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2014.02.13 22:31 artisurn Cremation: Discussion & Cremation
Respectful discussion on the topic of cremation for your loved ones and pets.
2023.05.28 08:39 justyouraverageboot Can somebody please help me make sense of my feelings...
Growing up, my mother was emotionally and verbally abusive. She made me feel like I was never enough, constantly calling me a spoiled brat, telling me I'd never amount to anything. This was because I never performed well in school, I didn't do my homework, and had no motivation to succeed. My father, on the other hand, when he was around, tried to encourage me and push me to be the best I can be. Unfortunately, my mother was the primary caregiver as my father was always working.
I didn't do good in high school, in fact I barely graduated. My mother constantly berated me while my father tried with what little strength he could muster to keep our family together. My mother also kept my sister and I separated for the majority of our childhood. My mother favored my sister immensely, and my sister always felt guilty about it. I never had a relationship with my sister until recently. Around the time I was 16 years old, I expressed my intention to my mother to join the Army. My mother was furious. She called me every name in the book until I finally had enough and agreed that I wouldn't do it, and that I'd go to college instead. Halfway through my senior year, I began my covert efforts behind my parents' back to enlist into the Army Reserves.
Halfway through my recruitment process, my mother found out. A huge fight broke out and my mother said I was wasting my life. I understand mothers want their kids to be safe... but it felt more like my mother was upset because I wasn't taking the path in life that she wanted. She said things like if anything ever happened to me in the Army that she wouldn't feel bad or attend my funeral, and that anything that happened was my own fault, and that I dug my own grave, etc. Fast forward to after I came home from training.
The relationship with my parents made a complete 180. I got a job when I got home, went off to college, and my parents and I got along great. My mother "apologized" for the things she said in a letter she wrote to me during Basic, and she even came to my graduation. For the most part, things with my mother have been fine. I even began rebuilding my relationship with my sister. It feels like everything in my life has come so far in such a short time.
When I went off to college... I was miserable. I had to drop out halfway through my first semester and I came home due to "financial misunderstandings" with the Army (they said they'd pay for it, they didn't, I was pissed and dropped out due to not wanting 9 billion dollars in student debt, figured out it was actually 50% my fault, oops). Since coming home, I've gotten a job as an EMT. I work for the local 911 service.
The reason I'm posting today is... I feel worthless.
I joined the Army because I wanted to serve my country. I became an EMT because I wanted to serve my community. But now I'm realizing that, I'm only doing all these things because of how worthless I feel. When I was little I saw soldiers, cops, firefighters and EMS personnel as heroes. I wanted to be that hero that I never had... but I never feel like I'm doing enough. I feel like I'm drowning in my own expectations. I've tried to tell my dad that I feel worthless, that I hate myself, that I need help... but he won't listen. I think he thinks I'm just fine, that I don't need any help. I don't know how to tell him differently.
Due to the nature of my upbringing I've always kept everything inside, letting it out with some tears at night occasionally. I don't know how to let people in. I don't know how to tell this to anyone else. I don't know what I'm supposed to do anymore. I don't know how I can go about my life, just forgetting all the horrible things my mother did to me. She's never apologized... because I've never told her how I felt.
Why do I feel so worthless? Why do I hate myself so much? I don't know what to do or how to make sense of how I'm feeling. I can't find a therapist, I have no one to talk to. I don't know how to let people in. I'm really lost here.
submitted by justyouraverageboot to depression [link] [comments]
I didn't do good in high school, in fact I barely graduated. My mother constantly berated me while my father tried with what little strength he could muster to keep our family together. My mother also kept my sister and I separated for the majority of our childhood. My mother favored my sister immensely, and my sister always felt guilty about it. I never had a relationship with my sister until recently. Around the time I was 16 years old, I expressed my intention to my mother to join the Army. My mother was furious. She called me every name in the book until I finally had enough and agreed that I wouldn't do it, and that I'd go to college instead. Halfway through my senior year, I began my covert efforts behind my parents' back to enlist into the Army Reserves.
