On July 10^th the organizers sent a set of prompts and entrants had 10 days to write a maximum 3,000-word story based on the chosen prompts.

Here were the rules:

CHOOSE ONE OF THE CHARACTERS LISTED BELOW. This character does not have to be your protagonist, but they must play a significant role in your story.

A fugitive

A queen

An amputee

A carpenter

A teenage prodigy

CHOOSE ONE OF THE SETTINGS LISTED BELOW. Can be set in any time-period, including the future. Can deviate slightly but the majority of the story must take place in one of these settings.

A summer camp

A vineyard

A production studio/film or tv set

A rehabilitation center

A treehouse

THE ONE THING THAT MUST BE INCLUDED IN ALL STORIES IS:

A piece of amber with something relating to or derived from living matter preserved in it.

I set to work using the prodigy and vineyard and submitted my story with about 36 hours to spare.

There were almost 700 entrants, and it took until October for the feedback to arrive, but when it did it was helpful and encouraging and called for stronger character development. ( I was well into writing a novel at that point and took some of the advice and applied it to parts of the novel which is now in at least its third draft.)

Here is the revised contest entry sticking to my original story and still coming in under the 3,000 word limit.

Hope you enjoy it and feel free to add your own suggestions on character development.

El Graeco

The Ape was not yet a mature female, but she was big. Normally moving on all fours, she was close to five feet tall when she rose up to survey her surroundings. At age seven she was still a teenager but already weighed 400 pounds. She had a vision that she would challenge the leader of her matriarchal troop, but right now she was in pain. Her mouth hurt. It stung to chew on the tubers she dug from the ground and biting down on her favourite nuts was impossible. The pain was so intense she chased off the males wanting to mate. Munching on handfuls of leaves was all she could manage and she would starve if the pain did not go away.

Neel was bored. His parents had packed him off to Greece to spend time with his relatives who owned a vineyard, leaving his beloved books behind in his Danforth-area home.

“I know you’re a smart kid,” his father had said as his first year of high school was winding down, “but you need to experience more than just books and the museum. You need to experience life BEFORE it makes it into a museum or a book.” Neel didn’t want to experience life. He had enough of that coping with a new school and being the odd kid in his class.

He had met Aunt Areti and Uncle Anastasios a couple of times when they had come to Canada to visit and grudgingly admitted they were cool. An old family, they were full of new ideas to revive traditional Greek winemaking. Working for the summer in their vineyard however, was not what he wanted. He had hoped to have another summer learning how to catalogue fossils; but here he was, waiting for his uncle who had said they were going for an “outing” this morning. An outing he did not need or want.

“Come with me,” Anastasios said. He handed Neel a knapsack. “There is food and water for you, and you’ll need this as well.” From inside his own knapsack, Anastasios produced a sheath holding a large, curved knife.

“Where are we going?”

“We are preparing to harvest the resin from our Aleppo trees up where the vine rows meet the hillside.”

It was early and the temperature had not started to rise, but Neel was not used to strenuous activity and was soon labouring as they climbed up the hill. Anastasios tossed him a straw hat. “You’ll want this.”

“We make retsina, Neel. It’s a Greek wine that has been around for at least 4,000 years. My family ― your family ― is trying to bring it back to life. The key ingredient is the resin of the Aleppo pine tree. We grow the grapes carefully in our vineyard, but we harvest the resin just as the tree offers it. Our trees have grown in the soil of our family vineyard for generations and some of the individual trees are 150 years old. The whole forest is as old as these hills. We look for mature trees to preserve the traditional flavour we add to our wine.”

The path led them higher up and once they were into the forested area where it levelled out and was cooler, Neel felt better. “We’re almost there,” his uncle assured him. “You should be able to catch the fragrance of the pine needles as they warm up from the sun hitting them.”

Neel took a deep breath and experienced a smell unlike anything he had come across back home. Was this how it smelled millions of years ago? As the sharp aroma of wild thyme hit him, he could visualize what it would have been like.

He excelled in school because of his exceptional memory. A memory that was as much a gift as it was a curse. He remembered big things and tiny details. Sometimes it was those tiny details that left him confused as he tried to sort out what was important, what was interesting, and what really didn’t matter. It made him different from everyone at school. He had read up on this part of Greece once he knew there was no choice but to accept his summer fate; picking out the bits that were most important. How had the early hominids wandering Eurasia ended up as people like his aunt and uncle? How had land once covered in dense forests become beautiful hillside vineyards? He learned that this part of Greece had been home to Graecopithecus macedoniensis who had died out seven million years ago. His knowledge of the prehistoric world helped him link it all together and he started to form images of how things happened.

The pain was becoming too much to bear and the big Ape reached inside her mouth desperately looking for what was causing the pain and cried out when she touched the tender spot. There seemed to be nothing she could do to stop the hurt and with her powerful hands, tore a branch off a nearby tree, and poked inside her mouth to push away her pain. Her nose twitching at the unfamiliar smell from the branch.

Neel and his uncle passed through the tree cover and into an area that was more open with dry rocky soil before it gave way to steeper slopes beyond the vineyard. The aroma of the Aleppo pine was strong and unmistakable. Anastasios told Neel he had made a trip up here weeks earlier and marked many of the trees with bright red ribbons. He pointed at the pine grove.

“We are after the trees that are marked.” Anastasios pulled his curved knife from its sheath and motioned for Neel to ready his own knife. “We need to get the resin flowing by wounding the tree but not wounding it enough to kill it.”

Neel could see the reverence his uncle had for the trees and imagined the scene at this very tree 150 years earlier. His ever-wandering mind took him further back to ancient Greece and then to this same grove ten thousand years ago, then ten million years. He saw creatures roaming right where they were standing now. As his uncle talked, Neel was casting back to scenes of whole species, now long gone.

“Hey! Neel, pay attention. You get lost inside that cluttered head of yours?”

“Sorry, Uncle; yes. I like to think about what it was like here long ago.” He remembered the online references he had found while waiting for the flight from Canada. “There are some theories that say common ancestors of great apes and humans—you know like you and me—actually lived here and migrated to Africa; not the other way around.”

“Well Neel, focus on the job at hand. You can solve the mysteries of mankind another time. Watch carefully.”

Anastasios made several long, shallow cuts in the trunk of one of the pine trees, then moved on to the next one.

“We leave the blade dull intentionally so we don’t cut too deep. You’ll have to apply pressure to start the cut, then pull down slowly.” Neel took the curved edge of the knife and made a hesitant first cut, which released a stronger, mustier aroma. His uncle nodded, and Neel made another cut. They moved across about two dozen trees, making several cuts in each one; Neel feeling more confident with each cut.

“Now, let’s go back and look at the first one we did.” The tree had started to slowly ooze resin. Neel knew it was meant to protect the tree when it sensed it was being attacked by insects or disease, or to seal off physical damage but to his mind it looked like the tree was bleeding. A glistening, honey-coloured blood that caught the light of the mid-morning sun.

“Go ahead,” his uncle said. “Taste it.”

Neel dipped his finger in the sap and licked it off. “Tastes almost like it smells. Like pine. Bitter and sweet at the same time. Makes my tongue feel odd.”

“That’s about right. We’ll come back in a week to scrape off the hardened resin then prepare it to flavour our wine. Now let’s have something to eat.”

They sat on a fallen tree in the grove of trees downslope from the Aleppo pines to eat the food they had brought with them. Neel pointed up past the trees to where the slope became more rugged, with small cliffs and stony outcrops. “What’s up there?”

“I suppose millions of years ago it was much more rugged than now, but you might find it interesting. There are a few small caves which were inhabited in the past by wandering bands of nomadic herders. You still see feral goats descended from those old herds. Rumour has it those nomads found amber which they used for trading. We had some archeologists from the university in Athens poking around a few years ago, but I don’t know what they found. Or if they found anything at all. You should head up there tomorrow.” He gave Neel a wink and a playful nudge. “No telling what a young genius like you will find.”

The big Ape began to rock back and forth and whimper. One of the adult females in the troop settled beside the Ape as she closed her eyes to slits, hoping sleep would allow her to forget the pain. She had no idea what it meant to have a broken tooth. All she knew was that something was terribly wrong. She put her head on the female who had come to comfort her and grunted each time a new wave of pain shot through her mouth and jaw.

When they made it back down to the vineyard, Neel went straight to his room to study up on what he had seen and felt earlier in the day. He went online and learned more about Graecopithecus macedoniensis ―nicknamed El Graeco ― and the era it lived in before the entire genus died out. He studied the Aleppo pine. He learned more about resin. By the time his Aunt Areti called him for dinner, he knew everything he needed to know before going back up the hillside the next day. Over the evening meal he couldn’t stop sharing everything he learned. The teen’s headful of science and history seemed to make more sense here; surrounded by trees that had witnessed generations of families and smells that had been around for thousands of years.

“I was right; there used to be ape-like animals here at least seven million years ago. I read the research papers. Huge apes that could have been scrambling around those very cliffs before coming down to forage for food in the forests that covered your vineyard. They would have eaten wild walnuts and nuts … kinda like pistachios” He pointed at the salad his aunt had made. “Just like the ones you have in there.”

Boredom was no longer a problem for Neel and for the rest of the meal he spilled out all the ideas he had trapped inside his head. He went on about a Miocene fossilized jawbone discovered near Athens that supported the idea that pre-humans lived in Greece. “They could have been here in your vineyard!”

“And I found the research paper written by the team you said had been here, Uncle. They didn’t find any hominid fossils, but they also said there was no reason to believe that pre-humans had not lived here and there is another dig planned soon because they are sure there is evidence to be found in those caves.”

Anastasios and Areti ate mostly in silence, letting their nephew release his new energy. Areti promised to make lunch for the next day and said there would be a small flask of retsina so he could truly experience what generations of families had come to know. “A very small flask, mind you,” she said and smiled.

The Ape tried looked around the forest trying to distract from the pain. She noticed a brightly-coloured substance oozing from the tree where she had torn off the branch earlier. It was something she had not paid attention to before but it was a new smell, and she reached out to touch it with her long forefinger. It was soft and stuck to her. She was hungry and this would not need her to bite down, so she licked it off her fingers. It had a bitter sweetness her palate did not recognize which made her lips tingle. She scraped fingerfuls off the tree and stuck them in her mouth until her lips and gums were numb. It went down easily, and she did not stop until there was none left on the side of the tree. She would look for more.

Neel set out early. On my own! he thought to himself. He wore the straw hat his uncle had given him the day before and in addition to the food, the small flask of retsina, and a couple of bottles of water, he still had the curved knife for cutting the Aleppo trees. He passed through the rows of Assyrtiko grape vines—Vitis vinifera species he noted to himself—which his aunt and uncle used to make the wine which would be flavoured later with resin. He passed through the forest, too busy identifying every plant and tree he saw to realise how quickly he was climbing. He finally made it to the family Aleppo grove and continued up to the base of the cliffs stopping often to wipe the sweat from his eyes.

He poked and clambered around the rocks and went into the caves he guessed the archeological team had been exploring, mapping it all out in his mind. Even better than indexing fossils, he thought.

The pain in her mouth was beginning to ease. She couldn’t bite down on hard nuts, but managed berries and leaves that helped ease her hunger and searched for more of the sticky sap. Some of it she could lick off her fingers right away, other parts were gummier but could be chewed carefully.

Neel continued to roam the cliffs and mentally catalogued every spot he wanted to return to. By noon he was hungry and sat in a cave entrance, just out of the full sun to eat the fruit, nuts, and fresh vegetables and indulge in sips of the still cold retsina. He sat back and tried to imagine El Graeco in this very cave, maybe seeing the same pieces of sparkling rock that he was seeing. They would have hidden here for the night and in the morning moved down the hillside toward the vineyard, stopping to pull wild walnuts or pistachios off the trees or dig for wild garlic or the prehistoric tubers that looked like carrots. Neel stood up and marched down the rocky slope. The same slope he knew early hominids had walked. He tripped on the scree and scraped his hand but ignored it as he hurried to soak in the scene of an Aleppo grove that had once been full of apes.

Chewing remained difficult for the Ape, but at least it was now possible. Digging for tubers yielded treasures that were not too hard on her mouth. She was surrounded by trees that had more of the sticky food she now knew was helping ease her pain. She scraped off more and started chewing it while the small group stopped to rest before heading back to shelter in the rocks as darkness approached. She was still chewing when they finally settled for the night.

Neel’s hand was stinging from his fall when he reached the grove where he decided El Graeco would stop to rest so he decided to do the same. He knew about the medicinal qualities of resins and in particular the resin of the ancient Aleppo pine. He took out his knife and made a shallow cut on one of the trees to get some of the resin while it still oozed freely and which he could easily spread on his hand. He knew that resins were traditionally used to relieve pain whether applied to a wound like he was doing, or as a poultice for abscesses.

He sat down against a tree and as he imagined the troop heading back up the slope to shelter against the rocks for the night, he suddenly thought about one of the caves he had catalogued in his head. He remembered what his uncle had said about the nomads finding amber to use in bartering and trade. Resin hardens over millions of years to form amber which is both beautiful and often contains pieces of ancient history trapped in a golden-coloured and reflective gem.

He turned and moved as fast as he could back to the cave where he sat in the exact spot where he had stopped to eat earlier.

Closing his eyes, he tried to remember where the sun had glinted off something stuck in a crack running through a rock. He opened his eyes, spotted it, and moved to pick it up. I am the first human ever to touch it.

Encased in amber that had taken millions of years to form from the Aleppo resin, was a tooth.

As total darkness settled in, she was still awake and chewing the gum she had started earlier. She rolled it around with her tongue and felt something hard. She spit it out against the wall of the cave and saw that a tooth had come out, covered in the goo.

By the time the sun rose, and it was safe to move, the Ape was herself again but she still felt uneasy. The troop was now waiting for her to lead the way; they trusted her new vision, but as she surveyed the landscape below, she was unsure which way to take. The vision of their future was blank.

This is another in a series of stories drawn from the 1975 Chris de Burgh album, Spanish Train And Other Stories. I have endeavoured to be faithful to the spirit of the stories and in some cases include lyrics relevant to tell the tale. As with any fiction, there will also be cases where some license is taken to create and complete a story line.

I don't know if the young boy had a plan for his future but I am sure he never considered the possibility of being killed before his time.

His father and I often worked together on carpentry projects - shared tools and helped each other transport heavier objects that someone had commissioned. This is how I gradually got to know Yeshua, Son of Joseph of Nazareth.

He was just like many young boys living in Palestine but had little desire to take on his father's trade. More interested in trying to make life better for himself and others, he was curious about the world around him and did everything he could to learn about astrology, alchemy, nature, the heavens, and medicine. He was also extraordinary in his talents which I put down to his love of science.

