lose but continue with the script. (Well, nothing to lose but time. Time I wholly intend to soak up for the sake of my amusement.)

Of course, the more that I thought about my fascination with this scammer, I realized that it was more than just feeling smart that I was better than the scam. Every email sent was filled with these heart felt words of flattery and optimism and hope and love. I found myself often being moved by the gratuitously flattering things that she was writing to me. I knew that it was not genuine, but I didn't care. I wanted to hear more and more of it. I will admit that I was a little surprised that as I read through these lovely emails that were stolen directly from a script used to solicit money from desperate men, that I enjoyed the sentiment. I knew it was not heartfelt or genuine, and yet I still enjoyed it. I enjoyed the illusion that I was special to someone else. I enjoyed the feeling that I could potentially have a meaningful connection with another human being. All the while I understood that it was all a lie. At the same time, I found myself reflecting on the fact that so many of the relationships that I have had with the opposite sex could very much be called into the same kind of question of authenticity. It brought to mind more than a few past girlfreinds who claimed to love me and care for me, and at the same time, who did horrible and hurtful things to me. It struck me that previous women, who I believe actually had genuine feelings for me, would treat me so badly. And this "woman" who had no genuine feelings for me would treat me so well. Even if the emails were 50% pregenerated, and even if nothin in the email was true, they were still typed and sent to me. I found that the sentiments were nice to hear even when they were not true. It occured to me how incredibly dangerous such craving could be in any situation, genuine or not.

While contemplating the ridiculous situation, I also realized that I have not really allowed myself to open up to any relationship in quite some time. There had been plenty of times in the last couple years when I thought I was making an attempt to date someone. Express an interest, put myself out there, yakety-schmakity. I thought that I had actually been trying to honestly connect with another human being. Observing msyelf interacting with a fictitious love interest from Ireland, I realized that I was being more open and honest with a con person then I was with any of the women I had tried dating. Obviously I knew better than to be open and honest with practical information that could be used to hurt me. But emotionally I was completely honest. Whatever I was feeling or thinking just poured out to this person who I knew cared nothing for me. And I felt ashamed that I had been so closed with people who I might actually HAVE a chance at establishing a relationship with.

As these realizations slowly sunk into my thick consciousness, I found myself feeling kind of grateful to the pathetic scammer who is presumably going to ask me for money to help with a plane ticket to the US to come and see me. I'm not sure that I would have come to understand those aspects of myself on my own with out Asy's timeful intervention. Truth be told, if I HAD money, I would not be opposed to sending "her" some cash. Of course, I don't, and I am not going to. In fact, I will probabaly feartily agree to send her as much money as she wants, and then lie about the money order. We'll see. Either way, it's funny the places where life's lessons come from.

And a little disappointing that Hollywood conmen are not real.

___________________________________________

Malcolm Reynolds: If someone tries to kill you, you go ahead and try to kill 'em right back!"

_________________

Zoë Washburne: Cap'n'll have a plan... always does.
Kaylee Frye: That's good right?
Zoë Washburne: It's possible you're not recalling some of the cap'n's previous plans...

Karma

2008-02-10T04:42:00.001-05:00

Karma

by mikeA

Lester Avery had never considered himself a lucky man. Although, to be entirely fair, what kind of a man does consider himself to be lucky? Unless, of course, the lucky that is being considered is the UN-lucky, or perhaps even NON-lucky. Just to be clear, Lester Avery did not consider himself un-lucky or non-lucky or well-to-do-lucky or any other variety of lucky. The reason for this was not because Lester had not often considered life’s implications with regard to fortune.

The plain truth of the matter was that Lester Avery had given luck a great deal of thought. He knew that things simply happened, in their own good time, as they were going to simply happen. Some of those things worked out conveniently for Lester, and others did not work out as conveniently. At one time, Lester would have been tempted to see the convenient ones as good fortune and the inconvenient ones as misfortune. Now, however, Lester was pretty sure that the world did not operate in such an objective way. Instead, Lester was pretty sure that everything fell into the realm of subjective interpretation. That is to say that a convenient thing in Lester’s life could be fortunate or misfortunate or both, all dependant on his perception.

Again, that was not always the point of view that Lester Avery expounded. In fact, the sum total of events from one afternoon was all it took to convert Lester’s way of thinking from a world that operates objectively to one that is totally dependant on subjective interpretation. Those events were all set into motion with a simple phone call.

* * * *

“Caller Eleven!” the voice loudly blared out of the small cell phone speaker in Lester Avery’s hand, more softly echoed on the speakers of Lester’s car stereo. “Can you define ‘karma’?” Lester unconsciously licked his lips as he tried to get his thought in order. He was still having trouble accepting that he was actually the eleventh caller. He loudly cleared his throat, and waited, to make sure that the caller on the radio also cleared his throat. Of course, the two throats cleared almost simultaneously. The very experience began to make Lester wonder about the nature of reverberating sound. He wondered if a part of himself echoed out into the world as the noises from his throat did.

“Caller Eleven?” the radio voice interrupted, “Are you still wish us?”

“Yessir!” Lester responded nervously. “That I am!”

“Well, isn’t that fantastic! Can you define ‘karma’ for us? Give it a shot, whaddya say?!” The radio voice’s tone made it clear that the speaker did not think that Lester would be able to define ‘karma’. Obviously they did not know that Lester’s father, Aaron Robert Lester Junior, had been one of Camden’s top scholars on Indian faith and worship. Lester could define hundreds of Sanskrit words verbatim in his sleep.

“I believe I can sir, Karma literally means ‘action’ or ‘deed’. Although a more common definition could be that ‘every action has a consequence’ or even ‘what goes around comes around’.” Lester always felt a stab of guilt when he quoted Sanskrit to Americans. His Father ingrained in him a respect that the words represent serious concepts, and that those concepts ought to be experienced and lived. Lester knew enough about it all to realize that he had no right trying to explain any of those concepts. Seeing how other Americans butchered the ideas and concepts that his Father held so dear was an even greater source of pain. Despite the stab of guilt currently throbbing in Lester’s temples, something had prompted him to dial into the radio show on his cell.

“THAT IS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!” said the radio voice, switching into excited announcer mode. As far as Lester was concerned, all it really did was aggravate the pain in his temples. “You have just won four complimentary tickets to the City Museum’s classical music symposium. Please stay on the line for further details.”