Halfway through my recruitment process, my mother found out. A huge fight broke out and my mother said I was wasting my life. I understand mothers want their kids to be safe... but it felt more like my mother was upset because I wasn't taking the path in life that she wanted. She said things like if anything ever happened to me in the Army that she wouldn't feel bad or attend my funeral, and that anything that happened was my own fault, and that I dug my own grave, etc. Fast forward to after I came home from training.
The relationship with my parents made a complete 180. I got a job when I got home, went off to college, and my parents and I got along great. My mother "apologized" for the things she said in a letter she wrote to me during Basic, and she even came to my graduation. For the most part, things with my mother have been fine. I even began rebuilding my relationship with my sister. It feels like everything in my life has come so far in such a short time.
When I went off to college... I was miserable. I had to drop out halfway through my first semester and I came home due to "financial misunderstandings" with the Army (they said they'd pay for it, they didn't, I was pissed and dropped out due to not wanting 9 billion dollars in student debt, figured out it was actually 50% my fault, oops). Since coming home, I've gotten a job as an EMT. I work for the local 911 service.
The reason I'm posting today is... I feel worthless.
I joined the Army because I wanted to serve my country. I became an EMT because I wanted to serve my community. But now I'm realizing that, I'm only doing all these things because of how worthless I feel. When I was little I saw soldiers, cops, firefighters and EMS personnel as heroes. I wanted to be that hero that I never had... but I never feel like I'm doing enough. I feel like I'm drowning in my own expectations. I've tried to tell my dad that I feel worthless, that I hate myself, that I need help... but he won't listen. I think he thinks I'm just fine, that I don't need any help. I don't know how to tell him differently.
Due to the nature of my upbringing I've always kept everything inside, letting it out with some tears at night occasionally. I don't know how to let people in. I don't know how to tell this to anyone else. I don't know what I'm supposed to do anymore. I don't know how I can go about my life, just forgetting all the horrible things my mother did to me. She's never apologized... because I've never told her how I felt.
Why do I feel so worthless? Why do I hate myself so much? I don't know what to do or how to make sense of how I'm feeling. I can't find a therapist, I have no one to talk to. I don't know how to let people in. I'm really lost here.
2023.05.28 07:57 SolaroscopyApollo The real reason the stars disappear from the city.
It was December 31st, 1999 and we just blew out my first double-digit candles.
My parents moved from Louisiana to inner-city Seattle, this means that I was surprised and kinda shocked to have my birthday party in Graham, in the countryside.
We just blew out my candles. It was 11:50 at night. Everyone was tired and knocked out due to eating ungodly amounts of Southern food that my mother had cooked.
I was laying on a big branch in the forest, not too far from the farm, I just needed to breathe while everyone was asleep. I'm a fast sleeper, so the noises almost carried to Sandman's graces but my mother popped out of nowhere. She was carrying a bundle of fireworks.
My mother was a nice and intiutive woman. They say that women in general have intuition. I just say that insane intuition is an my-mom only type trait. She always knew that I wasn't good with social gatherings and liked to listen to nature...sounds. not be in nature.
My mother climbed on top the giant branch.
She told me a story. A story about the stars.
She told me that the stars in heaven are ghosts. The ghosts always liked to be together and they never really wanted to be too alone.
When we were in the city, we never saw the stars.
I asked my mother, "When we were in Seattle, we don't ever see no stars. Why?"
My mother stopped and started to think. She followed it with, "My child, the stars are people too. Maybe we if saw them in the city where there are lots of people, we would find their most mysterious secrets. Now, they don't want that just like we have secrets we don't wanna tell."
"Mother, that's kinda dumb, what secret might they have that we don't know?"
"My boy, that's a secret only God knows."
We didn't speak for the rest of the night. We just shot fireworks. We didn't see the stars that night. We only saw fireworks as the rainbow explosion covered the sky of Heaven over Earth.
That was the best memory of my mother.
She died in her sleep of a brain aneurysm. Instant Death
When they let me coordinate the funeral, I had the coffin covered in a massive golden leaf star. We put the coffin back in her home in Louisiana.