Like many other boys his age he could also be spiteful as I witnessed one day while walking through the streets and saw him running ahead of me.

"Hey, watch out!" he yelled at a boy who tried to rush by him in the crowded area around the market. Yeshua spun around as they collided and yelled, "You'll never get where you were headed with such haste!"

With that, the unfortunate boy took a few more steps then fell to the ground. Yeshua had been at the market and was carrying spice, herbs, and medicine as he made his way home. Yeshua stopped and looked briefly at the boy and then hurried on his way. Many thought the boy was struck dead by Yeshua but were afraid to say so. Others thought a weak heart at the centre of his vitality killed the boy as he ran. Yeshua was viewed with suspicion by those who witnessed the event and in the small community there was much talk about the incident. My thought was that some of those medicinal herbs in Yeshua's satchel had found a way into the boy and killed him on the spot. I forever kept those thoughts to myself lest more gossip tainted his reputation even further.

Yeshua still went to his father's workshop and learned some of the basics of the trade but he also visited the stone mason's regularly to learn how to cleave stones and use them in buildings. Realizing he would never get his full attention, Joseph saw a different future for his son.

"He will never take up our trade," he said to me one day. "He has unique gifts and I know he will find a special place in the years to come so I have found him a teacher who is a faithful friend as well. He must learn his letters and learn about philosophy and history and the world."

There was no question about the boy and his thirst for knowledge. At the age of twelve he was with his parents when they joined others on a family pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He became separated from the group and when they finally found him, he was engaged in deep discussion with the teachers at the Temple who were taken aback by the boy's eagerness to learn and understand.

By the time he was about fifteen years of age, I saw little of the young man who was becoming wise beyond his years, but who otherwise would never have stood out in a crowd. Much of what I learned came to me from his father and from travelers coming from Sepphoris, a town known for its art, culture, and as a place for learning. It was also a place where the peasantry was oppressed by the elites and priestly class.

The very same men Yeshua had gone to seek out as his teachers.

"He does not like what he sees among the people," one traveler told me. "And he is searching for answers to raise them up without offending others." Another noted that, "He does not work, but his many friends and followers from the craftspeople and merchants in the town ensure he has a roof over his head and food to eat. In exchange he teaches and shares his philosophy.

"What is the latest on your boy?" I asked his father one day after having heard no news in some time.

"He is no longer a boy, but a young man now and I hear little of him. A farmer returning from Sepphoris said he has left the town and is travelling far."

As I started to gather more stories it was clear Yeshua was wandering in search of more enlightenment. One story came from a stranger who spoke with awe of a man by the side of the road in the late evening wrapped tightly in a burnoose with the hood drawn around his head for warmth. When the stranger stopped to make sure the man was alright, he immediately felt the calm about him despite the cool air and the possible danger in stopping there.

"I myself have wandered for some time now and never met anyone quite like him. He shares his knowledge freely and though poor and with little to call his own, asked after my welfare and offered me something to eat from the meagre victuals he had in his leather purse. I have promised to join him in Jerusalem to speak out against the oppression we experience from the Romans."

"Forgive me, I did not get your name," I asked as he was leaving.

"Simon," he said. "I will be back this way many times and will tell you more of your friend."

And I did hear many more stories over the years. Some stories such as his outburst among the money changers in the Temple were concerning as Yeshua approached his thirtieth year, but as I heard more I was able to piece together a picture of his life and what eventually would become of him.

Yeshua had continued his travels and one night was attacked and beaten by robbers and left by the side of the road. He was found by a zonah by the name of Mary who took him in. Seeing no more than just a poor peasant needing help and a place to sleep, she tended to his wounds. A peasant on the road takes many challenging steps and Mary washed his hands and feet while he slept and applied oils to ease the physical and spiritual hardness of his travels. His sleep was interrupted several times by what must have been visions as he would toss and turn and cry out. Each time she held him tight and gave him love and comfort. By morning light he was much recovered and she prepared the daily bread for them both to eat. For several days they sat by the small fire in her home well into the night as he talked of his dream where all people would be equal and no one would be scorned by the priests and government officials. Each day Mary helped comfort him when he despaired of the future and she gave up the profession that had made her an outcast in the city.

Many of the people who passed through our town stopped to see me as word spread that I was a friend of Yeshua and they wanted me to know of his progress

As weeks and months passed, people observed that Mary and Yeshua spent their evenings together in reflection, but by day he would gather people wherever he could to talk about how all men could be brothers no matter their station in life. Mary brought her sisters and Simon his brothers. These followers soon saw the priestly class as the ones who would not admit the equality of all peoples. They spoke out against the scribes and the legal scholars and those associated with the money changers who sought to profit from their fellow men.

One traveler who went by the name of Matthew had been a tax collector but had left that calling as he learned more from Yeshua.

"I fear for your friend," he confided. "While wise and persuasive he is just an ordinary man, but people see more in him. They are inspired by his talk and believe they can break free of our Roman masters and worship who they wish. It is putting him in danger. If you have any influence you must plead with him to temper his message. He does not see what is happening. If he fails to control his followers, the Romans will do it for him."

I doubted that I would have much influence over him but as a favour to the aging Joseph I set out on a journey to Jerusalem. Over the next few days as my old donkey brought me closer to my destination there were more stories. Each one more alarming. Anxiety was taking hold of me when Jerusalem came into sight.

Once within the walls of the city it did not take me long to find him. He was seated on a stone, surrounded by people who hung on to his every word. There were Roman soldiers nearby including a Centurion who was also listening closely to what Yeshua was saying.

Though I had not seen him in at least ten years, he was little changed. Dressed in a simple tunic and exuding energy, he spoke of how all men could be brothers. A line of thinking that ran contrary to Roman rule and was undermining their social traditions. I spotted Simon in the gathering around Yeshua and he came over to speak to me.

"Yeshua will help us move past these years of Roman rule. He has the followers and courage; we have the numbers and the determination. We can win out."

I shook my head and warned Simon, "The Romans are too powerful my friend. Tread carefully. I must speak to him."

As the crown began to disperse Yeshua saw me and waved but he was swept along by those who wanted his attention and I heard some of them call him "Lord" as they sought his blessing. I decided to see him in the morning and found lodgings for the night.

I had troubled dreams about Yeshua all night long, awoke early, and set out to find him. I asked several passersby where he could be found and they all seemed afraid. At last, one man I recognized as a friend of Simon pointed me to one of the gates of the city.

"At the break of day soldiers came to take him away. They were shouting at poor Yeshua and accusing him of spreading lies and hate, and that he was a danger to the state. Mary was there and there were tears falling like rain from her and from the others. There was nothing any of us could do."

I hurried outside the walls and followed the crowd gathering near Golgotha. He was being dragged up the hill by soldiers and one of his followers was forced to carry the cross. Yeshua was to be crucified.

A woman I presumed to be Mary followed along crying out that he was just another man so please leave him alone. Just another poor boy who meant no harm to anyone. Tears covered her face as she watched Yeshua being nailed to the cross.

I saw the Centurion from the day before and begged him to put a stop to this. He was unsettled at what was unfolding, but said this had been ordered by Pilate himself. "Who was he anyway?" he cried and turned away.

Mary collapsed at the foot of the cross and screamed, "Oh Lord, what has this poor boy I found by the road done to deserve this? Lord, he is just another boy and I will never see him again."

I could not believe such an end was possible for a boy like him and as the sky turned dark, I prayed for my poor young friend that there would yet be a way forward. I had already witnessed some of the miracles that surrounded him and heard tales of many more. I prayed there would be more but I feared that in the end he was no more than just another poor boy.

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Towers have always fascinated man and have been the downfall of many who have tried to build towers to reach the heavens and towers for people to look on for their greatness.

The Lord of the Castle in the forest was no less a man than these. He already had a Tower his grandfather had built to show his power and might. This Lord of the Castle wanted to assert his power over the forest and the countryside of his kingdom so, he hunted. He killed for the sport because the forest was his and he filled the rooms of his castle and adorned the walls of the tower with his prizes.

One day while riding through the forest he spotted a white bird flying over the trees. Just another bird among the many, but he had not yet claimed a prize for the day. He dismounted, nocked an arrow, followed the path of the bird, and with a practiced movement let loose his shot. The arrow was true but when he went to retrieve his prize there was nothing to be found except for a single white feather and blood on the ground.

The Lord cursed at his misfortune. "I could not have missed," and turned to go back to his horse to continue the hunt.

There, standing only a few feet in front of him, was a young woman dressed all in white lace. One arm hung with a bloodied hand hung loosely by her side and she was clearly in pain.

This was his forest and his forest alone where no one dare trespass but he was so overcome with her beauty that he dismissed the suddenness of her appearance and declared, "I must have her; she must be mine. She will be mine."

"You shall not." was her answer. He persisted and withdrew two pouches from the saddlebag of his horse.

"I have silver." He pressed a pouch into her uninjured hand. She dropped it to the ground.

"I have gold." He placed another pouch into her palm and pressed her hand tightly around it. She tossed the pouch aside.

The Lord of the Forest fell to his knees and begged her to come with him and live in his castle. "I promise whatever comforts and needs you might wish will be yours."

She replied, "Sire, I'll go if you put up your bow and spare the creatures of your forest. Leave them in peace. You have no need of them nor do you have many walls left on which to hang them."

The image of the woman as his Lady and his Queen was all he could see so her words were lost to him. His desire was not to be denied.

"You will come to be mine," he said. He lifted her on to his horse, quickly tied her in place behind him, then with a kick to the flanks of his horse, rode off to his castle. There he had his physician tend to her wounded hand and she was moved into the Lord's tower where he would have her become the Lady of the Castle.

No sooner was she thrown into the dark reaches of the Tower than the skies above the forest emptied of Song Birds and instead were filled with Storm Birds. One flapped its wings so hard it made the winds blow; other birds with tufts of red feathers rained down lightning; one with the head of a bear and the body of a bird caused it to thunder, while yet another Storm Bird caused it to rain. The centre of these strange events was the Tower and Castle, but the people of the kingdom witnessed the scene and could not utterly escape the mounting storm,

After seven days the birds disappeared and the air was calm and the Lord visited his Tower and once again asked the object of his desire to become his wife. All she would say was "leave them in peace," and once again her words were lost on the Lord and once again the Storm Birds appeared and cast their elements over the forest. After another seven days they disappeared, leaving behind destroyed vegetation and a damaged Castle.

The Lord of the Castle went to the woman where he found her singing a sad song. It was a song for the animals of the forest but it was lost on him.

"Are you ready to be my Lady and my Queen?" he demanded.

"Leave them in peace," was her quiet reply and she continued with her song which the winds carried throughout the forest and beyond.

The scene was played out in many ways until it was spring again. The swallows did not return with Spring in tow as was their role in the world, newly sown crops surrounding the forest would not grow, and the leaves on the trees were slow in returning.

Ever focused on his quest to win the woman, the changes happening around the Castle and to his Forest went unnoticed by the Lord. He continued to ask her the same question and still did not heed the answer that would have brought him what he desired.

Then one day the air was filled with a shrill sound that was coming in from far away. It drowned out the woman's sad song and to many it sounded like an ancient flute heralding an urgent warning. It approached the forest for days until finally the Seven Whistlers flew into view. These birds brought with them a despair that settled on the castle and everything around it. Still the Castle Lord could not hear her simple words, "leave them in peace."

When the Castle Lord came to see his future Queen one morning, he was horrified to see she was gone. All that remained was a white feather.

He looked up and saw a huge flock of Ravens. As the Tower walls started to crumble under their weight, he finally heard the woman's plea.

"Leave them in peace."

But it was too late. There were no birds and no animals left to leave in peace and as time wore on there would be no people.

All that was left of the Tower were piles of sand, a single feather, and — for the Lord — a memory of what he could not forget and could not attain.

Old friend you seem to be having troubles again.

In our early days whenever you called and said it was time for a glass of wine you knew I would be there. I was never a wine drinker but it was your way of saying this was a chance to spend some time together and you would tell me so many stories. When you shared the troubles you were having making it through a day, I did my best to comfort you when you needed someone to share your aches, your pains, and to be a friend.

You were old and I was young, but when you needed to get out, I was there to keep you company and help you along. Our favourite outings were fishing. We walked for miles! You taught me so much on those adventures. I learned to swim in the lake and you would throw sticks which we would watch drift away, and skip stones which sank out of sight.

When you didn't feel like going out, there was always time to join you in quiet moments where our thoughts and dreams went unsaid. After so many years enjoying our company together, there was often little need to talk. When you were away I had lots of others to spend time with, to walk with, and to talk about things I did not always understand as I did with you. Never fear old friend; I always waited eagerly for your return.

But I was growing older too — and like you — not always ready for another adventure. On one of our last fishing trips I sat by your side and simply relaxed while you talked to me. It is so clear in my mind even now what you asked of me.

"When the years are heavy and my heart is growing cold my little friend, I wish that when the evening comes, there'll always be an old friend who'll miss me too."

There is no doubt I will miss you, so when you called to me and said time for a glass of wine, I came. I needed some help getting on the bed because I am almost eighteen and for me it is a difficult jump. I curled up by your side and felt those familiar hands stroke my fur and ruffle my ears. Your breathing was heavier than I remember but it is now late in the day for both of us.

We'll close our eyes knowing that to the very end we remained old friends.

Being a Duke has its benefits, but it also comes with obligations. Some of them seemingly frivolous, but necessary to keep up appearances. One of those obligations was making sure all the Dukes and Duchesses were hanging somewhere in the manor. Not the actual Dukes and Duchesses of course, though mind you there were some rogues, pesky old maids we called tabbies, and better forgotten ladies who had lost their treasure in foreign laps, who all probably deserved to be hung somewhere at least. But those were not the ones I was obligated to preserve. That was already done.

No, these are the portraits specially commissioned to preserve the family history. An obligation going back to the late 1500s.

My portrait was already on the staircase leading up from the main entrance. Next to me was my late wife. Gone now for nearly two years. Taken by a strange malady the doctor and the coroner were never able to determine.

Now it was time for the new Duchess to hang on the other side of me.

I remember the commission so incredibly well. He arrived in a horseless carriage. This was no poor struggling painter my wife had me engage.

"Greetings your Grace" he said as he exited from the French Prunel which had become a symbol of some status for those who could afford a horseless cab. It was also the last time he addressed me as "your Grace" and it marked his insinuation into our household.

I nodded in his direction. "Greetings to you as well. Someone will be with you shortly to show you to your rooms."

He carried only one satchel but also had his easel, sketch pads, a worn and stained wooden box presumably full of his paints, and another wooden box engraved with his initials, CJK.