The car stereo speakers stopped echoing what Lester heard on the phone, and began to play a block of commercials. Lester listened patiently to a woman’s pre-recorded voice, as it talked him through how to pick up his prize. Apparently all he had to do was swing by the station before eight p.m. He looked down at the clock on his car stereo. The digital numbers read ‘4:32’. Lester figured that he would have just enough time to swing by the radio station before he had to pick up Karen from work. As he tucked his cell into a compartment on the dashboard, Lester began to drive a little more aggressively. Mostly in an attempt to insure that he would not be late getting to Karen’s work.

As he merged unto the expressway, Lester found himself wondering if Karen even liked classical music. Lester chuckled softly under his breath. He had been dating her for over three years, and he honestly had no idea if she would even liked classical music. She had never complained when he had played classical music in the car, although he knew that there were a number of things that Karen tolerated that she did not like. She was always leaving rather overt hints that she wanted to go out and do more things, and different things.

Lester tried to push the speculation from his mind. He knew that he could spend hours mentally going in circles without reaching any true conclusions. He would pick up the tickets, and when he picked up Karen, he would just ask her if she wanted to go. She would either like the idea, or she would not. Nothing that Lester did was going to have any impact on Karen’s reaction. He would just have to patiently wait and see. In the meantime, he refused to dwell on it. Lester shot a glance over his shoulder to check the lane to his right. Then he turned on his turn signal to change lanes.

As he eased the wheel to the right, he felt the back tires start to slide. Before he could fully turn to his right to look, the car had spun 180 degrees around and slid into the right lane. A car rushed past him, honking its horn, as Lester’s brown Honda careened off the road. The car began to roll through the snow as it dropped off the shoulder. Lester held tightly to the wheel as the car tumbled end over end. Finally the car came to a rest on the driver’s side.

Lester tried to lift his head, and noticed that there was a throbbing sensation. It was pretty hard to see anything because every window was completely covered with thickly packed snow. Lester took his hands off the steering wheel, and brought them in toward his body. He used one hand to brace his weight against the car door, and the other he reached up and turned on the dome light. The light clicked on, and Lester realized how much junk was lying against the window. There were receipts, ketchup packets, snow and dirt, a book, and various other things that had gathered in his car. He also realized that the car’s engine was still running. He quickly turned off the ignition.

“Is everyone okay?” a faint voice could be heard from somewhere outside the car. “Is anyone hurt?” Lester could hear the sound of something scrapping away snow from the windshield.

“Hello?” Lester called out.

“How many people are in there?” the voice replied.

“Just me!” Lester cried back. Rays of light shined in through the windshield as two gloved hands wiped snow aside. Lester could see a bundled up man frantically digging at the snow.

“Oh! Hello!” he cried out once he had cleared a space big enough to see through. “Are you alright? Can you move?” Lester undid his seat belt and began maneuvering into a standing position. He stood on the driver’s side door, and reached up toward the passenger side door. He unlocked it, and tried to push it open, but the door was very heavy. Lester crouched back down to look through the windshield at the man.

“I can stand! Can you help me open the door?” Lester pointed up at the passenger side door. The man nodded and flashed an ‘okay’ sign. Lester stood back up and tried pushing on the door. At first it only opened a few inches, and then the door became light and flew open. Lester grabbed the edge of the door frame and pulled himself up. He managed to use the passenger seat headrest as a foothold, and climb up to the side of the car. Lester looked down and could see that the man was holding the passenger side door open. Lester jumped off the side of the car and flopped down in a snow bank.

The man came around the side of the car and extended a hand to Lester. Lester could see that he was a middle aged Indian man. He accepted the hand up, and began to brush himself off once he was back on his feet.

“Thank you so much for stopping! I don’t know that I would have been able to open that door by myself.”

“Not a problem,” the Indian man replied. “I am glad to see that you are alright. I was quite a few car lengths back, but I saw you spin off the road. Was it a patch of black ice?”

“You know, I’m not sure,” Lester replied. “I was changing lanes, and the next thing I knew, I was tumbling off the road.”

“Listen to me, running at the mouth. You must be frozen. Why don’t we wait in my car for the police.” Lester saw him indicate a gray four door sedan that was parked up on the shoulder.

“Sure,” Lester replied, “Why not.” Lester followed the man through the snow up to his car. He made an extra effort to shake as much snow off himself as he could before he climbed into the man’s vehicle. The Indian man already had the car running, and had the heat turned all the way up.

“I called the police before I came down to your car.” the Indian man said. “Don’t take that the wrong way, but you can never be too careful. My name is Cam Ma.”

“I’m Lester,” Lester replied. “Thanks again for stopping. I’m not sure what I’d have done otherwise.” Cam laughed softly.

“I’m sure you would have done something, Lester. Today must be your lucky day, walking away from a wreck like that one, huh?” Lester looked back at his car. The car itself did not look bad, but the two hundred feet of trail from the road to the wreck was a sight to behold.

“Man,” Lester let out a soft sigh under his breath as he tried to calculate how many times the car must have flipped.

“Listen, Lester, do you know what a boon is?” Still lost in thought, Lester did not answer right away. “Lester?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Lester turned back to face Cam.

“Are you familiar with the concept of a boon?”

“Um, yeah, I think so,” the look on Lester’s face must have told Cam that he was not familiar.

“A boon is like a favor or a wish. When you are owed a boon, it is like being owed a wish.”

“Is this for rescuing me, just now? Cause I got some money in my pocket.” Lester began to fish into his pocket for his cash. Cam began to laugh loudly.

“No, no, no,” he gently gestured for Lester to leave his money alone. “You do not owe me anything, Lester Avery. It is I, who owes you.”

“What? How do you know my last name? I don’t remember saying my last name!”

“Please calm down, I will explain. Your father, Aaron, did a number of things in India back in 1972. It matters little what he did, but suffice it to say that he earned the blessings of a holy man and a God. He was granted a boon. Any boon.”

Lester brought both his hands to his head and began to wonder if the throbbing in his head was an indication of some very serious delusions.

“This is not a dream, Lester Avery, this is real. Your father earned a boon, and his wish was that his first born would have access to that boon in time of crisis. You are the first born. This is a time of crisis. You now have access to that boon, Lester Avery.” Lester shot a sideways glance at Cam, and rocked a little bit to check to make sure he was not passed out or dreaming.

“You are” Lester stopped and squeezed his eyes shut. He opened them, and looked back at Cam. “Is this, well,” Lester let out a long sigh. “Let me get this straight. You are here to grant me a wish. Because of something my Dad did over 30 years ago?”