This happened when I was 15. I spoke to a psychologist, Dr. T, as he was commonly referred to by his other patients due to his facial hair.. Dr. Tallman helped me through my mother's death. This kickstarted my passion for psychological research. Later when I was 25, I was a leading researcher for both psychology and astronomy for astronauts and others that were exposed to bizarre events or circumstances that affected psychological health as well as recording events in outer space.
On April 25th 2018, I was called down to NASA. I had a Level 7, also known as Level Apollyon. I had to move to a military base in Washington in the Rocky Mountains. I was still in a state of confusion. I was called down and I was told to never reveal the secret as it was top-secret classified information.
I walked down to the Solar Observation Room, the room specifically dealing with observation of the sun's inner sound. They said that they had a theory that only the Level 10s, specifically world leaders and leading researchers in the entire world know about.
They said that they are only allowing a certain piece of information to be allowed to Level 7 for researching events that happened concurrently to this revelation.
The stars were alive.
The stars had hearts inside which pumped.
We found them out in 1986, when a satellite, was near the sun and found a crater that showed a beating heart.
The stars were alive
The stars are real
The stars are alive?
I was dumbfounded to say the absolute simple least. The stars however were lately releasing unknown radiation or energy that was affecting Earth, it started happening in West Virginia.
We had multiple messages in 1986 after the sun was discovered as a organism.
"WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE."
"SLOW DOWN"
"NO LEARNING"
"WOLVES KILL SHEPHARDS"
We have no idea what the hell these messages are talking about.
This was the beginning of the end. We really had no way to going back, we didn't know we were supposed to.
May 29th, 2020, West Virginia.
I was writing down ideas in my notebook for years. Google Doc upon Google Doc filled with theories and explanations.
Known effects on West Virginia have only been tied to West Virginia.
These known effects are: - Merging of human and wildlife. - Carnivorous herbivores. - Raining specifically on cemeteries. - Bizarre lightning related activities around churches
Nothing too wild compared to the events that are happening right now in Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, and Miami.
Special teams called the Flashbangs are sent out after a bizarre event. These use a special gas to make them forget approximately 10 hours. Some civilian who may be immune are euthanized in secret.
The first of these events happened in West Virginia.
At 6:30 PM, the rain had turn from clear to a red color and had started to rise up back into the air in the form of droplets. The water factory in West Virginia had to stop all water after finding out that a third of the water had turned into sheep blood.
The citizens and people at the factory were visited by the Flashbangs.
I landed in Virginia for the second event that happened. It was unusually snowy, it was reported in the forest. I drove on an ATV, alone into the thick wood. The trip was 7-ish minutes until I came up on a meateating doe was feasting a rabbit. The glowing eyes stared into my head.
"YOU ARE STILL LOOKING UP. STOP."
"THIS IS A WARNING"
"HAVE FAITH"
I immediately reported the findings to my superior.
I decided that I needed to breathe. I went to my home in Seattle and took a paid leave.
April 12, 2022
I decided to take around and out of the city for a minute. I was watching the sky as I was driving in my car. The stars were not there. It was just light pollution. I started to crack a smile as the stars begin to pop up as I went further and further away from the city.
I started to think, if the stars were trying to warn us, why didn't they tell the public?
I stopped the car when I looked down and saw another fucking doe.
The neck started contorting into a weird shape, new flesh was growing into the throat of the deer. The deer looked like it was going choke on it's own neck.
"Stop looking up."
It spoke calmly. More calmly than the last doe in West Virginia.
Then more of them showed up.
"Stop looking up, STOP IT."
They went away.
I immediately drew a connection to the stars in the sky.
This may be what I can write at the moment. I need to sleep.
My alcohol is getting low and I don't wanna talk about this. I'm going to speak on this, tomorrow.
submitted by SolaroscopyApollo to nosleep [link] [comments]
My parents moved from Louisiana to inner-city Seattle, this means that I was surprised and kinda shocked to have my birthday party in Graham, in the countryside.