"Per our agreement, in addition to your fee we will provide you with one month's room and board. Unless you are specifically invited to dine with the Duchess and myself you will take your meals in your rooms or with the staff. I have designated a studio area with good natural light where you may work for the remainder of your stay."

The Duchess came out in her usual long skirt and ruffled blouse. She and the painter exchanged a kiss on the cheek.

"Welcome CJ," she exclaimed. "I can't wait to get started."

So began the month that dragged on and on with so many sketches and seemingly too little painting.

"You will join us for dinner on your first night here." She said and then turned to me to ensure it was to my liking.

He had the manners of a gentleman and was gracious that first night. He and my wife had met at an art show and over a few weeks met for tea, discussed art, and eventually he offered to paint her portrait. She had begged me to have this painter of "modest means, but rich talent" as she described him to receive the commission that was necessary for her to have her illustrated place in the family history. "Please," she had said. "Please. He is so nice and ever so talented. His work will not compete with the Masters on your walls, but this is a new century and he lives and breathes that new modern air. Please?"

I relented because she did indeed need to find her place. A decision I regret to this day.

I could hear them in his studio space. Him charming and being all too familiar by asking for Madam to please do this, and please turn this way, or Madam please hold still while I capture the moment on my sketchpad. Her laughing and asking him just how she should pose and was the light all right because she wanted to look beautiful for the family gallery. I knew the smile she was offering. It was a smile I loved when courting her and have seldom seen since.

We kept separate bedrooms except when the mood overcame us but as a light sleeper, I was always aware of her comings and goings no matter what the hour. One night I heard her come up the stairs and enter her room exceptionally late. Over breakfast I questioned the hour and with near imperceptible hesitation she brushed it off. "The light dear. We needed to experiment with different light to capture just the right moment so I can hold my own with many generations of your family."

This needed to end.

Then it did.

My Duchess was not at breakfast one morning and her painter was nowhere to be found. My first thought was that they had once again ventured out in search of new light and settings. When some hours had passed the local constabulary were called in to help. They observed that her bed had not been slept in, nor had the bed of the painter. They brought in their specially-trained bloodhounds to search the grounds. Sometime around mid-afternoon a police sergeant came back to the house with the bad news. She had been found hanging in the woods. Her clothes had been torn. There was still no sign of the painter he added, except for his smashed paint box.

Days went by and the search for the painter continued. The police had no doubt that he was the culprit because of course I and all the household staff had been sound asleep and unaware of any comings and goings. Constables were posted at the train station and the nearest ports. I dutifully ordered posters to be put up with the likeness of the painter to help apprehend him.

It has been a year now since the tragic events took place. There was an almost completed portrait of her in the painter's studio and using his many sketches as a guide I had another artist, a much more reliable chap I should add, complete the work. It is now hanging in our grand house, as I prepare to re-marry. The new Duchess will soon hang among my many ancestors. My portrait is flanked by my 2 dear wives and they will soon have company.

As for the lost painter?

I can promise you he will remain forever lost.

I was nineteen when the Mods and Rockers tried to beat each other up at Margate. I was more of a Teddy myself but hell, I couldn't afford a scooter, a motorcycle, or an Italian suit so maybe I didn't fit anywhere.

Music was all I was interested in and I was going to make it my life.

After a few years of playing local gigs, doing covers and a few of my own songs, I started to hear about everything that had been going on across the pond in the US during the Summer of Love. A summer of music, of hippies, of young people celebrating what they called good vibrations. Stuck here in Kent, those events were a lifetime away.

Jilly meant the world to me and it took me weeks to work up the courage to tell her what I was thinking.

"Jilly, I may not be Sarstedt good yet but I'm just going to fade away here. And I have more to say than just getting caught up in who's better. The Mods? Rockers? Ton-up Boys? Teddy's? Who cares. I don't even think they care. Innit just them wanting to get in someone's face? I need to take my songs somewhere away from this place."

She didn't seem surprised.

"At last. The last time you played in the pub your heart wasn't in it. You're restless. Ya, you have lots to say and this little piece of England isn't much of a stage anymore. Go."

She leaned in and whispered in my ear, "Better days are ahead whether you are here or in London. I'll wait until you are ready for me to share them with you."

Within a few weeks I was standing in the rain at the train station. Fleetwood Mac's "Albatross" had been playing on the radio as she drove me, my bag, and my best guitar to the station. Even on the tinny radio of her little VW the brushing of the cymbals brought back the sound of waves on the beach where we spent so much time together. It was autumn now and a chilly wind stirred up the leaves as we drove through the countryside. I would miss it all.

Jilly still had the smile in her eye as we said goodbye but the smile wasn't as bright as it usually was. I was leaving my home and leaving my Jilly alone.

When I finally arrived at Charing Cross Station in London I still hung on to Jilly's smile and hoped I would never let it disappear. I caught the Tube to Piccadilly but as I stepped out into the street there were few smiles in sight and even fewer trees shedding their leaves to mark my arrival. It made me feel like I was late for one party but still ready to follow the die-hards on to another party. The Beatles were on the edge of packing it in as a group and Brian Jones was dead but we had been led into the Court of the Crimson King and Fairport Convention was asking us to walk a while with them as they brought the alien worlds of folk, rock, electric, and acoustic together for a new sound. That would be my new home.

I didn't have a lot of savings so the first thing to do was find a cheap squat, a street corner to busk, and a pub to play in.

I made it through the winter. Just.

Shortly after 1970 rolled in I had a regular slot in The Greyhound. Money wasn't great but I always got a bite to eat, a pint or two, and tips.

Jilly came every couple of months to visit.

"I still have a bed for two," she reminded me every time she walked into my cramped studio flat. "I mean it is cozy in here and all, but . . ." Her voice trailed off every time.

"How much of this do you smoke?" was often the next question as she picked up my stash.

Not that she minded and if there was a rolled joint handy she was quick to light up. She was crap at rolling her own. We'd smoke, have sex, and soon it would be time for her to head back to Kent. When she wasn't visiting, I tried to focus and follow a routine. Mornings were for writing songs and tweaking the ones I already had. Afternoons were for busking so people could hear what I had written.

It was frustrating. Oldham was managing the Stones, drove a Porsche, and never had to play outside waiting for coins to be thrown in a hat. He wasn't even thirty!

The only time I felt like I was headed in the same direction was when I was in a pub or club. The Greyhound was the best. It had three floors, each with a different stage. Usually, it would be a mix with jazz on one level, rockers on the top 'cos they were the loudest, and the folk experimenters like me somewhere in between. Sometimes it felt like I was back at home when fights broke out. They were like tribes. Rockers vs anyone who gave a two-fingered salute to their music.

Soon it was autumn again and I would be missing the golden colours of home and the warmth of Jilly. City nights were cold and it wasn't because I didn't have shillings for the heating. Once out of the warmth of wherever I had a gig, I was walking in the London that could be bleak in winter. Dense fog brought its own cold creepiness and deadened sounds around you. I would call Jilly on the telephone when I had some extra money just to hear her voice as she sat by the fire in her home that overlooked the channel. It took away the city chill. A chill that was wearing me down.

The winter came and went and it was back to busking. I had earned enough to record a couple of demo tapes. One a folk-rock cover, the other one of my own songs that pushed folk into the psychedelic. For weeks I spent my days going from producer to producer with no success. I had to go back to busking part of the day to earn money.

I still had a chance to play in the club where a man named Leaf was a barkeep. "Hey man, you need to try this. It's a real trip. Turns on a whole new path to your creative soul. This stuff is destined to melt the Cold War."

The 'stuff' was LSD. He held out a quarter inch square paper tab off a piece of blotting paper. The liquid drug was mixed with sugar and a perforated sheet of blotting paper printed with the dealer's logo was dipped in the mixture. This one was Blue Cheer. "Like the detergent", he grinned. He swore by the quality of his product.

I put the tab on my tongue and let it soften and dissolve. My music dissolved with it and was reborn in my head with more tones and colours than I ever knew existed. I was seeing the songs and hearing the colours. It took a full day before I started to come down from the first experience and Leaf told me to wait a few days before the next one.

My routine changed. A tab every week. I tried Unicorn and Horus, but Blue Cheer was the cleanest. And Leaf was ready to sell when I wanted to buy. Those weekly trips brought new life to my music but a new realization of the world around me. While my brain buzzed, the streets I was walking through were grimy and without a hint of the colours that resided in my head. Dick Wittington had gone to London because he thought the streets were paved with gold. The only gold for me was from the sunset I saw when busking along the river. Sun didn't come into the picture when you were in clubs and pubs. Another autumn was passing me by but there were no golden leaves like there would be at home right now. Unlike Dick Whittington, my fortunes weren't changing.

By the autumn of '73 I was hanging out with other musicians and artists disillusioned by London being ground down around us. I gave up my flat and moved into a squat in Camden. With jemmy bars in hand, we had carefully pried open the doors of a derelict old house. Derelict because a developer was buying up houses in the area for office buildings and evicting the existing tenants. Gone were the Mods, Rockers, and Teddys. We were part of a new sub-culture out to bring life back to the crumbling corners of the city. Though faded, the area was still home to colour. The signs over now closed shops still had life. Old flowerpots on stoops and balconies still bloomed with colour in the spring. There was a community garden maintained by the squatters and the few renters who were still hanging on to what they could. Artists had painted murals on empty building walls.

"Come on, give me a boost." Said a young woman holding a small can of paint and a brush. She was painting all the old streetlights around the square: green shades, red posts, and bright yellow bases. I helped her complete a dozen that still had bulbs and could be flicked on at night. There was a carnival in the spring as we emerged from a winter marked by unreliable heat and lukewarm tea by candlelight. The carnival was a re-awakening with more colour in the square than there was in the surrounding parts of the city where I had to busk and try to sell my songs. Leaf kept the acid supply bubbling.

Jilly quit coming to see me. She didn't judge my life but never embraced it either.

As another autumn approached the thought of another year surrounded by the greyness of London while my thoughts were a swirl of colours was more than I could bear.

I had been away from my home for too long and its pull was now too strong to ignore. Unlike what I tried to sing about, the colours and sounds of home were real. I found a call box and phoned Jilly.

I wasted no time when she answered because I needed to get on the road before I could change my mind.

"I'm coming home. I know the leaves are falling Jilly and the wind is calling me. I can hear the rhythm of the rain on your cottage right now. It's silly how much I miss that sound and how much I love you and your bed just right for two. I know I've left you alone and I hope I haven't made you cry. It's alright I'm on my way."

All I could hear on the other end of the line was the rain.

"Jilly? It's time I was going home. Hold on darling."

Oh Lord, how I have missed that country rain and it was plain to me that it was time to be at home.

"Jilly?"

Only the wind and the rain were left for me to hear.

The ship's crew existed on the very edge of time and travelled outside the order of the universe.

Their civilization had lived this way for as long as anyone could remember but their history and stories contained warnings to ensure their unique place in the endlessness of space was treated with care and respect. They knew that even one small error came with consequences for the travellers and perhaps for those who lived outside the crew’s own world.

As the ship approached the planet that orbited not too far from its sun, the crew made an error.

After travelling hundreds of light years in less time than this planet had taken to circle its sun, that one error, that seemingly minor mistake, would turn their presence from a dim curiosity to a light that would haunt the people of this world for thousands of years.

As the one responsible for investigating what occurred I need to offer some context to those trapped in the linear nature of time and who must follow the order of their own existence. There was little known about the place as the ship approached a world that had existed for only four billon years of its own timekeeping. The mission was to simply learn more and add it to the catalogue of what inhabited the cosmos. One could call the crew historians of the cosmos. They had only planned to circle the world, collect measurements, and capture a moment in time to preserve for future visits and enable study of the progress of the organisms that lived there.

Here is what was recorded from that time:

"We have come too close."

The Navigator noted the error for several of the planet's minutes and put a correction in place. Too late.

"We can be seen by the people below. They inhabit a very small place, even by the planet's standards. Hills on one side, desert on the other. With so few to observe our presence the difference we make should be negligible."

The ship's Principal noted the facts. "We will wait here then and observe," and he asked for all the data recorders to be engaged. "Send our Traveller closer."

The recording from that time captured and collated the preparations being made. With few inhabitants they felt safe in collecting more detail.

There was a Traveller aboard all of our ships as a specialized member of the crew. Bred, trained, and equipped with unique technology to examine a planet without causing damage, a Traveller could only venture out after receiving specific instructions from the Principal of the ship.

There was one more error for the crew to deal with as was recorded:

The Traveller left the spaceship and sought out the most active site on the ground. It observed a simple setting by the standards of other nearby settlements.

"I have found a seemingly busy area in a stable reserved for animals in an area below rooms where people live. There are more people in the stable area than above it and they are all gathered around an infant of their race. I am maneuvering to a better viewing angle and turning on lights and monitoring equipment."

Before the Principal could stop the Traveller from lighting up the night sky, all the equipment was engaged and a rhythmic electronic hum filled the air. The people below all looked up at the bright light.

"They will be frightened at your presence," warned the Principal. "It is too late to back away. Reassure the inhabitants in any way you can."

The Traveller moved in further and turned on its audio. "Do not fear, I come from a planet a long way from here and I bring a message for mankind to hear. We move in and out of time and can reassure you that we are here only in peace and bearing goodwill toward you."

The voice boomed through the stable and into the surrounding area.

"Patch me through to your audio," ordered the Principal. Once online, the voice carried over a wide area as well. “When two thousand years of your time has gone by, we will return to observe your progress and with the same message of peace will mean no harm to your descendants. Meanwhile we will stay here through your night so we can understand more about who you are."

The following morning the Traveller returned to the ship and they left as promised.

In my subsequent investigation of the matter, I have highlighted the two errors which may have changed the direction for those who witnessed the ship and its Traveller. First there was a navigation error which brought the ship too close to the planet. Even at such an early stage in its history, the ship could have been observed from a distance. Once observed, the error was compounded by the curiosity of the ship's Traveller who made the decision to move in for closer observation. The crew was reprimanded but was allowed to make the follow-up observation mission.

I have added a brief appendix to this report based on the data the crew collected on that trip:

What were generally considered to be minor errors at the time have had serious consequences. The population attributed the sighting of our ship and the contact with the Traveller as some kind of miraculous visit. Consequently, the civilization has broken itself into factions, each with its own interpretation of what the contact meant. The planet is far from peaceful and goodwill is in short supply. Intolerance abounds and the complex relationship between groups has led to endless conflicts.

While we exist on the edge of time, we cannot right past wrongs. We will continue to monitor the planet from a distance but do not expect to see any change or any future for its people.

When the war ended it was a relief for Patricia. She would not be losing any more boyfriends to the trenches or to lives that were forever altered by what they had seen or heard. She would never really know what it had been like for those who had lived through it, but that was 1918. Now it was 1924 and not only was life different, she felt very different.