“Yes, Lester, a boon.”

“Jesus,” Lester exclaimed, still holding his head. “This is like a bad LIFETIME original movie.”

“I assure you that Jesus has nothing to do with it. You do not have to accept the boon, Lester. I, on the other hand, do have to offer it to you.” Lester looked down and noticed that his leg was bouncing up and down. He was not even sure when the nervous motion had started. He reflexively brought his thumb nail up to his teeth to chew. The entire situation was so dreamlike, and surreal. And yet, he felt a gnawing sense that something about this was not right.

Lester’s mind raced over the details that Cam had shared, looking for the source of his unease. Had his father even been in India back in the early 70’s? He wasn’t sure. He also wondered what his father could have been doing that would have granted him this boon? And how did Cam know that he was going to go off the road and need the boon today?

“This is not a trick, Lester,” Cam said in an even tone. “Would you like to use the boon now?” Lester did not answer, and Cam waited a few moments before he continued. “I could fix the car, Lester. Right here and now. It would be like the accident never happened. I could even put you and the car right outside Karen’s work. Just say the word, Lester.” Lester was clearly nervous, wringing his hands as he spoke.

“You said it was an Indian holy man and an Indian God, right?”

“Yes, Lester, I did.”

“Well, my Dad always taught me that the Indian believed in karma.”

“Yes.”

“Well, how can the actions of my father be transferred to me? How can a boon earned by the actions of him, be collectable by me? I don’t understand.” At first Cam did not say anything. He just looked into Lester’s eyes. After a few moments of silence, he suddenly smiled and nodded.

“Good point, Lester. Very good point indeed.” Lester could see the flashing lights coming from behind Cam’s car. He turned in time to see two police cars and an ambulance pull up. He watched the police jog through the snow toward the overturned car. As the two cops reached the car, they began clearing snow off the windshield. Lester noticed that somehow all of the snow that Cam had cleared was caked back on. Lester also noticed that there were no tracks through the snow to Cam’s car. He looked back to Cam, and saw that Cam was still smiling with a wicked grin.

“Last chance, Lester. I will still grant the boon, you just have to ask me for it.” Cam looked at Lester. Lester had no idea what was going on, but he knew that something was terribly wrong. He weakly shook his head from side to side. Cam’s smile faded, and then Cam and his car began fading. Lester turned to look back at his car, but found that he was still inside the car. He tried to move, but found that he was pinned in place by the seat belt. He could see the police clearing the windshield.

“Are you okay, sir?” one of the police officers called in through the glass. Lester tried to answer, but found he could not find his voice. He did manage to nod his head up and down. “Man!” the same cop yelled, “today must be your lucky day!”

Searching For a Friend

2007-07-11T00:10:00.000-04:00

The urge to vomit struck John suddenly as the texture of the sky above him began to shift color and texture in a rapid pattern. Forcing both eyes into a narrow squint, John carefully studied the ground rolling below him. The monotonous dips and curves and vegetation on the ground made it hard to stay focused. John found himself wondering what would happen if he let himself vomit while flying.

“John! Do NOT allow yourself to be ill!” Agamemnon’s deep baritone burned into John’s mind. “Your physical form is not even really here!”

“Are you some kind of bloody mind reader?” John shouted verbally to the large winged creature gracefully slicing through the air to John’s right. John knew perfectly well that even the highest host of Angelic Celestial could not read minds. But he felt compelled to say something in order to cover up the fact that his own appearance must have betrayed his feelings of nausea.

“I cannot read minds, as you well know,” the deep voice felt like it was physically scratching the inside of John’s skull. “But I know well the look of green that your astral form carries.”

“Listen up you big pixie!” John shouted to his right with all the volume he could muster. “I’ll not stand for you taking that kind of tone with me! I’m right as rain, so you can bugger off with that talk of being sick!” Even as the final word exited John’s mouth, he found himself clamping his teeth together and swallowing hard. Trying to look over at the winged creature, while the wide sky framed his graceful movements, had clearly been a mistake.

“So be it,” the Agamemnon’s voice boomed inside John’s head. “Just be sure to see to it that you maintain your declared end of our agreement.”

“Don’t worry. I have no doubt that I’ll know that energy vibration the minute it crosses my eyes.” John was not sure, but he thought he could telepathically hear the angel sigh. John knew that Agamemnon had plenty of reasons not to believe John, but this time John was being one hundred percent honest. Both times he had encountered the demonick energy vibration had been borderline disasters, and both times John found himself astounded that he had survived the encounter.

“I can sense the panic in you all the way over here,” Agamemnon chided telepathically. “You need not be concerned, John. All we need is to find the vibration, and assess the maker. We shall have your fragile form back in your body in the blink of an eye.

Somehow, John found that Agamemnon’s words made him feel worse instead of better. At the same time, he did not have the energy to try to argue with the angel. John decided that the sooner he found the energy again, the sooner he would be free of Agamemnon.

John squeezed his eyes closed for a second, and inhaled sharply, only to carefully exhale for twice as long. He deliberately repeated the breathing exercise for a dozen heartbeats, before letting his eyes slowly open a fraction of the way. The ground was still a scrolling canvas of greens and blues far beneath him, but he found his stomach felt a little better. Letting his attention spread out in front of him, John intentionally kept his mind from focusing on any single thing. He pictured his focus going blurry as he tried to take in the energies for miles in every direction. Casually John let his attention spread further and further.

A pinprick of red energy flared some distance to John’s left. John ignored it. Relaxing his mind he let his focus drift even further. A flash of green flared to his right, and a splash of pink echoed behind him. John managed to ignore both energies, and kept his focus blanketed. A shrill gray tore into his focus from somewhere behind him. His mind reflexively reached out to study the energy, and his entire focus began to crumble.

John let out a long sigh, and let his eyes open again. After a quick evaluation of the ground beneath him, John managed a quick glance to his side to check Agamemnon. The winged man was swaying gently with the pull of the wind. John found himself momentarily envious of Agamemnon’s ability to fly. Even though John was able to astrally travel in a fashion that was very similar to flight, John still wished that he could physically experience the pull of the wind or the smell of the air. His astral form was pretty much restricted to visual experiences only. Unfortunately the visual experience was obviously enough to make John nauseous.