We just blew out my candles. It was 11:50 at night. Everyone was tired and knocked out due to eating ungodly amounts of Southern food that my mother had cooked.
I was laying on a big branch in the forest, not too far from the farm, I just needed to breathe while everyone was asleep. I'm a fast sleeper, so the noises almost carried to Sandman's graces but my mother popped out of nowhere. She was carrying a bundle of fireworks.
My mother was a nice and intiutive woman. They say that women in general have intuition. I just say that insane intuition is an my-mom only type trait. She always knew that I wasn't good with social gatherings and liked to listen to nature...sounds. not be in nature.
My mother climbed on top the giant branch.
She told me a story. A story about the stars.
She told me that the stars in heaven are ghosts. The ghosts always liked to be together and they never really wanted to be too alone.
When we were in the city, we never saw the stars.
I asked my mother, "When we were in Seattle, we don't ever see no stars. Why?"
My mother stopped and started to think. She followed it with, "My child, the stars are people too. Maybe we if saw them in the city where there are lots of people, we would find their most mysterious secrets. Now, they don't want that just like we have secrets we don't wanna tell."
"Mother, that's kinda dumb, what secret might they have that we don't know?"
"My boy, that's a secret only God knows."
We didn't speak for the rest of the night. We just shot fireworks. We didn't see the stars that night. We only saw fireworks as the rainbow explosion covered the sky of Heaven over Earth.
That was the best memory of my mother.
She died in her sleep of a brain aneurysm. Instant Death
When they let me coordinate the funeral, I had the coffin covered in a massive golden leaf star. We put the coffin back in her home in Louisiana.
This happened when I was 15. I spoke to a psychologist, Dr. T, as he was commonly referred to by his other patients due to his facial hair.. Dr. Tallman helped me through my mother's death. This kickstarted my passion for psychological research. Later when I was 25, I was a leading researcher for both psychology and astronomy for astronauts and others that were exposed to bizarre events or circumstances that affected psychological health as well as recording events in outer space.
On April 25th 2018, I was called down to NASA. I had a Level 7, also known as Level Apollyon. I had to move to a military base in Washington in the Rocky Mountains. I was still in a state of confusion. I was called down and I was told to never reveal the secret as it was top-secret classified information.
I walked down to the Solar Observation Room, the room specifically dealing with observation of the sun's inner sound. They said that they had a theory that only the Level 10s, specifically world leaders and leading researchers in the entire world know about.
They said that they are only allowing a certain piece of information to be allowed to Level 7 for researching events that happened concurrently to this revelation.
The stars were alive.
The stars had hearts inside which pumped.
We found them out in 1986, when a satellite, was near the sun and found a crater that showed a beating heart.
The stars were alive
The stars are real
The stars are alive?
I was dumbfounded to say the absolute simple least. The stars however were lately releasing unknown radiation or energy that was affecting Earth, it started happening in West Virginia.
We had multiple messages in 1986 after the sun was discovered as a organism.
"WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE."
"SLOW DOWN"
"NO LEARNING"
"WOLVES KILL SHEPHARDS"
We have no idea what the hell these messages are talking about.
This was the beginning of the end. We really had no way to going back, we didn't know we were supposed to.
May 29th, 2020, West Virginia.
I was writing down ideas in my notebook for years. Google Doc upon Google Doc filled with theories and explanations.
Known effects on West Virginia have only been tied to West Virginia.
These known effects are: - Merging of human and wildlife. - Carnivorous herbivores. - Raining specifically on cemeteries. - Bizarre lightning related activities around churches
Nothing too wild compared to the events that are happening right now in Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, and Miami.
Special teams called the Flashbangs are sent out after a bizarre event. These use a special gas to make them forget approximately 10 hours. Some civilian who may be immune are euthanized in secret.
The first of these events happened in West Virginia.
At 6:30 PM, the rain had turn from clear to a red color and had started to rise up back into the air in the form of droplets. The water factory in West Virginia had to stop all water after finding out that a third of the water had turned into sheep blood.
The citizens and people at the factory were visited by the Flashbangs.