She had a job during the war. Britain needed young women like her to drive trucks, become radio operators, do the clerical work, act as translators, or like Patricia, work in munitions factories.

"They called us Munitionettes." She said to yet another man at yet another job interview. Like all the other job interviews the answer would come back the same. "Sorry dear; we are not sure you have the qualifications or experience to work in this office.”

Her work in the munitions factory had given her money of her own and earned her some independence. She even had a little place near the wharf with a view of the Thames. The work continued for a while after the war but eventually munitions production diminished; the men had been demobbed and were back home clamouring for their old jobs. Patricia and other women like her were no longer needed beyond some of the temporary work she managed to find to keep body and soul together.

She and many of her friends were flexing their independence by starting to rebel against what was happening around them. They wore the latest closely bobbed hair styles. Where their dresses should have been cut high, they were showing off the neckline and shoulders. Hemlines were no longer cut low and instead showed off some knee, shocking other women and their husbands who pretended to be shocked as well, but who could not resist taking an extra peek as their wives dragged them away.

"We have no damn chance," she said to the woman sitting across from her. "There were millions of us working during the war. We kept England going. We'll be able to vote soon. But get a decent job? Keep us in the kitchen or the bedroom. That's it."

Maud rolled her eyes and said, "Yes. And Lord, I am so terribly bored. I really can't stand it anymore!"

"Come on Maud darling, time to fight back, dammit. Let's go."

Before they could pay for their gin and tonics and leave, the waiter came by and pointed to another table and said the gentleman had paid for their drinks. He was a thin man, hair brushed back and held in place by Brilliantine which had finally made its way into British shops from France. His pencil moustache had also been groomed and greased to shine. Scarf around his neck, he was not altogether unattractive.

There was a bit of Douglas Fairbanks about him so as they passed by Patricia stopped, twirled her long pearl necklace around her hand, leaned in, and whispered, "We'll be here on Friday night.”

They went straight to Marks & Spencer, shared their plight with the shopgirls, and bought the rouge, powder, eyeliner, and lipstick to complete the transformation into one of the bright young things of their generation. On the way to Patricia's flat to work on their new look they made one more stop. Neither had much money left to spend but they couldn't resist new stockings made from the hottest new material. Rayon. And of course, new garters.

They spent the week wafting about London. They listened to jazz, went to the cinema, eschewed tea time and drank coffee instead. They smoked in public!

When Friday rolled around, they were ready to meet with the gentleman who had bought their drinks. They headed to the wine house late in the afternoon, entered through the ladies’ entrance, and looked around for their gentleman friend. No sooner were they inside than the waiter asked them to follow him and they were taken through to a corner booth. He was there along with two other very sheik young men and several women, all about the same age as Patricia and Maude. All dressed in the latest fashion, drinking cocktails, and laughing out loud.

Patricia sat down beside their new friend and held out her hand.

“Patricia.”

“Patricia,” he said in the finest of public-school accents. “I am Dennis. They say I am a menace, and my dear, you are delicious.”

He stood up to get the attention of everyone in the booth, and announced, “This is Patricia and she is simply Delicia, and she will be our new best friend.”

Maud had seated herself at the other end of the booth and one of the young women she was sitting with took her turn to stand up, lifted her Pimms, and let everyone know their other new best friend was “Maud and oh gawd, she is divine”.

The next twenty-four hours were dizzying. First, they all went to a jazz club. The Cecil was unlike anywhere Patricia had been. Everything was pink, white, and gold. The 5-piece band had a piano, violin, saxophone, banjo, and drums. And a dancefloor! They danced the Charleston and drank from hip flasks the men had in their jacket pockets and the women had tucked under their skirts and held by a garter.

The world was turning fast for Patricia.

Dennis had a Bentley Red label touring automobile and two of the other young men also had autos. Soon they were all out of the club and headed to a party.

And it was one swell party. The house in one of the best parts of London belonged to a judge who was said to be away at his country place. No one knew who was home to host the party. As they piled out of the three cars, Dennis yelled, “Anyone for tennis?” and was begging, “Patricia, please do come and keep score,” then he and Maud took up racquets while the rest of the group scattered around the grounds and into the house.

No need for hip flasks here. Liqueur and brandy cocktails were plentiful.

Someone was sitting at the grand piano and playing decidedly unclassical music. Patricia loved to sing and joined the piano player to sing Second Hand Rose.

The music, the people, and the liquor were starting to consume Patricia. As she sang, she glided around the piano waving her pearls and letting the fringe of her dress swirl around her. A group of partiers gathered around and started clapping. Patricia took off her cloche and threw it out into the room. Off came her long, lace, fingerless gloves, and up they went before drifting gently into the hands of a boyish-looking young man in his striped blazer. Then the feather and rhinestone headpiece went high in the air and everyone scrambled to catch it.

Before anything more hit the floor, Maud sidled up to Patricia, who was by now adding some weight to her Delicia moniker, and said quietly, "Better stop there dear. The men are tumbling down in heaps and gathering at your very feet. They are getting the message.”

Sometime around three a.m. they managed to find their automobiles and Patricia and Maude were deposited at their flats with the promise that they would all meet again that night. As the roadster sped away Dennis yelled, “Something special for you Patricia Delicia! A teaserama of an evening ahead!”

That evening was chilly when Dennis arrived for another night out and he was wearing his raccoon coat. He offered a creamy-coloured fur coat to Patricia to keep her warm.

"Remember love, I am the menace and you are certainly no dumb-dora. Tonight, we meet in Piccadilly and you shall get your lips wet from a glass of 1924 you have never sipped from before."

The auto was soon parked; Dennis put on his flat-brimmed hat, tossed his raccoon coat into the jump seat, and they walked down the street to meet the rest. Maud was already there in the company of one of the men dressed in a patterned vest and his own brand of sporty hat with a wide and wild hatband.

They entered the club after Dennis slipped a pound note into the pocket of the doorman. The jazz was loud, the room was dark, and the tables were lit with candles. They found a table close to the stage which was empty and only dimly lit. Champagne appeared as did another one of Dennis' acquaintances.

He looked at Patricia in a way that should have made her feel uncomfortable but it was 1924, she wanted all the attention she could stir up. Like all young women, she was looking to her freedom and like all young people wanted more distance between her and the war.

"Dennis you are a menace indeed for keeping her hidden away so," and turning back to Patricia, "men must hang around you in groups my dear, like battle-weary troops. Home from war and looking for comfort and peace."

A small jazz combo had made their way to an area next to the stage and the lights were up, but the new addition at the table kept looking at Patricia. Finally, he rose from his chair, straightened the jacket of his tuxedo, adjusted his bowtie, took a drink of Patricia's champagne, and walked onto the stage.

"Ladies and gentlemen, flappers and sheiks, men and women, darbs and dames."

A solo clarinet had started to play.

"Welcome to the show of shows on another night of nights. Please remain in your seat, do not rush the stage, and if you feel faint at the sights you are about to see,” he paused, surveyed the room, and yelled, "have some more champagne!"

And as the crowd loudly expressed their agreement, the rest of the band joined the clarinet, a spotlight played around the room, and a chorus line of dancers appeared. They were a precision team of dancers. Almost military to Patricia's eye. Matched in height and hairstyles, they hopped with the music, arm-in-arm sideways across to centre stage, then stopped and did their tap and kick routine. Arms still locked; their legs kicked high as did their dresses which had the audience roaring at the sight. From one side of the stage a lone woman moved gracefully behind the line. Without missing a beat, the line of eight dancers dropped to the floor and continued their routine with feet moving and legs kicking. The lone dancer was now more visible and doing her own routine behind them, bending into shapes that brought sighs, gasps, and applause.

The line of girls in front of her rose up until they were bent at the waist and continued to bob, weave, and kick while the star performer — now only half visible — threw her dress out and onto the stage in front of the dancers. Then with a flourish the chorus line did their sideways tap across the stage, shielding the now dress-less dancer off and into the wings.

The evening continued with more dancers, skits, and songs and the show began to wind down.

"My honoured guests this evening," said the show's emcee. "I have one more treat for you.”

With exaggerated movement he peered around the room as if hunting for that treat until he was looking straight at Patricia's table.

"When I first saw this young lady perform for a very private audience last night, she brought the whole room to their knees and I would like to call upon her to bring you that same gift of song and dance she brought to me. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce to you: Patricia.” He paused, then said deliberately, “Also known as Delicia.” Another pause. “And soon to be known as the best stripper in town!"

Patricia did not lack confidence and she was not afraid to show off her body, but being in the spotlight was a shock. The band had obviously been told what was coming and struck up the same song from the party. And Patricia performed with the same flourish. When she finished there was a hush across the room and for a moment her confidence fell away as easily as the lace gloves had gone. Then a wave of clapping spread across the crowd and everyone stood and cheered.

Patricia, now The Stripper, was not sure of the next move. She saw Maud in the wings and with a swish of her hips she moved off stage to join her. She was flushed from the experience and Maud was ecstatic and squealing "Oh Lord, I am certainly not so bored anymore!"

The emcee who happened to own the club had been waiting with Maud as well. He gave Patricia an envelope.

"We have to pay everyone who appears on stage Patricia, and you earned every shilling."

Over the next few weeks on and off the stage and with Maud's help, Patricia honed her act.

Like all good school girls, they had learned to sew and with streamlined silhouettes being in vogue, dresses were simpler to alter and restyle. But as Patricia had learned from her appearances so far, the body God had given her made fat men want to be thinner just so they could be with her.

"I know, I know,” lamented the newly minted dance hall sensation. "Even in Photoplay they want to flatten our busts. Not for me. Everyone wants to see what I have to offer, Maud."

They set about their alterations with a purpose. Easy-to-open clips were strategically put in place. Step-in chemises were taken in at all the right spots to add emphasis where emphasis would get attention. Brassieres were nipped and tucked and more clips, snaps, buttons, and bows created some extra allure. The fur coat Dennis had let her wear the night of her surprise show was now hers to drive the men mad when she took it off AND when she slipped it back on as she exited the stage.

There was a fine line for Patricia to walk and the owner of the club warned her, "You need to be the good girl in stockings and arouse men without arousing the law. It may be 1924 and some of our", he rolled his eyes as he said, "Patrons" then went on, "May well be judges, lawyers, and even bobbies, but others have conniption fits."

Patricia knew where the invisible line was in front of her and she was good at walking it.

Saturday night was always the best night. The best skits and musicians were held for that night. The room was always buzzing and the chorus line fed off the buzz. The regulars were always there and always brought along friends, wives, and lovers. It was also the night when some of those new faces did not always appreciate what was in front of them and walked out. Patricia never understood why their hosts for the evening had not prepared them. Or why they ignored the poster that said, “This show is not suitable for your aunt from Little Bolton!”

In the dressing room, Maud helped her with the makeup and to get dressed. Patricia's eyes were ringed to perfection. Her lips scarlet so that even those at the back of the house would see them glisten when Patricia rolled her tongue around her mouth. The hair on each side of her face was curled meticulously. Tonight, there was a curl falling down right on the middle of her forehead. Two strings of extra-long pearls. A stylish felt hat. Lace gloves that hooked over her fingers and carried on up to her elbow. Silk stockings.

Patricia Delicia was ready.

The jazz band was ready.

It was always good to start with a slow number and the band had mastered their own version of Second Hand Rose. It was a chance for Patricia to manoeuvre out of her hat and gloves and offer a glimpse of legs. Then they would have a middle bounce and finish with an up-tempo flourish. They had rehearsed and re-worked and rehearsed the act some more. They had hit the point where it attracted a crowd who often queued right down the street on Saturday nights. All eager to see the show.

So, like all her Saturday nights recently, when Patricia (or should we say Delicia), heard the music she gave a kick from the wings for everyone to see and worked her way across the stage.

And with a swing of her hips, she started to strip.

The straps of her dress slid off her shoulders and she shimmied and shook until she could step out of it.

And with a lick of her lips, she undid all the clips, the buttons, and the hooks.

Then to tremendous applause she took off her drawers.

She threw it all in the air and everyone stared.

And the room roared.

The music hit the final tempo and as her last piece of clothing fell to the floor, suddenly the police were banging on the door of the club.

Fourteen plain-clothes officers led by a uniformed sergeant had descended on the premises. No one tried to stop them as they threw open the doors and rushed in.

Patricia left the stage, rather in a hurry of course, grabbing her full-length fur coat as she fled. In no time she found herself face-to-face with the uniformed officer.

The Sunday Mirror report the next morning said the police had converged in taxicabs from different directions. Immediately on arriving the report continued, they "united in a body and rushed the entrance before their identity could be suspected.” It was said they dashed into the room to find a "fashionable throng of fifty people including several well-known in the social world" and soon had apprehended the talk of the city, Patricia Delicia.

The newspaper report for that Saturday night in 1924 was not complete however.

As they took poor Patricia and several of the influential patrons away, many protested while others said a summer in gaol should be the punishment for the gorgeous sinner.

They all arrived at the Cannon Row police station where the judge had already been summoned.

He recognized her immediately and exclaimed to everyone waiting to hear his decision,

"Patricia, or may I say, Delicia. The facts of this case,” and with a wink and a nod. “Stand before me."

He banged the table three times.

"Case dismissed."

He looked around the room before he continued, “She has done nothing wrong. This girl was in her working clothes!"

And with a lick of her lips and a swing of her hips, Patricia's fur coat fell to the floor and all the while the police were now yelling out for more.

Another Saturday night in 1924!

I found it hard to believe how time fell to bits and pieces once I was being readied for battle.

The war started in 1914 - I cannot even remember which month - and I was called up in 1917. I certainly remember that month because my girlfriend and I had spent Christmas together knowing that it could be the last. Then almost to the day of my birthday in January my little grey card arrived. "In accordance with the Military Service Act you are to present yourself for military training", it said, complete with a railway warrant card so I did not have to pay for the journey that could end up with me being killed.

What does a writer and a poet know about being a soldier?

That would be answered as soon as I stepped off the train and found myself surrounded by teachers, bakers, shop keepers, lorry drivers, musicians, and just about any other profession I could imagine. All asking themselves a similar question and arriving at the same answer.

Nothing.

It would take my remaining strength to piece my time back together.

A hulking Sergeant greeted us, yelling above the hissing from the steam engine that had delivered us for our 3 months of training.

"Alright lads, look lively and welcome to the British Army."