“DOWN!” Agamemnon telepathically shouted at John, as a blur of white cloth and wings tore across the sky in front of John. John reflexively willed his form in the direction of the ground, but allowed his eyes to follow Agamemnon’s flight. The speed that the angel moved was literally awe inspiring. John found that his eyes could barely track the white streak slicing through the sky. Moving his eyes ahead of the blur, John could see a number of dark blue specks moving in a similar fashion in his direction.

“Well, fuck stick,” John mumbled as he swallowed hard, and began to drop more rapidly toward the ground. He had no idea what was approaching, but he was guessing that Agamemnon had sensed danger. Danger was the last thing that John had time for at the moment. The ground, which was rapidly rushing up to meet John, began to take on more and more detail. John carefully studied the physical structures that might offer him some sort of shelter, or, better yet, protection. He quickly assessed that there were no churches, cemeteries, or schools in close proximity, but there were a number of family houses attached to farms.

John picked out a fair sized three story farm house, and began to glide down in that direction. Focusing on the house John could sense that there was a family of six living within the house. For a brief moment John considered the moral implications of involving innocent bystanders as camouflage for his own craven defense. After all, if the incoming creatures were able to sense John’s astral form, and they could track it to the small farm house, John would probably be placing the family in some degree of jeopardy. At the same time, John reasoned, that very same family might be the perfect energy needed to mask’s John’s astral form.

Tilting his head back, John strained his eyes trying to make out the form of Agamemnon or the dark blue speck on the horizon. From his vantage point near the ground, John was unable to spot anything. He directed his dissent so that he came to a stop inches above the ground, directly in front of the farm house’s front door. John began a simple incantation so that he would be able to peacefully enter the unknown family’s house. As the last syllable of the last word rolled off his tongue, John waved a three finger gesture in front of the door. John cast one last glance up toward the sky, and noticed a streak of light quickly approaching the house. John squinted and strained his eyes to make out the image, but the time it took for him to squint was enough time for the farm house in front of him to explode into a hailstorm of flying splintered wood and furniture.

John flew backwards through the air and realized that the streak of light had struck the house the moment in had exploded. Regaining a degree of composure and focus, John willed his form to stop. He righted himself vertically, and began to frantically search the ground for any sign of the six people that he had sensed in the house. Near a china cabinet that had been crushed by a fire laden couch, John spotted a pair of small legs. He slid across the air over to the spot to find a small girl lying crumpled in a sickeningly grotesque heap. John found himself hoping that the small girl was dead, because he did not want to imagine the kind of pain she would be experiencing if she was still breathing.

“JOHN WILLARD AQIL!” a gravelly voice boomed.

John spun, shocked at the use of his full name. At first John could not see the source of the voice. He panned his head to the right and the left trying to make out some kind of figure. Perhaps the voice had been telepathic, John thought to himself. Although he was pretty sure he had heard it externally.

“HOW DARE YOU FORM AN ALLIANCE WITH THE CELESTIAL!”

This time John was sure that the voice was not being telepathically projected into his head, although he still had no idea where the speaker was located. John’s eyes tightened, and he consciously made sure he was breathing in measured intervals through his nose.

“I DEMAND THAT YOU ACCOUNT FOR YOUR ACTIONS!”

This time, the voice was accompanied by a sharp fiery sensation rapidly tearing through John’s left arm. The pain intensified and spread from the front of the arm straight through to the back. John’s eyes flew wide with shock, ad he realized that the speaker was with his physical body.

“WELL JOHN?” the voice boomed, “I WILL NOT REMAIN THIS PATIENT FOREVER!"

John frantically tried to focus past the pain in his arm, and come up with some kind of lie that he could tell the speaker. The hard part was he had no idea who, or what, he was speaking with. The only thing he figured he could infer was that the speaker was not a fan of Agamemnon. Unless, John reasoned, it was another Celestial upset by human interference!

“I, uh, well, I. . .” John stammered trying to buy himself enough time to invoke a ward of protection. His mind conjured the pieces he would need, and he began to run the numbers in his head to activate the ward. Just as his mind was locking down the last variables of the ward, a second pain exploded in John’s left arm. The components of the ward slowly fell apart and away.

“WHAT ARE YOU AND THE CELESTIAL SEEKING, JOHN?!”

The pain doubled and John found himself starting to panic. To make things worse there were distinct dark blue forms rapidly approaching his astral form’s position amongst the farm house’s rubble.

“Lis- Aaaagh. Listen!” John managed to say through the various points of fire arching around and through his left arm. “I swear to answer your inquiries face to face, but first I have to deal with some things here!”

“YOU CANNOT STALL. YOU CANNOT ESCAPE!”

A shower of dirt and wooden debris shot up into the air as the first dark blue form slammed into the ground near where the house stood. The long narrow membrane lined wings slowly folded in toward the body of the scale covered fairy, as it loped toward John on all fours. As the creature neared John’s astral form, it reared up unto two legs and lunged at John. A numbing explosion tore through John as the acrid creature passed through him to land hard on the ground behind him.

As two more scale covered fairies dropped to the ground around him, John realized that the creatures did not know that he was an astral projection! That meant the speaker was not working with them!

“ANSWER ME, JOHN!” the speaker boomed again, redoubling the pain in his arm.

John barely managed to will himself straight up into the air, as the two new fairies bound toward his position.

“Please,” John said letting the agony he was feeling echo in his voice, “I can’t talk through the pain!” John glanced beneath himself, and saw the three creatures had taken flight to pursue his astral form. “Please!” John pleaded again, assuming that he was not going to get any sympathy from the mysterious speaker. “We were looking for. . .” John let his voice trail off into a broken rhythm of painful cries. At the same time he pushed his astral form to fly as fast as he knew how. The surrounding began to blur as his speed increased, and the three creatures still seemed to be gaining ground. John was desperately running down a mental list of options when he felt the pain in his left arm drastically dull.

“GO ON, WHAT WERE YOU SEEKING?”

John let his eyes slip closed, and cleared his head of everything. He pictured the geographical location of his physical body in relation to the abstract of his astral form, and tried to conjure a formula that would let him create a short cut. The instant it became clear in his mind, John realized he could smell the fetid odor of decay. He opened his eyes, and found that he was back in his wooden chair. He let his head drop and studied the circle of sand carefully placed above the chalk etchings on the floor. As his head panned from right to left, he noticed four two foot razor thin wires pushed all the way through his left arm. Fighting the urge to scream he felt his head being lifted by a moist hand. The smell of decay doubled as the hand brought up his gaze.

Standing in front of him was a long dead corpse, missing large portions of skin and organs. John soured his face and cringed at the overwhelming odor.