I landed in Virginia for the second event that happened. It was unusually snowy, it was reported in the forest. I drove on an ATV, alone into the thick wood. The trip was 7-ish minutes until I came up on a meateating doe was feasting a rabbit. The glowing eyes stared into my head.
"YOU ARE STILL LOOKING UP. STOP."
"THIS IS A WARNING"
"HAVE FAITH"
I immediately reported the findings to my superior.
I decided that I needed to breathe. I went to my home in Seattle and took a paid leave.
April 12, 2022
I decided to take around and out of the city for a minute. I was watching the sky as I was driving in my car. The stars were not there. It was just light pollution. I started to crack a smile as the stars begin to pop up as I went further and further away from the city.
I started to think, if the stars were trying to warn us, why didn't they tell the public?
I stopped the car when I looked down and saw another fucking doe.
The neck started contorting into a weird shape, new flesh was growing into the throat of the deer. The deer looked like it was going choke on it's own neck.
"Stop looking up."
It spoke calmly. More calmly than the last doe in West Virginia.
Then more of them showed up.
"Stop looking up, STOP IT."
They went away.
I immediately drew a connection to the stars in the sky.
This may be what I can write at the moment. I need to sleep.
My alcohol is getting low and I don't wanna talk about this. I'm going to speak on this, tomorrow.
2023.05.28 07:15 Inside-Canary-5690 My review on Your Lie in April (IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THE SHOW DON'T READ THIS)
Today here's my review on the entire series of Your Lie in April. I watched it and found it to be an entertaining comedy that was so hilarious. The anime is so funny from the get go, as right in the first episode we get to learn how Kousei's mom died, and LMAO that was such a funny scene. The fact that he flipped out at a piano performance also made me laugh like crazy. There were a few rage scenes that were funny when Kaori got mad and all that, and boy I love the comedic and funny tone of the anime in general. It has some funny scenes here and there like in episodes 4 and 5, especially after seeing Kaori faint on stage, that made me so much funny. The following episode was even funnier than that she was actually in the hospital LMAO! Not much for a while though there is a funny scene involving Tsubaki's foot injury. However, the fourteenth episode of the show is where the humor REALLY starts to crank up big time, and become the funniest anime ever. It's where she is hospitalized again after collapsing at home. Another funny scene in the show was when Kaori weakly walks and collapses in the hospital (I LAUGHED SO HARD AT THAT SCENE). Another funny scene is when Kaori tries to get Kousei to kill himself with her (Though it is also a bit unfunny at the same time but still). When Kaori opted for a surgery, it was getting even funnier and funnier by the episode, throughout the later episodes of the series, it gets even more hilarious. And then the surgery takes place. Then we get to the last episode which also happens to be the one where KAORI died. When I watched the show, all I did was LAUGH AND LAUGH really hard. Kaori's death is the FUNNIEST scene in anime history and I have never seen an anime so hilarious before. And then the letter at the funeral really made me laugh like crazy. I'm glad that the show ended on a high note. And because this show got even funnier and funnier every episode (Especially the latter half of the series) I'd give it a 9.5/10. This show really is comedy gold and you all will agree for sure. It's one of the best anime because of how funny it is. Naoshi Arakawa is such a comedic genius
submitted by Inside-Canary-5690 to YourLieinApril [link] [comments]
2023.05.28 06:34 bimbo_wannabe_ [I Accidentally Joined The Mafia In South Brooklyn] Chapter 5: The Dead Are Especially Nosy Down Here