I was to present my papers showing I had already passed the physical and that I was at least five feet six inches. At five feet eleven inches there should had been no doubt about my suitability, which I suppose would also make me a better target for enemy fire. One look at my background and education was all they would need to send me to join the storied Artists Rifles. The regiment had only been around for 50 years and most of the Tommies were like me. Not physical lads. Writers, musicians, actors, painters. We were to be part of The London Regiment for the rest of war, which they said would be over by Christmas. They said the same thing when the war started and in 1917 we were still waiting, hoping, and fighting to make the prediction finally come true.

After a month or so — time continued to elude me — I felt less the poet that I had started out as, but not yet a soldier. I would still keep writing and thanks to a ukulele I found in the barracks, thought a few musical notes to go with the poems I jotted down would be a good idea. Even if it was just a few lines or a half dozen pages of my thoughts, I never missed a chance to shove them together and get them in the Post. I would capture the time I was living through and the moments I was experiencing. My own chronicle of the war. For me, my future children, or whoever found it on the battlefield.

Dear Patricia

How are you? Missing you as always. Remember when we were younger and making up songs all the time? I’m trying to add some music to my poetry and that song about whether your memory of me will fade away or will it always be is taking some shape. I’m no Mozart, but he did music notations by hand so I’ll try as well and send my music scribblings to you.

Our Sergeant is a tough one, but fair. And Patricia you have never seen anyone as ugly as him! He’s regular army and been around a while. Weather-beaten and wrinkled as hell. Even when he smiles — which is not often — his mouth is turned down like your neighbour’s bulldog, though not nearly as cute! The fag he always has in his mouth seems to gets lost in those bulldog jowls of his. My friend Bill says he has a bullfrog smile and will be enough to scare off the Bosch when we finally join the rest of the BEF across the channel. We tease Bill a lot because he is 30 years old, making him the oldest in our unit, next to the Sergeant.

Have you been fishing? I miss our fresh fish. They tell us that a full belly means we are fully ready, but well dear, it is not good. There is plenty of meat, potatoes, and bread in the Mess, but you can only take so much tough mutton and overdone beef, and I’m sure the occasional roast of horse.

After this is over my letters and notebooks will be an account of my time of war.

Take care and think of me.

All my love, your favourite soldier

One day, Bill will turn to me after another drill, screw up his face, and tried to grimace like our Sergeant.

“He gets uglier every day. Think he will be with us when we make it into the fray?”

I will take a pull on one of the pipes a local benefactor had given to any man in the outfit who wanted one and wonder how many of us would remain together after training.

“Hope so. He treats us well and I trust him. Besides, we need him to scare all the Germans."

I would laugh at the image of our Sergeant scowling at any enemy soldier who dared come close, yet still felt a chill inside at the thought. It would take more than our grizzled bulldog of a Sergeant to get us through our battles. The urgency of writing in my diary often rose up from my gut, sending more words onto paper. No matter how hard I tried to get down my thoughts or craft a line of poetry, there will never seem to be enough time. Our training will soon be over and the poetry, music, and feelings needed to be jotted down before it was time for the bullets to come my way.

Three months of training will be a blur. I could march, I could shoot. In my sleep I would go home for nights on end but when the reality of morning struck, I will always wonder if I could shoot someone.

After a few days — or was it weeks — our once young and exuberant bunch of wet behind the ears recruits will get the word. The excitement of taking it to the enemy will become a stomach-churning reality me and for my new mates.

"Oi. Listen up lads. You are now members of the British Expeditionary Force. We are heading across the channel."

Our army, dear Patricia, is not yet fully mobile, so our 650 or so strong regiment piled into civilian lorries and buses requisitioned to get us to the ships this morning.

Our Sergeant said "we" would be going across the channel. He will be part of our deployment, Patricia! Bill looked at me when we heard those words and said we would be okay.

I will stock up on paper and envelopes and as we bounced along in conveyances not built for soldiers with their gear, write frantically, not knowing when I would be able to mail my missives. We will arrive at our ship to join thousands upon thousands of men and millions of tons of supplies.

I see men coming off the ships Patricia. They look beaten down. I fear I may never see you again my dear, even with the help of our Sergeant.

I will stuff a letter and a thin notebook into one of the addressed envelopes I always kept with me, and shove it into the hands of one of the nurses helping wounded soldiers off the ship. "Please mail this," I will yell to her as I headed to the gangplank to take their place, "You are holding parts of my life!" I will have to hurry along to keep Bill and the Sergeant in sight.

Once onboard we will learn our destination: Boulogne-sur-Mer. Then on to a camp for another two months of training and limited action to make sure we will be sharpened for battle.

Our training has finally come to an end my dear and we are headed to Belgium. I dream of you in your home so far away and sitting in the evening stillness reading my letters and leafing through my diaries. July is almost upon us and I am sure you will enjoy the sun and find time to go sailing. It is raining here. We have our ponchos to stay dry but that makes our kit even heavier. You would not believe how fit I have become! My gear weighs almost 50 pounds!

Mess time here and I must go. I don't know if your letters will catch up with me anymore but if I finally pass, Is it fair of me to ask again, Will your memory of me, Fade away or always be?

Do not forget your beloved soldier and poet.

Our next two months will come with highs and lows. The Artists Rifles had a short but distinguished history of turning young men from public schools and universities into crack shots, hard workers, and high calibre officers. This bunch I will become so close to will be no different. We will join the rest of the regiment already stationed in France and with the regulars got a dose of real life. It will be into April and we will wait for the initial joy that comes with April showers. Except they will never seem to stop. We will be put to work repairing water logged trenches. Trenches full of mud and depending on which trench and how long it had been since seeing its last battle, the occasional body would be dug up.

Patricia,

I was glad to hear from you last week, even though it took more than a month for your letter to reach me. Yes, I am as well as can be expected in a time of war. We have been learning how to dig, repair, and live in trenches. My darling they say trenches reach from the North Sea all the way to Switzerland! So many Tommies struggling to slice a 4-foot gash through the earth and dig 6-feet down. One of the infantrymen was an architect before he volunteered and he has helped us improve shoring up the trench walls. We scavenged sticks and cuts branches and saplings to weave together to make walls. It has been back breaking work. Remember that fellow we met at the music hall a couple of years ago in Dover? He was playing in the orchestra. He was here when I arrived with Bill and the boys. Anyway, he got shot as we were out collecting trenching supplies. I helped carry his body back. He was still alive when we started out but nothing was going to save him. There was blood everywhere. I felt sick but the rain and the mud hid my face so no one noticed when I wretched. Why does humanity do this to itself?

I miss you every moment and have been putting some of my music into another lined notebook which I shall send soon.

Remember our time together,

Your poet soldier.

April will soon turn to May and it will not rain as much. Or maybe I will no longer feel the changes in the weather. Or maybe I will stop caring. Bill will be there to keep my spirits up. He will always have a joke and be a cracker when it came to imitating the Sergeant. He won’t mind being Old Bill, even though he was barely older than the rest of us. He could really carry a tune and at the end of the day when it was time to mug up, he will quietly sing to himself. I will make a special effort to sit close to help calm myself before trying to sleep.

Patricia, it is the end of May and our training has finally come to an end. We have been in a few skirmishes and though I have fired my Lee Enfield at the Germs, I never really know if any of my bullets struck home. Over a few days we lost Thomas, Owen, and Lakeman who were mates in my squad, but overall, we have been lucky.

Our regiment is known for turning out fine officers but they say we have earned a reputation as fine bayonet fighters as well. I have trained on the dummies and been stabbing at hay bales, but I cannot imagine plunging my bayonet three feet into a man. Can you ever love me once I have killed in such a manner?

With June there would be more rain and our journey to Belgium will begin. The Yanks will enter the war but will not be in time to help with any of the combat we were going to see over the next couple of months. We will arrive in West Flanders in late June, a few weeks after our British boys had launched an attack near the village of Messines. They took the ridge which gave us the advantage of higher ground. Word travelled surprisingly fast along the line with all our trenches connecting up, and we heard that 12,000 of our soldiers and about the same number of Anzacs were killed in the fighting. The enemy lost at least twice as many. Many soldiers on both sides of the battle were missing. We will move into place to relieve the soldiers left knackered by the battle. We will cross a lot of lowland as we work our way up to the ridge, where the drainage systems have been destroyed by constant bombardment. I will find myself sinking in the mud only to hit something solid to regain my footing. That relief will come at the expense of the body of a horse or a Tommy we will never be able to dig out from the thick clay, mud, and silt. I will not stop thinking that if this war ever did end, what would the men and women who would farm these fields find as they ploughed the land and again drained the low areas. Once we will finally make it to the ridge it’ll be drier and we’ll have a commanding view of Ypres to the north and in the distance, sitting on another ridge we’ll see the village of Passchendaele.

We’ll fight numerous skirmishes, be relieved, and come back to fight some more. We won’t be subjected to a full-on assault. Rather our snipers will fire at them and the Bosch snipers will fire back. Sometimes at night we’ll crawl over the edge of the trench with pieces of metal in hand — painted black on one side and polished up as best as we could on the other. We’ll stick them into the ground close to the enemy trench with the shiny side facing our trench. The artillery will use the reflection to judge their range. We’ll shell the Germs. They’ll shell us. It’ll go on without end. I’ll continue to write in my notebook and on scraps of paper. Sometimes I’ll start with the date, but most of the time I won’t have any idea what day it is.

Patricia,

It is such a quiet night that I find myself disoriented. We are on leave in Little Paris which is really just a village that has so far seen little shelling and is surrounded by our troops as well as French, Belgium, and some New Zealanders. It is safe here and there are real shops and a brothel. Never fear darling Patricia, I have not visited the brothel!

I spent part of the afternoon with a mug of quite good tea just sitting on a bench and looking at the sky. There were also birds singing Patricia! Now it is dark and I am looking at the autumn sky and the stars. We are probably only one hundred miles apart right now and can see the same stars. Look up when you get this letter and think of me. There is Post here for the service men so I am also sending one of my notebooks, some parts hastily written when we were hunkered down under cover last week waiting for the shelling to end. Some pages will be wrinkled and smudged. We are once again enduring endless rain. Look at my music and try it out on your piano. You must tell me how it sounds.

Forever your lost and lonely soldier.

After a rest and relaxation break, we’ll march back to the front line and pass a squad of men digging in the soggy ground. I won’t understand what trenches were needed as we’ll still be several hours from our advance lines. I’ll notice the wooden crosses piled high. There will be at least a hundred of them. While we will have been safe on our down time, German shelling will have found its mark. This will be a burial squad. Our job when we reached the line will be to repair the trenches, raise the parapets, and make breaks in the barb wire defence so that we can pass through when it is time to cross the three hundred yards or so of no-man's land and confront the Germs. And live in the mud that will suck at your boots and at your very soul.

While we will wait for the Canadian assault troops to arrive, we will prepare for our first push towards the village of Passchendaele.

When the time comes for the Captain to blow his trench whistle for us to go over the top I will have an image of me frozen for minutes on end, watching men as they pass by me.

It will be early when the whistle blows and those of us lucky enough to have a watch synchronized with our Captain's timepiece will know exactly when it is our turn. The first wave will go fifteen minutes before us with our Sergeant in the lead. Bill will be not far behind him. Our Observers with periscopes will be passing information back down to those of us waiting.

Hello darling Patricia, this is your army boy. I've just got the time to write, because today we attack,

There's no turning back and the boys, well they're all ready for the fight.

Yes, I'm well but this place is like hell, they call it Passchendaele.

It's 1917. God the war must be ending!

The General said this attack will not fail.

I've been writing down this simple little melody.

When you piece all the letters together and play it my love, think of me. We'll be together in this song for you.

They got old Bill, and the Sergeant is still out there. We're certain he is wounded in some shell hole.

They say this war will end all wars, Oh God Patricia, I really hope it will,

How's old England? Are they still singing in the pubs? All those songs that we loved to sing. I miss them so.

When all this is over, we'll go sailing once again off Dover and catching fish like we used to with nothing more than a string and hope.

Oh, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, if they get me my love you will know… We'll always be together in this final bit of song for you...You know how it goes. I have to go now...

Take care of yourself my love for my words may very well outlive me. Share them so people will know.

Your favourite soldier,

My last note is safe in my breast pocket. The whistle blows. My nerve proves to be steady.

Move forward. Aim. Shoot. Move forward. I have no idea how many times or how many shots, but I am ready to deliver my best. Then, the sting of a bullet followed by a second painful blow, knocks me over. I’m cold but it is not the cold from our wretched conditions. It is the cold that comes with death. Everything is muffled around me except the sounds of wounded men. Soon the battle around me fades, but Bill and the Sergeant are there to help me to move on for we are ghosts in this game of war and have made our final moves. I will miss writing.

------------

"Sold to the gentleman on the telephone for 14,000 pounds.”

The gavel came down to close the bidding on the package of slim, tattered notebooks, letters, and scraps of paper sent home from a soldier fighting the war that did not end all wars.

Technically La Bise belongs to Switzerland.

It starts in the Swiss Alps and builds strength in the north before blowing across Lake Geneva and then southward into France. In the summer it is a dry wind and when it arrives the rule of thumb is "avec la bise, lave ta chemise" or "when the bise blows, wash your shirt". The perfect day for hanging out the laundry.

Winter is another story. It becomes a cold, dry wind. Damn cold. When it passes over water it picks up the moisture and coats trees, fences, and the tip of your nose with a layer of frost. On days like today the trees shed those brittle leaves like the tears that rolled down my cheeks as I worked my way to the lonely café.

My woolen jacket kept me warm enough, but as the tiny frozen shards of ice swirled around my knees I quickened my pace and finally made it through the door of La Bicycletterie. I was glad for the familiar warmth and certainly glad it was not one of my many bicycle trips here because as the name hinted, the café was in front and a bicycle repair shop in the back. An incredible little place that seemed to be able to produce parts for just about any age of bike including my aging British bike that required many café visits.

A couple of centuries back there was an icehouse in the courtyard I had passed about a block away and today it would have been warmer inside surrounded by ice than it was outside in the empty streets. Winter was here and summer was really over and here I was, warm in a café with Christmas just a few weeks away. And I was alone. Alone was normal for me, or at least had been up until about four years ago when I was visiting a cathedral in Paris. Gothic cathedrals had always fascinated me and though I had not moved to France to spend my time in them, that is exactly what I had ended up doing. There did not seem to be such a thing as a 'small' cathedral. They were always gigantic and complex structures. Even a smaller cathedral thought it was big. Cathedrals took a long time to build. Notre Dame needed almost 200 years before it was completed so the builders and the designers began their work knowing they would never see it finished, leaving the cathedral to tell its own story.

Those cathedrals would also play their part in telling the story of the time I spent with the young woman I met in a Paris. I didn't know where our time together would go or where it would end up. Sitting here in La Bicycletterie and looking back over those four years, I had also accepted that like those who built cathedrals I would never know how her journey would end. Only that it would continue without me at her side.