“MANAGED TO RETURN?” The corpse said loudly in an almost surprised voice that echoed through out the small apartment. “GOOD. GOOD.” John still did not know what was motivating the body, but he was hoping that he would figure something out in the next minute and a half.

“Listen Sicko,” John said through hard fought gags, “The Celestial will be back in a blink, so how bout you bugger off?” The pain instantly returned in his left arms, and the smell of smoldering flesh added to the already overwhelming stench of decay.

“LIES. LIES. WHAT WERE YOU SEEKING? WHAT DID THE CELESTIAL WANT?”

John clenched his teeth and found his head reflexively swaying to fight the pain. He tried to focus on the corpse, but the pain, coupled with the smell, made it impossible to concentrate. The pain began to spread into the rest of John’s body, and John began to feel light headed.

“ANSWERS!”

“Listen,” John harshly uttered, “to the,” the words became a scream. John clamped his mouth shut, swallowed and finished. “Wind.” The corpse actually cocked its head to one side in confusion. In that instant the pain receded back into just John’s left arm, and decreased in intensity. John weakly gestured toward the roof with his right hand. The corpse noticed the hand, and with exaggerated confusion followed the gesture toward the ceiling. For a few moments the creature looked at different parts of the ceiling, and then returned his gaze on John. For the first time John noticed that the eyes seemed to have a hint of yellow energy to them.

“FOOL,” the corpse spat with a chilling laugh. “NOW YOU. . .”

The words were cut short as three dark blue forms tore through different places in the ceiling to land around the apartment. The corpse quickly looked from winged fairy to winger fair, and finally back to John. Even with the extreme pain, John felt a grin grow across his face.

“Toodles,” John whispered as the defenses he had carefully imbued his apartment with finally reacted to the new arrivals. A pulsating energy synchronized itself with each of the three creatures, which was followed by the rapid sound of three ear splitting POP sounds. The corpse, which was mostly outside the chalked diagram on the ground, crumpled limp into a pile.

The silence that followed rang in John’s ears with terrifying intensity. John stood, looking down at the wires still protruding from his left arm. His gaze shifted from his arm to the corpse lumped in front of him. He let his right foot strike the crumpled corpse in front of him. He heard a farting sound, followed by a cascade of noxious fumes, as his foot tore open the corpse’s chest. Obviously the speaker had used a very decaying corpse in order to circumvent John’s defenses. In truth, John realized that he was impressed with the ingenuity, and made a mental note to make sure that nothing would be able to duplicate the action.

John’s shuffling feet broke trail through the layer of ash and scale that covered the floor of his apartment. Reaching the small door to the bathroom, John realized that even the sink had debris from the exploded intruders in it. As he turned the faucet to full, he found himself wondering if he would be able to talk Agamemnon into cleaning.

The House

2007-07-11T00:03:00.000-04:00

John slowly crossed the street and headed toward the circus of police cars parked at odd angles out in front of the two story beige house. He let his lit cigarette drop from his hand as he stepped off of the street up onto the sidewalk. A pair of police officers gave him a strange look as he approached the clearly marked police tape. John grabbed the yellow ‘DO NOT CROSS’ tape and raised it high enough that he could easily slip underneath. The two officers began to move in his direction, both carrying expressions that conveyed disgust at John’s presence. John stopped and carefully reached into his back jeans pocket, producing a laminated ID badge. The two officers, once they were close enough to examine the badge began in with the same questions John had answered multiple times a week, every week for the last seven years.

“Is this badge for real,” the first officer asked. John decided that this guy was named Alex. “Because I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything like this before.”

“Yes Alex,” John answered in an even tone, “I assure you that the ID is very real.”

“Does this even grant you clearance to be down here?” John looked hard at the officer and let out a slow sigh under his breathe.

“What’s going on here that I wouldn’t have jurisdiction over?” John asked in an overly metered tone. Neither officer responded right away. Both men slowly looked from the ID badge, to John, then back to the ID badge.

“If you’re working with the Bureau,” the second officer began, “Than why didn’t anyone call ahead to let us know you were coming down here?” John starred at the second officer for a couple of hard seconds. For some reason he could not quite place a name on the officer. John silently hoped that this was not an indication of how the night was going to go.

“Well Officer,” John began slowly, hoping a name would come to him, “I’m not entirely sure why they didn’t call down here.” John let the sentence sink in while he studied the clothes that the second officer was wearing. Finally, when a distinct smell of chewing gum hit John’s nostrils he realized that the officer was named John. “To be completely honest with you, John, I would almost guess that they didn’t want to spoil the surprise.”

“Surprise?” both men said in unison.

“Oh aye,” John replied casually, “We wouldn’t want the media getting a hold of the Bureau’s involvement, now would we?” This seemed to adequately confuse both men, and John carefully moved past them in the direction of the house. He really hated having to mess with people’s heads like that, especially the heads of police officers. Still, he had a job to do, and he could not do his job unless he gained access to the house.

His footfalls over the dew covered lawn sounded like the secreted sound of fornication to John. He slowly looked around to see if he was drawing any attention to himself. He maintained a purposeful stride toward the house, and made sure not to make eye contact with any of the various police officers doing their jobs. As he looked around the yard, he noticed that one of the police cruisers was car 092. John cursed silently to himself, and realized that it only made sense that a case like this would draw the attention of Detective Hirk. John fought off the urge to pull out a cigarette and headed up the three stairs to the porch.

He weaved in and out of three police officers moving about the porch, and stopped dead in his tracks as he came face to face with Detective Hirk. The young Latino police detective slowly reached up to his mouth and picked the toothpick up off his lip.

“Evening John,” Hirk said in a quiet voice. John noticed that Hirk was carefully keeping eye contact. Obviously the Detective had been getting some helpful hints from someone or something. An issue John made a mental note to look into on the morrow.

“Detective,” John responded calmly.

“Tell me John,” Hirk carefully said the name again, “What would draw you out on an evening like tonight?” The man’s gaze was locked on John’s.

“Oh, you know Detective, duty calls, and all that.” John tried to make the statement sound flippant, but suspected that Hirk would see right through it.

“Do tell, John. What duty would that be? And John, who would that duty be to, exactly?”

John was silently calculating what he might be able to get away with when another officer came up behind Hirk, and pushed his way past. Hirk reflexively turned his head toward the man, and that was John’s cue to get moving. John quickly dodged around the other side of Hirk, patting him on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry Hirk,” John said as he swiftly slipped past, “I’ll be in and out before you know it.” John moved toward the door, bringing himself to a halt. He turned and added as an afterthought, “It’s been a real pleasure conversing, we’ll have to do it again real soon.” Before Hirk had the chance to fully turn and face John, he was well through the door moving through the house.

Once John was through the door, he moved randomly in order to put distance between him and Hirk. There was little chance that Hirk would tempt the fates by confronting John twice in a night, but John did not want to take any chances. When John passed through the house’s second room, he immediately sensed the seriousness of the crime that had been committed in the house. He moved straight to the staircase, and headed to the upstairs bedroom. He knew he was going to see, even before he opened the door, but gave himself a second to mentally prepare. John had learned a very long time ago that a little extra preparation was never a wasted effort.

He let the door fully swing open and stepped into the room. The smell of the three mutilated bodies hit him first, and then the gruesome sight. Even though both the sight and the smell were pretty jarring, it was the vibrations left in the room that really gave John reason to pause. He exhaled sharply through his nose, and inhaled through his mouth. John wondered if he was ever going to get used to the negativity that lingered in sites like this. He let his eyes close, and he took another step into the room. As his focus began to sharpen on the interior of the room, a voice forced his eyes open.

“Excuse me Sir,” a young woman said, “I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to be in here.” John slowly turned back to the room’s entrance to see a woman dressed in a blood covered smock. He quickly considered the odds that this woman was sensory gifted, and then realized his mistake.

“Um,” John began slowly, “Ann is it?” The woman placed a latex gloved hand on her hip in response. “Okay Luv, I get it. I’m not supposed to be in here, it’s true. But I have ID, and I will happily show it to you.”

“Nice and slow,” she responded coldly as her other hand came to a rest under her smock. John quietly cursed the American fixation with firearms. Everyone and their mother had firearms in America.

“Here you go,” John brought his left hand up with the laminated ID card. With his right hand he drew three coins out of his pocket and let the first two drop from his grasp. While the two coins spun through the air toward the floor, he rolled the remaining coin up unto his curled thumb. John used the TINK, TINK noise as a cue to flip the last coin up into the air. His eyelids slid closed, and he silently incanted the words.

He lifted one eyelid carefully to check on Ann. She seemed to have completely lost interest in John, and was returning to the hallway to get something off a large work cart. John let his other eye open, and turned his attention back to the room.

He knew that the room would be secure, but he also knew that now he would not have much time. He dropped to the floor and folded his legs underneath himself. He let both eyes lazily close, and tried breathing through his nose. The stench of the bodies proved to be a little too much for him, and he changed his inhalations to his mouth. Once he felt his mind begin to focus on the interior of the room, he began to pick his way through each layer.

After a few minutes of examination, John began to fear that his trip had been a complete waste. He began to piece together the cause of death for all three people, and realized that it was just some guy. A very angry guy, John realized, but still just a guy. After focusing a little more closely, John realized that his instincts had not led him astray at all. The angry guy was actually shade masquerading as a guy.

John opened his eyes and looked around the room. Knowing that a shade was responsible, it occurred to him that the shade could still be in the room! John examined every piece of furniture and every nook and cranny in the room. If the shade was still in the vicinity, John was relatively certain that it was not presently in the room. That thought was interrupted by the exploding pain in the back of John’s head.

John felt his face slam hard against the wood floor, and felt the sticky coagulated blood clinging to his face. At the same time, throbbing warmth was starting to coat the back of his neck. John rolled unto his back and looked up to see Ann clutching her pistol.

“What are you. . .” John began. Before the words finished forming John realized that the woman was being directed by the shade.

The metal but of the gun crashed down hard on John’s forehead. John desperately tried to roll out of the way, but the gun slammed down twice more.

“You don’t belong here,” the woman said in a voice that seemed to echo with the sound of nails on chalkboard. John wanted to reply with something witty, but found that the words were exiting his mouth as fluid filled hissing sounds. He right hand dug hard into a pocket, and was searching the floor with his left.

BAM! The gun dropped on his head again, and John rapidly blinked his eyes in order to keep the inky darkness from overwhelming him. His left hand came across a rubber sole of a tennis shoe. John focused all his attention on grasping the shoe, and brought it up at the woman towering over him. As his hand swung up in front of him, John realized that the shoe still had most of a severed foot in it. The sight completely broke his concentration, but he still managed to utter the three notes that he needed to make.

The woman’s face contorted into a hideous distortion of rage, and she violently swung the gun down at John’s head again. This time the gun came up short inches from John’s skull. John began to push himself backwards away from the attacker. He slapped himself carefully across the face, and tested his mouth to make sure he could still talk.

“Yeeaaargh,” he slowly exclaimed. “Not belong! NOT BELONG!”

The gun was now being trained on John.

“I bind you to your violence,” the words came out thick, but identifiable, as John made a fist and swung it in the direction of the woman. The woman’s rage filled expression contorted to one of shock, as her jaw dropped.

“Anchored by your rage,” John slowly enunciated through his gritted teeth. The woman was making a kind of screeching noise that set his head into deeper throbs of pain.

“Judgment there shall be.” John traced three glyphs in the air in front of the woman, thankful that his fingers were functioning better than his mouth. Her face began to twist, and then swell, and finally her body went limp. John considered trying to catch her as she slumped toward the floor, and then realized that he hurt too much to be bothered.

John closed his eyes again and focused on the woman’s form. After he was satisfied with what he was sensing, he let his attention slowly push out around her. Once he was certain that the shade was no longer in the upper floor, John turned and headed back toward the house’s staircase.

On the stairs he saw half a dozen officers running up the stairs with the guns drawn. He realized that the woman’s screaming must have been audible to everyone. He stepped to the side, and let a low tone escape his lips. The caravan of officers rushed toward the bedroom, oblivious to John’s presence. As soon as they had fully cleared the stairs, John headed down.

All in all, it was a fair night’s work. He knew that he should have been more careful, but a little carelessness now and then keeps things interesting. Stepping through the front door out onto the porch, John spotted Hirk sitting on the hood of his car. Hirk was starring right at John, almost as if he had been waiting for John to come out. John quickly averted his eyes, and began to move across the lawn in a direction that carried him away from Detective Hirk.

He passed by the two officers that had first confronted him. John realized that as much as he loved doing the work that he did, he really hated all of the hoops he often had to jump through.

“What is that phrase that the plagiarizing Git used in those novels?” John muttered as he reached for his cigarettes. “Oh, yeah, bloody muggles.”