When we first met, we had both been standing in the cathedral studying the Lord and Lady that had been forever surrounded by cold stone. Suddenly she spoke out loud and seemed to be asking the lovers why they were close, but not touching. It was something I had also wondered because I often stopped here when taking a break from my writing.

"Well," I answered on behalf of the couple. "We did not die together and by not holding hands one of us is free to start the journey through the sky without being held back, while the other can continue their journey through life."

She looked at the once loving couple with faces captured for all time in stone and said, "There is a poem about a Lord and Lady in their tomb that ends with, ‘What will survive of us is love’. Maybe whether your hands are clasped for eternity doesn't matter."

It had been Christmas then and like now, cathedral choirs were practicing and we had found refuge from the cold wind.

She grabbed my hand and led me to where the choir was rehearsing. Then she knelt to pray and to listen to the choir. I felt out of place standing there beside a kneeling figure so knelt as well, sharing that moment of listening to the choir with her yet not sharing the moment of prayer. A moment that became common over our time together.

Careful not to raise my voice too much I said, "I am not big on prayer.”

"Then quiet and listen. The choir sounds so lonely in this empty space."

From that moment we seemed to sail wherever the winds took us. Le Tramontane, Galerna Mistral, , and eventually here with La Bise, our bicycles, and this café.

With Le Tramontane we cycled along the coast where our summer was spent living in a house with huge oak timbers that evoked the soaring spaces of our favourite cathedrals. It was a wind that brought with it the aroma of Spain and while I wrote my stories, she drew images of the clouds. When the wind brought the heat we often retreated to a cathedral where the thick stone walls and closed shutters offered a break from the winds. Winds that were living up to a reputation captured by Victor Hugo who said“ The wind coming over the mountain will make me mad.” During one of those moments, we sat and gazed up into the lonely upper reaches where images in the stained-glass windows introduced us to more lords and ladies brought together in death, but never touching as they had in life.

By the end of November the cold winds arrived, bringing with it cold rain. After the flush of another New Year together, January dragged on dull and overcast. It was time for us to fly away again.

Galerna tested us. Days were set by the temperament of the wind. It could empty a crowded beach and leave us huddled together watching dark blue clouds move in and merge with the surface of the ocean. The storms could be sudden and I often retreated into my writing while she took refuge in a cathedral. She would return from those solitary visits quiet and restless. "The skies are empty," she would say. "Except for the clouds because even the birds will not come out today.” Galerna has a history of wrecked ships and dead sailors who were not ready for the abrupt changes that come with it. Understanding the wind's fickle nature and reputation helped protect those who got caught up in those lonely skies. I could not contain her restlessness and finally listened to Galerna who was telling me it was time to leave the Bay.

They say the Mistral winds have not only shaped the land, but they will shape your spirit. It blew away dust, cleaned the air, and played with us. It promised rain but never really delivered. It sent away the clouds and let us walk hand-in-hand on warm evenings and sit in old cathedrals lit with candles. The Mistral is the masterly wind and it was difficult for us to break free from its hold. It turned the warm waters cold as we swam together in the ocean under the clear skies the wind regularly delivered into our daily routine. Here we spent time in the largest cathedral we had seen. From where we sat the nave rose 42 metres above us with too many images to take in no matter how often we came to follow the stories that rose above us. At Christmas the sounds of the choir filled the whole cathedral with a ghostly sound that became something new as we moved about the nave and the transept that formed the Latin cross. She loved the choirs and like the Mistral, the huge cathedral was shaping her spirit as she followed the music as it soared higher and higher.

So, the time came once again when she wanted to sail further. Together we faced La Bise which had blown as the Roman Empire came to an end and that would ultimately take her away from me.

We found medieval cathedrals, Romanesque and Gothic churches, and passed through a doorway carved five centuries ago. As we sat in a church overlooking the city we heard the Children's Choir. Walking through the narrow and winding streets our hands no longer touched even when the cold winds sought us out. There was no joy in listening to the choirs and the old cathedrals now felt empty. Sitting with centuries-old sepulchres was to sit among the dead and it began to weigh heavily on me. Then as the summer faded away and the birds began to leave, she too looked in a different direction. By autumn she was no longer by my side.

As I sit in the café on this cold winter day, I can imagine her on the plane as the engines throttle up and push it faster and faster down the runway. I finally had the ending to a story I had been drafting for the last four years. I sensed the rumble and the roar as she started to lift off, drowning out the voice that had kept me writing as I had sailed beside her over the years. I looked at my watch. The plane would be climbing into the lonely sky and turning south. She would remain caged in that plane until it reached her next destination and set her free on a new path.

The voice telling our story started to fade away, no matter how much I strained to hear the words. Finally, there was silence. There was still a line to go to finish my story but it slipped away and would not return until she flew back to me.

I finished my coffee, closed my notebook, went back outside and looked up at the lonely sky. It was filled with nothing but the bitter wind of La Bise.

The Conductor would not have been sitting across from me if it hadn’t been for the lucky draw of a card. But as I would eventually begin to wonder, had it really been a matter of luck?

He seemed old yet still with lots of life in him. His face etched by the years but without the dried and pallid look of old age I recalled in my father. His voice thin, but unlike so many of the people I had met since arriving here, was not strained and there was no hint of a crackle. His hands were steady. Whenever he leaned in closer to talk, he had the slow and deliberate movement that comes with old age but his was unimpeded by stiffness. His hands were steady. His eyes showed no signs of cloudiness and though faded with age the olive-green stare was alive and often darted around the room, tracking who came in and who went out. No sound seemed to escape his attention.

As The Conductor stood up, he looked straight into me and said,

“I will take you to the train, but you must do exactly as I tell you. If I escort you on board and you fail to follow my instructions you will likely never see this town again.”

'This town' was the old town of Casco Antiguo – Seville’s Ancient District. It lay on the banks of the Guadalquivir River and legend told that it was almost as old as the river itself. I knew it had been here since at least 712 and I had come to Seville to visit the Archivo General de Indias for a paper I was writing on the ancient port city of Tartessus. A city seemingly gone but that should have prospered because it had become rich from the metals trade. Its sudden disappearance from history was the stuff of legends.

A short walk through the narrow streets from the B&B where I was staying was Cerveceria Rodrigo, which turned out to be a traditional Spanish old man bar. It didn’t look like it had seen any renovations in decades and many of the patrons appeared as if they had been frequenting the bar since it first opened its doors. The menu was written out by hand on a chalkboard. Fresh writing every day, but always the same menu. They tolerated me as an outsider. Called me ‘usted periodista’ - you journalist, but my bocadillo baguette was always piled high with meat and vegetables and the one kind of beer they had on hand was always cold.

That is where I first met The Conductor.

I had arrived in Seville a few weeks earlier, spent a few days doing some research at the Archives, made my way to the old town and found a pensión I could afford. The cerveceria was nearby and I had been coming here for just over 2 weeks now. Always it seemed, under the careful watch of The Conductor.

He seemed to rule the bar. If you were to be accepted, you needed his stamp of approval. He wasted little time in sizing up who you were. Or maybe who you were not.

He had been watching me for a while on this particular evening as I was catching up on my notes and having a light dinner. It was getting late when he picked up his beer and sat at my table.

“So, you are The Journalist?” was his opening line. His English was broken but surprisingly good for an old man in this part of the Seville.

“What are you doing in Casco Antiguo?” He did not waste his words and came straight to the point but not sharp in his tone. There was little doubt however that I would be allowed to dismiss the question or ask to be left to my meal and to continue writing.

“I’m not exactly a journalist. I’m an historian. I write articles and papers about lost cities and towns throughout the centuries. Some make it into scholarly magazines, some into newspapers, some never seem to make it anywhere.”

“The archives here are helping me write about Tartessus, the lost city,” I added.

"Yes. Tartessus. I know it well. It is at the end of the railway line that starts here in old Seville. And I am The Conductor. It is an important place."

"You mean 'was' of course,” I smiled and added, "I am here to follow the stories of where it went."

I reached out to shake his hand and started to tell him my name, but he interrupted and said, "You are The Periodista. I am known as The Conductor. And no, I mean 'is'."

So started my journey on the old Spanish Train.

After his admonishment to do as he said, I gathered up my bag and papers, gulped down the last of my beer, dropped some money on the table, and followed him out and into the late evening.

We turned down a narrow cobblestone street with the whitewashed walls of the residences on either side, their entrances and doorways framed in yellow.

Our destination seemed to be the Plaza da Armas railway station which had been around for a hundred years. With the modernization of Spain's rail lines, a new station was open and soon there would be no more trains coming through the old town, but The Conductor assured me his train would still be running.

"My train,” he said, "will never stop running."

It took us about half an hour to get to the station along the meandering streets. The Conductor kept a steady pace, and I sometimes fell behind as I looked around a part of the city I had not been through before. It looked like it had seen better days and The Conductor told me that it was now home to brothels, bars frequented by gamblers, and run down apartments where those with nowhere else to go ended up. He stopped in front of one of those old buildings, pulled his wide brimmed, black felt cordobes hat down, buttoned his wool jacket and told me to follow him. We passed through the open entrance into a small courtyard. Signs of age and wear and tear were everywhere, but it was tidy, and the ever-present whitewashed walls were clean. He put a finger to his lips so that I would not speak, knocked on the door of an apartment on the ground floor, and went in not waiting to be invited. In the centre of the room an old man lay on his bed surrounded by family. Someone was quietly humming the mourning song — the saeta — haunting and inspiring. The patriarch was alive but his heavy breathing suggested that was about to come to an end. The Spanish take death in its stride. It is merely the climax of life and for the end of this one he had been dressed in the smart uniform of a Porter. I guessed that was how The Conductor knew him. An even older woman — probably The Porter's wife — looked at The Conductor. She was wearing the black lace peineta reserved for special occasions — including mourning.

Her voice was strained. "We were expecting you. Please take care of him tonight."

The Conductor touched the foot of the death bed.

"I will see he makes the journey."

He immediately turned around, motioned me to the door and we left. It was a puzzling exchange. No condolences, nothing said to the other members of the family, and I had no sense of what he would be doing for the old man's journey. Even as we passed back through the courtyard, I could still hear the saeta, louder now, more urgent, and mixed with crying.

Once back out into the streets The Conductor raised his hat a bit, undid his jacket, and we started on the last few blocks toward the station. It was quiet everywhere. No people on the street. Windows were shuttered. It was the dead of night and suddenly the rumbling of a locomotive and the wail of a train whistle. The drawn-out eerie blast that signals its approach, followed by several short blasts which warns anyone near the tracks to move.

Past more of the poorer part of the quarter we walked but as we approached the station the past grandeur of the Plaza da Armas was plain to see, even now with only street lights to see by. It rose above the surrounding plaza. It was clearly in charge of the district and was ready for the approaching train.

The front of the station had the vaulted iron and glass look of many stations built at the turn of the 20th century, but its long dead architect was clearly influenced by more monumental works like the historic Mosque of Tangier which had its own distinctive entrance portal. Below the vast arch were at least a dozen tall horseshoe entrances and stained-glass windows that dwarfed the passengers who for decades had come through the station to head for destinations around Spain and onto Europe. Fewer and fewer passengers every year but even those dwindling numbers could not fail to be impressed and perhaps intimidated by the immense station as they started their journey. More horseshoe windows were visible on the second level of each corner. Once inside, the iron ceiling towered more than 20 metres overhead. Ahead of us stretched another 100 or so metres of the main chamber which in its prime sheltered the platforms where dozens of trains and their passengers waited every day. Many of those passengers would have been jobless young men, headed for France to find work in the grape harvest. I had read how that temporary migration had kept whole towns alive. Even King Alfonso would have passed through here before the start of the First World War.

With no trains either arriving or departing so late in the day, the main part of the building was empty though it was easy to imagine what it must have been like fifty years earlier as a travel hub for the country. Indeed, out of the corner of my eye I saw people wandering about as if they were trying to find their train but when I turned in their direction there would be no one. I put it down to the shadows, the immense chamber, and my imagination getting the better of me as I wandered through this historic old building. An occupational hazard of being an historian.

The Conductor's voice echoed in the station as he pointed to one of the chambers running parallel on either side of main hall where we were.

"My train is this way and it will be arriving to take us to Tartessus."

Coming for us? The grandeur of the station and the chance to learn more about Tartessus had me excited as we left the bar but now, I was simply confused. Why would the old Conductor say it was coming for us? And he still referred to Tartessus in the present - not as the ancient city it was.

We turned towards the side chamber where there was another platform, and I couldn’t decide where to look. Behind me where the empty platforms made sense in this dying station, or ahead where nothing made sense. There were people. Dozens upon dozens of them. Some were those I thought I had seen earlier. Or maybe I really had seen earlier. And waiting on the platform was The Porter we had just left. More shadow than man but he was there. Waiting.

“We wait for the Spanish Train,” said The Conductor and once again he looked at me. “You must do exactly as I say,” but this time he added, “or you will leave the train in Tartessus and never return.”

Another long whistle blast and the train pulled into the station. That whistle heightened my feeling that I should forget Tartessus, leave the platform, leave Casco Antiguo, leave Spain, and never return.

The Conductor saw my distress but made no attempt to reassure me.

“I am The Conductor of the Spanish Train. I am the Compañas. I escort the dying and the dead."

The Spanish Train ran from the dying quarter of old Seville to the dead city of the Tartessians, and I was about to climb aboard that train.

There was the hiss of brakes as the train slowed and I looked at The Engineer. A scarf covered his mouth and nose and what I could see of his face was no more than a veneer of yellow skin pulled tight to his skull. Boney hands gripped the brake lever. Once the train came to a stop The Conductor opened the doors of several of the cars to allow the people to board. Were they people, I thought, or was I looking at the dead? The Porter's presence left no doubt this was no ordinary train and the mix of pale-looking passengers silently stepping from the platform and onto the train really were there. But they were not people. They were shadows that had overtaken them and were now accompanied by what had been a person.

No one spoke. There were the young and the old. Men and women. Some smartly dressed like The Porter, others in their ropa de dormir or nightclothes.

The Conductor motioned for me to follow him to one of the empty cars. As we walked by the windows of the other cars it was an eerie sight. None of the activity you would expect from travellers. The only sound was the idling engine of the train, the occasional whoosh as the pressure was released from the air system. There were no compartments, just open cars with bench seats. Some upholstered, some wooden benches that reminded me of old movie depictions of steam train travel. Looking down the platform I could not see the end of the train as it snaked outside the station.

We climbed aboard an empty car and The Conductor sat down and pointed to a seat across from him.