Another Night on the Job

2007-07-09T03:54:00.000-04:00

(fiction challenge story; week2. copyright 2007. all rights reserved.)

“When you enter a dark room, your eyes adapt the slowest.” Ryan could hear the words playing through his head in the cadence and tone of his old boss, Frank Wolfe. That was the thing about Frank; he was predictable to a fault. He drilled the same things into Ryan’s head so often, and so regularly, that Ryan could finish the phrases for him.

Ryan pulled open the double doors ahead of him, pausing to hold them for a family of five walking tightly on his heels. Ryan could hear the two youngest children excitedly giggling about being able to see the circus. Ryan wondered to himself why it had to be the circus. Why not a nice baseball game or ballet? While the family filed into the open door, Ryan scanned the throng of people slowly moving from the huge parking area. His eyes began to move, quickly, from face to face.

“Always be paranoid, you never know when it’ll pay off.” The words inside Ryan’s head caused him to let out a soft laugh at his own expense. Frank’s advice always made it seem like being a P.I. was a life or death gambit. As if being a P.I. was nothing but grand adventures to save glamorous damsels, and exciting scenes straight from action movies. For a few months, early on, Ryan often humored Frank. He did not humor him because he believed the crap that Frank was spouting. He did it because working with Frank had a sort of charm and fun to it.

Ryan peeled his view away from the hundreds of faces heading toward him from the parking lot and headed through the door after the family. His eyes, slow to adapt to the dark interior, scanned the posters lining the walls. Each poster depicted a different act from the circus, printed in the old school three tone color style. Ryan moved up toward one of the ticket counters. He had a brief wait while the woman in the pink and green shirt sold tickets to a bunch of high school aged kids. They were loud and borderline obnoxious. One of the girls looked back in Ryan’s direction. Ryan let his head shift up enough to match his gaze, as he made eye contact. The girl smiled and waved. As Ryan smiled back, he wondered why he had to break 25 before high school girls started flirting with him.

With tickets in hand, the rowdy kids filed further into the building toward the closest ticket turnstile. Once Ryan had purchased his own ticket, he intentionally moved toward a different turnstile. There was no reason to bump into a bunch of rowdy high school kids, especially one with a habit of flirting with older men. As soon as Ryan had passed through the turnstile, a security officer stopped him.

“I need to search your bag, sir.” The officer, a little on the small side by Ryan’s estimation, was holding out both hands. Casually Ryan handed over his bag. As the officer began rummaging through Ryan’s bag, Ryan became consciously aware of the smell of cheap peanuts, hay, and sweaty animals. Those odors were more than enough to remind Ryan why he hated the circus. If it not for the fact that tonight’s photos were the cherry on his investigation, he would have written tonight off and waited for something else. As it is, Ryan was anxious to move on to something different. Ryan’s thoughts were brought back to the small security officer when the little man pulled out Ryan’s Nikon D70.

“I’m afraid we don’t allow recording devices, sir.” Ryan had anticipated this snag, in part thanks to his secretary, and in part thanks to Frank’s tried and true advice.

“Always be ready for a snag, Kid. It’d be a shame to let poor planning foil your climactic victory!.” Ryan almost mouthed the words as he drew out a yellow I.D. card from his pocket. He held it out clearly for the security officer.

“It’s okay, I’m with the Press.” The words were relaxed and easy. Lying was always the one thing that Ryan had done with a kind of flair that made Frank blush. “I apologize for not presenting it sooner, it honestly slipped my mind.” The security officer looked from the I.D. card to Ryan’s face, and then back again. Ryan already knew that he had this security guy beat, and was ready to be moving on. “Listen,” Ryan said gingerly taking back his camera bag, “If there is any problem, I’ll be in Section C, Seat 18. Thanks for everything.” With the final words of thanks, Ryan gave the officer a firm double pat on the shoulder. It was always the little condescending gestures like the double pat on the shoulder that made Ryan really love his job.

Ryan made sure to use a very casual pace as he moved further into the building. He stopped at the first concession booth, to get a program and a pretzel. He had only intended to get the program as a foil, just in case, but the pretzel smelled so good that Ryan could not resist. By the time Ryan had arrived at his seat, there was nothing left of the pretzel. Ryan settled into his seat and began to get his camera out. While he was affixing the telephoto zoom lens onto the end of the camera, a long row of children began to move toward Ryan down the aisle he was sitting in. The child at the head of the procession, a small boy who looked to be about seven, stopped at the seat next to Ryan’s, and sat down in it. Ryan quickly counted heads, and tallied fourteen children. He looked over at the only adult with them, a middle-aged woman, who was slowly distributing napkins and small bags of peanuts. Ryan silently hoped, for the woman’s sake, that she was not the mother of all of these kids.

On the other side of Ryan, a group of four men was settling into their seats. Ryan could hear one of the men telling some story about his various childhood run-ins with clowns, and how seriously scarred he was because of it.

Ryan let himself sink a little further down into the hard plastic seat, and brought the camera viewfinder up to his eye. He slowly focused his camera across the auditorium. He did it slowly and purposefully, moving from person to person. Two weeks of garbage raids had landed Ryan a Ticketmaster receipt for tonight’s circus. He knew the area where his man was supposed to be sitting, and he knew that he would have two guests with him. Truthfully Ryan had learned more about his target than he cared to know, but that was the nature of the job.

“Hey Mister,” a small boy to Ryan’s left poked him in the shoulder. “What are you taking pictures for?”

Ryan’s first instinct was to ignore the distraction. He continued, slowly, to pan his camera. His telephoto view was sharply disturbed as the boy shook Ryan by the arm.

“Hey, Mister! Did you hear me?” Ryan let out a slow sigh. Jobs like this always came with some kind of hitch.

“What was that Kid?” Ryan kept his voice very soft and even, hoping to induce a little calm in the boy. If the voice trick had any effect, Ryan did not notice.

“I was wondering why you’re taking pictures?” Clearly this kid was not going to be easily dissuaded. Ryan pulled the camera down from his eye and faced the boy.

“Well, for starters I wasn’t taking pictures. I was just looking through the eyepiece. The reason I was doing that is because I am looking for a specific man.” Ryan often found that his job was much easy to accomplish if he just spelled out exactly what he was doing right up front. It left people a little dumb founded.