"This train has been running for as long as anyone can remember. It travels only at night and those who can hear it know to stay quiet in the darkness and to never answer a nighttime knock at their door lest the Compañas take them out into the blackness to begin the walk of the dying. They can escape that walk, but someone will eventually take their place. The passenger list for the train must be filled."

I was still in the realm of disbelief despite what I had seen. "Where does the passenger list come from?"

The Conductor shrugged. "It is always waiting for me when I arrive. It is an unseen ticket agent that delivers it."

I had been working up the nerve to ask my next question. "Am I on the list? Am I dead or dying?"

"You are both somewhere and nowhere Journalist. You are here with me on this train because I invited you so you could learn the truth about Tartessus. You are nowhere because you are not on the passenger list and I cannot add you nor can I remove you should your name appear."

He rose, took out an ordinary looking railway ticket punch and spoke in the official tone you would expect from any Spanish train conductor.

"We will go to punch the tickets for the final destinations of our passengers."

"Tartessus?" I said.

"And from there to Heaven or Hell, or to stay on the Spanish Train a while longer. Depending on my passenger list." He replied.

“Do not speak.”

We started in the direction of the next car. The first passenger was The Porter but just as The Conductor was about to punch the traveller's ticket, he was distracted by someone walking down the aisle. It was the only movement I had seen in the car and for the first time on this whole, strange evening The Conductor appeared surprised. And worried.

The man coming towards us was wearing the cloth cloak of well-to-do Spaniards. It was black, with a red velvet lining, and a leather capelet at the shoulders. The cape was drawn around him but his hand came from underneath and with one grand swipe opened it to reveal a pair of brooches that were used to fasten the cape. Gold with blood red sapphires. His left hand twirled the cape over his arm and he bowed slightly in our direction.

The Conductor stopped and said, "Why are you here? No one on my list is bound to go with you when we reach the ancient city!"

The man looked at me coldly and said, "And he is not on the list at all." He once again affixed his gaze on The Porter and calmly said, "Besides, God's not around and look what I've found", and then still looking at the poor Porter, raised his voice so that it carried the length of carriage and beyond, "This one's mine!"

But behind us came another voice which shouted, "Get thee hence to endless night!"

I turned to see who had spoken, but I knew the answer.

Organized religion was not me so under the surreal circumstances I was in, wrapping my head around The Lord dressed in a white shirt with a multicoloured sash and a modern short-sleeved doublet was a challenge. But this is where I was. Given the nature of the train and its passengers where else could we be? Certainly not back at my Cerveceria, which I should never have left only a few hours ago.

And this is where The Devil was as well.

The Conductor and I were stuck between the two entities. The Porter remained on a bench seat, also in between the two.

The Lord had a walking stick and as he spoke, pointed it at The Devil who certainly was not intimidated by the presence. They were I supposed, eternal foes who had faced each other in many places and in many times through the ages.

The Devil smiled and told him to put away that silly stick and with what I could only describe as an air of reason and civility said, "We have one with us who is not meant to be part of this trip so we must settle this soon and without your usual fire and brimstone."

And then his voice rose so that it could be heard throughout the length of the train, "Joker is the name, Poker is the game, and we'll play right here. And then we'll bet for the biggest stakes yet. The souls of the dead!"

The entire carriage shook as he slapped a pack of cards onto the table that sat in between the bench seats. He pointed at The Conductor and the civility left his voice. "YOU will deal".

There was a lurch as the train started up. The cards were on the table, and The Devil, The Lord, and The Conductor took their seats. I steadied myself as the train gained speed but remained standing where I could see all three. The Porter remained in his seat and I only had to turn slightly to see him. The shadow that was now part of the dying man was as terrified as anything I had ever seen. He had probably led a good life but now his eternal fate rested on a card game.

The Conductor reached for the cards and though he appeared unmoved, The Devil must have realized quickly that the man he had chosen to deal was not going to offer any glimpse of the cards. He had obviously played this role before. Many times, in fact in those gambling houses and bars he had pointed out to as we had approached Plaza da Armas earlier. He began his riffle shuffle on the table instead of the more showy riffle in his hands. That meant less chance of the two players catching a glimpse of any of the cards. This was his train and he was not going to be intimidated.

He separated the deck in two, moved the top half to the right, picked up the two halves and with practiced hands moved the corners of the halves together and snapped them against each other, leaving one edge on the table so that the players could not see any part of the card faces. He repeated this six times and finished simply by pushing the halves together. No dazzling waterfall finish. This was not the place to show off.

There were no chips to play with so like any good railway conductor, The Conductor produced a small notebook and a worn pencil to track the bets.

"The train is on time and there are many souls on the line, so we will only play one hand. Agreed?"

Both players nodded.

The Conductor started to deal. The Conductor pinched the deck in his right hand. His wrist never moved and all it took was a flick of his middle finger to pitch the first card to The Lord who was sitting on his left. Next card to The Devil. Each card landing squarely in front of the players until each of them had their five cards.

I did not have to move to catch a brief glimpse of each hand. The Conductor saw the look on my face and with the slightest shake of his head was once again admonishing me not to show any emotion.

The Devil had three Aces, a King, and a 2. The Lord was holding the Queen, Knave, 9 and 10 of Spades, and a Diamond Trey.

There would only be two betting rounds in this game for the train was still dead-on time.

The Devil gave the opening bet.

"Ten thousand".

The Conductor penciled the bet into his open notebook.

The Lord saw the ten and raised another ten. The Devil saw the ten and with no hesitation, raised the stakes again with another fifteen thousand.

The Conductor's pencil added more lines to the notebook.

Soon the notebook showed they were up to fifty-nine thousand when The Devil called and it was time for the players to draw more cards.

I couldn't stop working the math. For a country the size of Spain there would be roughly 450,000 people dying every year. I did not know how long the Spanish Train was or how often it ran, but I had no doubt the winner of this macabre game would take all onboard and many more for some time to come.

The Lord called for one card and discarded what I guessed would be his Diamond Trey. The Conductor flicked the next card in the deck and I could now see The Lord had indeed pitched the Trey and in its place drew the 8 of Diamonds. His straight flush was not going to happen. There was a voice in my head tearing at me, "Look out Lord, he's going to win!" but a sharp look from The Conductor told me to fight back what was screaming inside me.

The Devil was eager to get more than his share of those beyond the grasp of this earth and he looked at The Lord and egged him on.

"I believe you've got a straight,” then he turned to The Conductor. "So deal me one, for the time has come so see who will be the king of this place".

The Devil discarded one card and The Conductor pitched him the next card in the deck.

What happened next left me frozen. The voice in my head still threatened to expose my fear for as we rode the Spanish Train through the night. The Devil let the new card slip under the sleeves of his cloak and he palmed a card which found a home with the other four cards he was holding. "Look out Lord, he's going to win!" The voice inside me was more frantic.

The Lord was intent on praying for what The Devil had drawn and did not see or even sense the deception. He was holding a simple straight and said, "that suits me fine, I'll raise you high to a hundred and five and forever put an end to your sins."

The voice was still pushing against me, looking for a way out. This time to exclaim, "Lord, o Lord, you let him win.” With another Ace in The Devil's hand The Lord was now left with a Hand of Dead Souls.

The Devil called, and with a mighty shout turned up his cards, "My hand wins!"

The Train continued its run against the darkness, for what seemed to me to be a night without end, but it could not have been more than a few hours. Its whistle still blowing, warning people to stay away.

The Devil and The Lord had retreated. The Devil to prepare to collect his souls. The Lord to find another game that he might win to retrieve some of those he had lost.

But before they left The Devil said, "We must decide what to do with these two.”

"You", he said directly to The Conductor, "should never have let someone on board who was not on the list.” His eyes were black as he stared at me. "You. You are not to be here. Yet you are indeed here with no ticket.”

The Lord spoke up, "Let The Conductor cut the cards. He dealt fairly for us tonight." He closed his eyes and took command of the moment. "Let the cards deal fairly with them."

The Devil nodded and The Conductor shuffled the deck and with one expert hand, cut it in two. He turned over the top card from one half. The 6 of Diamonds. The Devil reached for the top card on the other and the carriage turned to ice as he turned it over. The 5 of Clubs. The same card he had let slip from out his hand that had sealed the fate of so many of the shadows on the train.

The Conductor and I would make the return trip.

We were soon in the lost city of Tartessus and as the train slowed to a stop The Conductor prepared to open the doors of the carriages. There had been no need punch the final destinations for the passengers this night. The shadows vanished onto the platform and into the city of the dead. Shadows no longer accompanied by people.

The Spanish Train still runs between Old Seville and Tartessus. Its whistle still blows. The Conductor still tries to take care of his passengers. And I still board the train with The Conductor to learn more about that lost city of the dead.

Way back I did write fiction however, and when clearing out boxes of junk one day came across some written in high school (thank-you Miss Dalton) and university (thank-you Gauntlet). They were not great, but looking back, probably okay for a beginner. As a journalist the work I wrote or produced for radio needed some creative style, but it was still all about facts and telling a story for a wide audience who were listening to the radio at home, in the car, at work, or in their headphones while out for a jog.

When I found myself suddenly ‘retired’ more than a year ago, one of the projects I decided to take on was writing fiction again.

This time to seriously make it work.

Start small with some short stories and work my way up to a novella and who knows, maybe a novel.

Starting February 8^th I will be posting a new story every other week drawn from what I have written so far and will continue to post regularly after that.

The first stories are going to be different than what you might be accustomed to reading.

They are based on songs. Songs from one very specific album which came out while I was still in university.

Chris de Burgh’s 1975 album Spanish Train And Other Stories was his second album and arguably still his best. The title track was considered blasphemous in South Africa and was banned. Album collector’s heaven is to own a rare copy of the South African release without the song and alternatively titled Lonely Sky And Other Stories. (A & M took it to court and the ban was eventually overturned.)

“Stories” in the album title is what I believe made it successful because the songs do tell a story. Close your eyes, listen to the music, and you can imagine the story behind it. Like all songs the imagery will not be the same for everyone depending on how you react to the melody, rhythm, lyrics, your emotional state when listening, and how past experiences have shaped your perception.

The stories I’ll be posting will tell my interpretation of what I heard in the grooves of an album which still sits on a shelf beside my turntable.

I’m not a hard core de Burgh follower, and Crusader is the only other album of his I own. I’m just a music fan who is drawn to songs that have a story hidden between the musical notes and he is one of the best at creating songs with a story.

For the moment, Spanish Train And Other Stories is the focus.

I’ll be posting in the track order from the 1975 A & M Canada release and there will be no commentary or explanatory notes. Just a story that should stand on its own. If you want to use your favourite streaming service or dig out the album to listen to the track, go ahead and see if it changes your view of the song or the story.

Either way I’d like to hear your thoughts and please share. While satisfaction lies in the creation, it is always good to know someone has taken the time to read it.

The stories:

February 8 - Spanish Train (Side 1, Track 1)
February 22 - Lonely Sky (Side 1, Track 2)
March 8 - This Song for You (Side 1, Track 3)
March 22 - Patricia The Stripper (Side 1, Track 4)
April 5 - A Spaceman Came Travelling (Side 1, Track 5)
April 21 - I’m Going Home (Side 2, Track 1)
May 3 - The Painter (Side 2, Track 2)
May 17 - Old Friend (Side 2, Track 3)
May 31 - The Tower (Side 2, Track 4)
June 14 - Just Another Poor Boy (Side 2, Track 5)

The sinking of the unsinkable was at the intersection of the philosophies of these two men because the iceberg which travelled down from Greenland to cross paths with the Titanic around 11:40pm (Ship’s time) on April 14^th, 1912, was following the laws of nature and simply floated south according to those laws. The transatlantic route from Southampton to New York was one travelled regularly without incident by passenger ships. On this one occasion things had a chance to go wrong. And they did.    

This is not strictly a story of fancy, nor is it a re-telling of the fate of a ship that, had it not met with disaster, would have been just another footnote in maritime and cultural history. The ship and the iceberg were not destined to collide in the night. Rather they were part of a series of decisions that came up against the ebb and flow of nature.

Which means people and nature could easily never have collided, leaving the RMS Titanic to dock safely in New York on the 17^th of April instead of altering the future of the passengers and crew, and their families and friends.  

What would that scene have been like?

As the largest and most luxurious ship of the time, the fanfare would have drawn an eager crowd waiting to catch an early glimpse as the distinctive 4 funnels of the liner came into view. 1,513 more people would have completed the journey to New York, and not have “accidental drowning, SS Titanic, at sea” as the official cause of death on their death certificate. Many of those who would have walked down the gangplank were 3^rd class passengers who died in greater percentages than 1^st and 2^nd class passengers. The Titanic’s last port of call before heading across the Atlantic was Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland which was a main emigrant boarding point for ships bound for America at the time. While there have always been stories that class distinction was responsible for the disparity in survival rates, that is not exactly true and locked doors and gates depicted in the Titanic movie are also disputed. What is true is that the 3^rd class section of the ship was aft and lower down. That put those passengers furthest away from the lifeboats, which proved to be inadequate in number for even 1^st and 2^nd class passengers.

It also meant that it took longer for the messages to arrive telling everyone to move on deck and prepare to abandon the sinking liner. When those messages did make it down below, many who were awakened from their sleep were like the 81 third-class passengers who were listed as Syrian and most likely spoke little or no English. Except for the many small twists and turns that made the Titanic disaster what it was, they would all have been able to join the growing Syrian community in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. 

Or gone on to Canada.

One of those was Sleiman Khalil Attala. His native country was Syria, but he had become a journalist in Ottawa, had been abroad to visit his former home and was returning to Canada on the Titanic. His body was never identified. He likely knew two other Syrians passengers who never made it home either.  Joseph Caram was also returning to his Canadian home after travelling back to Syria to marry Maria Elias Khalil. Joseph was a successful garment merchant and had they been two of the passengers who landed in New York he and Maria, and their future children, could have been a name that today’s citizens of Ottawa might recognize. Maybe a small brick building, near Boushey’s Market on Elgin Street, but by now gone and replaced by one of the many restaurants, cafes, and diners in the area. 
(I should note something common among the 3^rd class passengers making the voyage to a new country. Their names were often Anglicized or given phonetic spellings and may not have been recognized by even their own families in the lists of the missing and dead. And while there were 81 passengers in 3^rd class listed as “Syrian” there were probably many more as immigration authorities at the time defined Syrian more narrowly than they themselves may have and certainly not the way they identify today.)

One of those from 3^rd class who did survive was able to shine a light on what is often overlooked when we talk about the marine disaster. 705 passengers and crew who survived that night shared memories like those of a young Syrian boy who later said he would never forget the frightened voices of those facing death as the ship started to tilt bow first. With debris sliding across the decks and in cabins and passageways he was hearing the sounds of people most surely injured and in pain before ever jumping or falling overboard.

When passengers did hit the water, they were plunged into -2.2C (28 degrees Fahrenheit) temperatures. As long as they were wearing lifejackets, most of those probably died of “immersion hypothermia” and not drowning as the official record stated. At those freezing temperatures death occurs anywhere between 15 and 45 minutes as heat is rapidly conducted away from the body by the water. Struggling and swimming hastens the inevitable. The cold-water shock causes panic, disorientation, and pain.

Gracie was not alone among the survivors who had to live with what they saw and heard as the ship finally began its slide to the bottom of the ocean. Miss Ellen Mary Toomey was also affected by what she heard, “The Titanic was gradually sinking and when we were about two miles away, we could hear the awful shrieks of the drowning people”. Like many of the survivors, she never fully recovered from the experience and retreated to a convent and died in 1993 while in the care of the Little Sisters of the Poor in Indianapolis.

Had the Titanic not had its encounter with the iceberg, survivors would not live the rest of their lives with the image of the ship’s stern rising “...high in the air, the bow less high. Then she went down slowly amid heartrending cries for help of hundreds of doomed men and women”, as Miss Susan Webber told the Western Times of Exter, Devon, in England.

The iceberg that halted the maiden journey of the ‘unsinkable’ ship most likely travelled down from Greenland having been born or calved from the Ilulissat glacier two years earlier. A glacier where the snow was approximately 10,000 years old and only produced a few icebergs in 1909. Yet that particular iceberg was carried by the Labrador Current southward for a rendezvous with the Titanic about 610km (380 miles) off the coast of Newfoundland. It travelled 13km (8 miles) per day and even an hour faster or slower would have changed the lives of the 2,240 passengers and crew.

When the massive steamship docked at Pier 59 in New York on April 17^th, one of the first passengers to leave the ship could well have been John Jacob Astor the IV. He was one of the richest men in the world and was definitely the richest person on the Titanic. The 47-year-old Astor was travelling with his second wife, 18-year-old Madeline Force who was 5 months pregnant, accompanied by Astor’s dog Kitty, and the couple’s servants. He was a philanthropist, had several patents to his credit including a new type of bicycle brake, and wrote a science fiction novel titled A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future set in the year 2000.  The Astor family held a great deal of sway in social, cultural, and government circles and many believe that had he lived his influence would have expanded in scope especially in cultural and philanthropic activities. So much so that he could well have changed the results of the US presidential election in November 1912. In that election, Democrat Woodrow Wilson beat out Republican incumbent Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt had been president from 1901 to 1909 as a Republican and in 1912 was running under the Progressive or “Bull Moose” party banner. Astor would certainly not have supported the fourth contender Eugene Debs who was head of the Socialist Party (Interestingly, he ran again in 1920 while in jail for sedition) and not likely Roosevelt’s Progressive Party either. If Astor’s novel is indicative of his political leanings, he would not have been a fan of the Party’s platform which included an inheritance tax, more disclosure of political campaign contributions, a securities commission, women’s suffrage, and a trust-busting agenda to limit trusts and monopolies. His novel envisioned the start of the 21^st century as a world run by a corporate style government heavily influenced by the Terrestrial Axis Straightening Company. The company used its lobbying strength (another power to be limited under the Roosevelt platform) to convince world leaders that they could use the power of technology to tinker with the Earth’s axis every year to ensure more even weather and make winters a thing of the past. The whole of Astor’s novel leans into controlling the environment to bend to the wishes of men (women seemed to have little if any role in the novel), which would have gone against the grain of the Progressive Party in the real world of 1912.

Astor’s foray into sci-fi saw a world dominated by the United States and during the real time of Howard Taft’s term as president from 1909 to 1913 they would have seen eye-to-eye on many policy issues. Among those would have been Taft’s announcement in his inaugural address no less, that African Americans would not be appointed to federal jobs. During his time in office, he was true to his word and went on to remove several black office holders. In the novel, Astor’s characters boast that “The erstwhile ‘Dark Continent’ has a larger white population now than North America had a hundred years ago” (Chapter IV) and that the modern world was freed “from the domination of our local politics by ignorant foreigners” (Chapter V). Even when it came to exploring new planets and new worlds, Astor’s personal views were all too apparent as the plan for the space explorers was to “absorb or run out all inferior races” (Chapter VII). It is also worth noting that in the novel, Canada had come to “realise that their future would be far grander and more glorious in the union with the United States than separated from it.” When the 1912 presidential matchup came, Astor would have had a game plan in mind to get Taft elected. The new Progressive party led by Roosevelt was splitting the vote between Wilson (D) and Taft (R) which meant the Progressives needed to be kept in check. While he may have seen some possibilities in working with Wilson, Taft’s track record was known, his platform friendly to capitalists, and he was likely a friend of the Astors. With the thumb of John Jacob Astor IV on the scale in support of Taft, the U.S political landscape would have experienced lasting changes including the U.S. entering WWI much sooner.

Astor was not the only writer on board the Titanic and there was one particularly intriguing mystery writer whose career would have earned a place in literature alongside Arthur Conan Doyle. John Heath Futrell wrote under the name of Jacques Futrelle. Like Conan Doyle he built a character who solved mysteries by applying logic to any number of problems such as escaping from a prison cell while under the watchful eye of prison guards and readers. The character Augustus SFX Van Dusen was also known as ‘The Thinking Machine’ (which seemed awkward to me and if I was to put on my editor’s cap would have tried to discourage its use) and first appeared in a short story, ‘The Problem of Cell 13’ (Which made the HRF Keating 100 Best Crime & Mystery Books list and was adapted for TV in the sixties).  As Futrell, he started out as a journalist so when it came time to get serious about crime fiction it was fitting the Thinking Machine’s first triumph was serialized over six weeks in the Boston American. Futrelle loved technology and brought the telephone, telegraph, electric lighting, and Marie Curie and her work with radium into his writing. Despite writing convincingly about a character who could solve any mystery and escape impossible predicaments, Futrelle was not able to escape the sinking of the Titanic. His wife May Futrelle said the last glimpse she had of her husband was of him standing with John Jacob Astor IV on the deck watching the departing lifeboats as they smoked a cigarette.

Some characters on board the Titanic most certainly would have appeared later in a Futrelle story in one form or another with Michel Navrátil at the top of the list. Futrelle the mystery writer may have noticed something odd about widower Louis M. Hoffman and his sons, John, and Fred. Though Hoffman was booked in 2^nd class and Futrelle in 1^st, they probably met over a game of cards where the writer may have noticed that Hoffman never let the 2 young boys out of his sight. Had there been a chance to observe the boys at play they were boisterous enough for children of that age (3 and 4) but also tended to stick close to their father and not always scurry over when called. Futrelle may also have wondered about a revolver under Hoffman’s jacket (it was found when the body was recovered). Some further investigation would have revealed that Louis Hoffman was actually Michel Navrátil, was not a widower, and the 2 boys were Michel Jr. and Edmond. The father had separated from his wife Marcelle and while the divorce was being finalized in France, Michel had the boys with him for Easter. He took them and set sail for America on the Titanic instead, and it is said he left his wife a note saying the boys were in good hands, but she would never see them again. See them she did however, for after Mr. Navrátil was lost in the wreck the boys became famous for a while as the “Titanic Orphans” and their pictures were circulated in newspapers on both sides of the ocean with the nicknames Louis and Lola.

Their mother saw the pictures, identified the boys, and the White Star Line paid for the return passage for Mme. Navrátil to collect the boys. If the voyage had proved to be uneventful, Michel Navrátil may have continued his career as a tailor and perhaps with the connections he made onboard, built an elegant middle-class clientele similar to what he had in France. Though he had a checkered past he may have changed as he built a new life and tried to make things work with his wife. Marcel Jr. went on to become a philosophy professor in France but says that as his father put his two sons into the lifeboat, he said to tell their mother he still loved her and always hoped they could live happily again in the New World.

Other passengers on board the ship with back stories that would have made for good crime fiction were professional gamblers. These men were experienced in their craft, knew who would likely be a good target in a card game, and travelled extensively back and forth across the Atlantic. First-class of course. So frequent were the appearances of these card sharps that they had to travel under assumed names such as George Brayton otherwise known as “Boy Bradley” (real name George Brereton), C. Rolmane also known as Henry Romine (real name Charles Romaine), or Baron von Drachstedt (real name Alfred Nourney). The White Star Line warned passengers (especially those in first-class) to avoid gambling and to be wary when playing cards, but in 1912 sitting around a card table smoking and sipping their favourite brand of expensive liquor was what the rich did, and these gamblers were on hand to take advantage of both old and new money.  All three men survived the sinking. Mr. Nourney stands out as the last adult male from the first-class passenger list to die (1972, in Germany). Even he, however, was affected by the cries of those left in the water to die which he described as sounding “like a siren”.  Nourney also carried a revolver as witnessed by other survivors who said he fired off all his cartridges to help attract the attention of rescuers to the lifeboat he was in. By the time an unscathed Titanic docked in New York, enough money would have passed into the hands of the gamblers that an astute writer of fiction or true crime would have all they needed to churn out more than a few stories.

For all the average lives, the antics of the rich and famous, the romances, and the grand plans of those bound for a new life, the final word in this story goes to the ship itself. After brushing past the iceberg which rose 30 meters (100 feet) above the surface of the water, the grand Titanic would have found itself passing the Statue of Liberty and docking at its planned destination. All its passengers safely onshore with their dreams intact. More than 3,000 bags of mail and upwards of 700 parcels would have reached their intended recipients with greetings from families and friends, packets of newspapers from home, and letters from wives left behind and longing to bring children to join their father. The rare, jeweled copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam stored in the cargo hold would have been safely in the hands of its new owner Gabrielle Weiss, a well-known book collector and dealer who was likely waiting at the dock for his new prized possession.  When he died in 1946, many books from his collection were left to the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library. The intact Rubaiyat would have ended up in one of those rare book rooms and been on display to mark the successful maiden voyage of the Titanic. Or more likely the ship’s voyage would barely have been remembered.

Beyond its grandeur and size, it was just another ship in the White Star line. In 2 years and 3 months from the maiden voyage, WWI started and liners like the Titanic were pressed into service as troop ships. Its sister ships the Olympic and Britannic became part of the war effort with the Olympic moving Canadian soldiers across the Atlantic and the Britannic becoming a hospital ship. In November of 1916 the Britannic hit a mine in the Aegean and sunk with the loss of 30 passengers. The Olympic survived the war and went back to shuttling passengers across the ocean until it was retired in 1935 and scrapped. The Titanic would have fared no better or worse.

The woeful end of the Titanic did have a significant impact on maritime safety. Shipwrecks are the inevitable and unwanted companion of ships since they started to regularly move people, goods, and armies as far back as 2500 BCE.  The loss of the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic raised many questions and there were investigations on both sides of the Atlantic to determine what went wrong. Was the ship going too fast? Was the captain negligent? Was there a problem with the design? When so many lives are lost, we tend to look for someone or something to blame - but there really was no single person or factor to carry the weight of the sinking. One thing was clear from the outset of the investigations and as survivors told their stories - there were not enough lifeboats for all the passengers and lifeboat drills did not happen.  After the sinking that changed.  Passenger liners had to have enough lifeboats for the entire passenger and crew complement and lifeboat drills were mandated. The Titanic had a wireless room with the latest equipment and was staffed by Marconi Company operators, who by all accounts, performed their duties above and beyond to try to save all aboard. Without the repeated distress calls, the loss of life would have been far greater if not total because no ships would have altered course to rescue survivors. After the sinking, new regulations were passed which made wireless equipment not only mandatory but required a permanent 24-hour radio watch (prior to the sinking most ships had only a single radio operator) with regular intervals of radio silence to listen for distress calls. Double-sided hulls become required on ships because after the Titanic’s single hull was split open by the impact, the Atlantic Ocean began to rush in. The water eventually rose over the watertight compartments, so new regulations required bulkhead heights raised so at the very least, it would slow the sinking of a ship. The first International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea was convened in 1913 in direct response to the Titanic disaster. It created the International Ice Patrol which plied the waters off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland to monitor and report on icebergs in the North Atlantic. The patrols were done by ships but beginning in 1946, aircraft were brought into the picture, and by 1982 aerial reconnaissance had replaced ships entirely. The patrol remains to this day.

The lone iceberg which sunk the Titanic and brought about so many changes continued its journey after the steamship was gone and the search and recovery of bodies was completed.

On April 20^th, 1912, a photograph was taken by a sailor onboard the MS Bremen of what was believed to be the iceberg that had such an impact on maritime safety. The gigantic lump of ice would have drifted on through the warmer gulf waters and within a week or two met with the same fate of other icebergs which had been drifting in the area. Completely melted and leaving no sign of its passing, except for the bodies of 1,500 people and the wreck of a 269-meter (882 feet) long ship at the bottom of the ocean.

Sources consulted:

Astor, John Jacob. A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future. SF Gateway/Gollancz. London, 2015.

Brewster, Hugh. RMS Titanic: Gilded Lives on a Fatal Voyage. HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. Toronto, 2012.

Cartwright, Roger and June. Titanic the Myths and Legacy of a Disaster. History Press. Stroud, 2011.

Davenport-Hines, R. P. T. Titanic Lives: Migrants and Millionaires, Conmen and Crew. Harper Press. London 2012.

Davenport-Hines, R.P.T. Voyagers of the Titanic: Passengers, Sailors, Shipbuilders, Aristocrats, and the Worlds They Came From. William Morrow, 2012

Gracie, Archibald Gracie and John Borland Thayer. Titanic: a Survivor's Story : and the Sinking of the S.S. Titanic. Academy Chicago Publishers, 2010. (eBook Central Academic Complete International Edition)

Lynch, Donald. Titanic: An Illustrated History. Penguin Books Canada. Toronto, 1992.

Medhurst, Simon. Titanic Day by Day: 366 Days with the Titanic. Pen & Sword History. Yorkshire-Philadelphia, 2022.

Nemo, August (editor). 7 best short stories by Jacques Futrelle. Tacet Books, 2020. (eBook edition)  

Rostron, Arthur. Home rom the Sea: The Autobiography of Captain Rostron of the Carpathia, the Man Who Rescued the Titanic Survivors. Spitfire Publishers, 2018.

Roundeau, Rob. Titanic Lives: On Board, Destination Canada. Formac Publishing Company Limited. Halifax, 2012.

White, John David Thomas. The RMS Titanic Miscellany. Irish Academic Press. Dublin, 2011.

Various files and images from the Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/

Titanic Historical Society https://titanichistoricalsociety.org/

Encyclopedia Titanica https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/

No AI was used to create content for this article and wherever possible I verified quotations and did not solely rely on secondhand material.