“Well, um, okay,” the boy responded hesitantly. Clearly he was not one for being left dumb founded. “Cause I was thinking maybe you should take some picture of those elephants down there. They’re super cool!” Ryan sighed again. “This is my third circus,” the boy held up three fingers as he said it, “and I keep telling Kim that the elephants are the coolest, but she’s dumb. And I was thinking you would know how cool they were, especially if you took some pictures of them?” The boy exploded into motion gesturing wildly with his two hands at one end of the auditorium. Sure enough, he was pointing at a ring of five elephants. It looked as though they were giving kids and parents elephant rides before the show started.

“See them? See how cool they are?” The boy bounced as he pointed.

“Yeah Kid, that’s great.” Ryan lifted his camera to his face and hastily snapped off a few shots in the general direction of the elephants. “You sure are right, Kid, these elephants are super cool.” The boy was grinning like an idiot, and he turned to the girl next to him. Ryan could hear the boy telling her to pass down to Kim the fact that the elephants were cool. Ryan snapped a few more shots, and then tried to get back to business.

“Hey, hey Mister!” the boy was tugging on Ryan’s arm before the camera’s eyepiece reached his eye. “Mister, can I see the shots? PLEASE!?!” Ryan rotated back and gave the kid a hard look. The small boy was obviously not going to shy away from Ryan’s gaze, so Ryan gave up and decided to try a new tact.

“Listen Kid, you want to play a game?” The boy was very slow to answer, and even then, his response was very hesitant.

“What kind of game?”

“It’s a lot like I SPY, only I need you to spy a specific person for me, okay?” Again, the child was slow to answer, although this time his response had a little more enthusiasm behind it.

“Okay. Am I looking for that friend of yours?”

“He is not my friend. He is just a man I know. And yes, that is the man we are looking for.” Ryan pointed across the auditorium to section F. “He ought to be sitting in that section over there, and he should have two other people with him.” The boy began to scrutinize the area that Ryan pointed out.

“Who’s gonna be with him?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure. If my previous surveillance is any indication, he will probably be with two young boys.”

“Young like my age?”

“No Kid, more like my age.”

“But you aren’t young. You’re grown up!”

“Right, I’m grown up, but I’m still young. I’m only. . .” Ryan stopped short. The look on the Kid’s face it clear to Ryan that the discussion was pointless. “Fine, whatever you need to hear. They’ll be like my age.”

“Okay.” The kid seemed very satisfied with that answer, and resumed looking. Ryan moved the camera back up to his eye, and resumed scanning the crowd on the other side of the auditorium. Ryan managed to check two rows of the section before the kid interrupted with his poking.

“I don’t see ‘em. Maybe they aren’t here.”

“Did you look in every seat?” Ryan asked patiently.

“No! But I’m sure that I would have seen him! Especially if he’s with two guys your age!” the Kid slid down in his chair and crossed his arms.

“Simmer down Teapot,” Ryan said calmly, bringing the camera back up to his eye. If you don’t want to play the game, that’s fine, but I need to find them.” Before the boy could even answer, Ryan had resumed looking through the camera’s lens.

“Well, I don’t want to lose!” the boy responded and resumed looking. The boy searched in silence for the better part of two minutes, when he began to ask more questions. “You know, if you had their phone number, you could just call them. And then we could see them on the phone! I would just call them.”

“Good idea Kid,” Ryan responded casually, “But I don’t think he carries a cell phone. At least, I never found record of it.”

“Why are you looking for them? Are you going to take their picture once you find them?”

“Yes, I am going to take their picture.”

“Why? Did they do something wrong? Are you the police!?”

“No, I’m not the police.”

“But they DID do something wrong, huh? It’s like a kidnapping, isn’t it?! You need to find them so you can rescue the two guys from the kidnapper!”

“Something like that, Kid. Have you found them yet?” Ryan could hear the boy shift into excited overload when Ryan admitted that it could be a kidnapping. Instantly he regretted lying about the situation. Filling the Kid’s head with some fantasy was not going to make the job any easier. He was just getting ready to tell the Kid the truth when the Kid almost shouted at Ryan.

“Mister! I think I see them!!” The boy was practically yelling, and Ryan placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him and quiet him.

“Where?” Ryan asked. The boy pointed to a group of seats toward the top of the section. Ryan brought the camera to his face and adjusted the focus. Sure enough, there was the old man sitting with two young men that looked to be in their late teens or early twenties. Ryan had known what he was going to see, but this was the first time he could visually confirm it. He began to snap photos as fast as the camera would allow. Ryan zoomed in and re-framed to show one of the old man’s arms around the young man’s shoulder. He reframed and caught a number of shots of the old man leaning over and whispering something into one of their ears, then the old man began whispering something to the other. Ryan snapped another dozen shots before lowering the camera. He began to remove the lens and pack the camera away.

“Was that them, Mister?” The kid was looking expectantly at Ryan.

“Yep. Good work Kid. That was them.” With the camera packed Ryan stood, and fished into his pocket. He pulled out a five-dollar bill and gave it to the kid. “You win the game.”

“Wait,” the kid exclaimed, “Where are you going? Are you going to be able to save them?” Ryan hesitated, not sure what to say. He considered continuing with the kidnapping fantasy, but did not see any point to it. Instead he just smiled and began to move toward the center walkway.

“Wait, wait!” the boy was growing more panicked. “Are you gonna be back before the circus starts? Cause last time the elephants came out first and they’re the coolest. You have to be back by then, okay?” Ryan paused to look at the boy. Something about the look on his face struck a chord in Ryan. He wanted to answer with a patented Frank response. He wanted to tell the Kid that he would have them saved and be back before the first elephant entered the center ring. But he was not Frank. Instead he just gave the Kid a wink and kept moving.

Later that evening, at his faux oak desk, as Ryan was finishing up his report on the Old Man’s activities and spending habits, he could almost hear Frank talking about truth getting in the way of adventure. Again, Ryan wished that he had just told the boy some fantastic tale about the exciting rescue he had staged. Part of Ryan even wished he had stayed for the actual circus. Sitting with that kid might have been fun. That brought back memories of early cases with Frank. Frank was always fun. No case was ever dull, and everything was always an adventure. Ryan finished paper clipping his reports, and various collected evidence, together, and stared at the collected five weeks of internet intel, garbage collecting, covert pursuit, and photos. Ryan realized he preferred getting paid for gathering monotonous truth, rather than have fun with fantasy and adventure. He closed the manila folder, and set it in his COMPLETE box to be called on first thing in the morning. With that he got up, turned off the lights, and locked his office door for the night.