![[I Accidentally Joined The Mafia In South Brooklyn] Chapter 5: The Dead Are Especially Nosy Down Here](https://preview.redd.it/zkaxtarwkj2b1.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=8b33a651493fb05e79994bff658fc34e98166e4e "[I Accidentally Joined The Mafia In South Brooklyn] Chapter 5: The Dead Are Especially Nosy Down Here") | Previous Part: https://www.reddit.com/redditserials/comments/13sxdo9/i_accidentally_joined_the_mafia_in_south_brooklyn/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button submitted by bimbo_wannabe_ to redditserials [link] [comments] These last few parts have taken a lot longer for me to write than I thought. A lot of shit has gone down in the last two months, and a lot of it, frankly, is kind of a blur. But I figure, if you've stuck with me this long, then you deserve to know how it all ended up so I'm going to try my best to remember every detail of what happened. Me? I've spent every free hour I've had, just lying in bed. I've got a lot of healed wounds that still hurt me pretty damned badly. Blood loss from multiple gunshot wounds and then drowning in the East River, dying and then being brought back while still human, incidentally, takes a lot out of a guy. But… I'm getting way ahead of myself. Where were we, again? Oh yeah, that's right. The funeral without caskets, inside of a Ukrainian restaurant just off the boardwalk in Brighton Beach. That's where I left off at. ()()() Antoni's corpse and I had spoken together for a while longer, about Beccs and their baby, actually, sitting there in the floor in front of the three empty bathroom stalls. The next moment, as usual, he was… just gone. It took a while to slow the bleeding, and it took even longer to try and clean myself up with just hand soap and paper towels and the water from the sink. Nobody came into the bathroom again, and as I left, I saw why. There was a sign on the door that read 'Out of Order' with something printed below it in Cyrillic that I imagined probably said the same thing as the English. My new winter coat had been left on the floor in front of the door and the Emergency Exit at the end of the hall had its alarm disabled and had been left propped open with a brick. I took that as a clear message that they didn't want me rejoining the party, so I exited into the alley and sat on a milk crate chain-smoking until 2 PM when the funeral ended. The weather app on my phone said it was 10 degrees outside, but oddly enough the cold air felt soothing on my bruised face. My eyes were nearly swollen shut, and every now and again I had to pull some of the toilet paper out that I'd stuffed in my pocket to wipe another trickle of blood from my nose when I sniffed a little too hard and moved the clots loose. At 1:57, I started to hear people exiting the restaurant, so I moved onto the sidewalk to wait for Becca. The people leaving the funeral only glanced at me for a second and then looked away with a bored expression, like I wasn't even there. Finally, only Becca and Toni's immediate family were still inside. Tatiana gave Becca a hug, Igor, a gentle handshake, and Antoni Sr. bent down, cupped his hands around Becca's face and pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead. I could see that his right hand was bandaged and he was holding it straighter than his left. Good. I hoped the fucker had broken it when he'd punched me in the jaw. As Becca exited, I could tell she was angry even before she stomped over to me and shoved me three times in quick succession. Like Jimmy, Becca was a lot stronger than she looked, but now I knew why. I couldn't do much but ball up and take the hits. "Where the fuck did you go? You just took off and left me there by myself. 'He wouldn't have left without saying goodbye if he had a choice.' You knew, you cocksucker, you knew, you knew he was dead!" "Yeah, I knew! Antoni was in the news. But we gotta get the fuck out of here, Beccs, you're making a scene, another one, and I gotta get outta this neighborhood before something worse happens to me." The high color of anger in her cheeks dropped away immediately into a pallid white. She'd been so pissed she'd never once registered the state of my face. "Jesus Christ, Tony, what the fuck happened to you?" "Your little Polish sausage's Daddy Dearest just beat the fuck out of me in the men's bathroom, that's what the fuck happened." "Why would he do that?" Becca asked, but I didn't answer. She looked back to Skovorodka, following my gaze. Antoni Sr. was still standing there, just inside the front door, watching me with narrowed eyes, his hands folded neatly behind his back like a soldier at ease. It reminded me a lot of how Antoni used to stand while we were waiting for the train together. "Fuck," she muttered, then "Shit," and grabbed me by the arm. "Come on." "Why would he do that?" She asked me again as we climbed the stairs to the train platform. "Antoni was Mob, Becca, Bratva. His whole goddamned family is. Him and his brothers and his father and his fucking Russian uncle, and I'd say your Mama Tatiana probably isn't in the dark about what her brother and her hubby and his sons do to make a living, either. I don't know why the Zabrowskas were on the Avenue, but suffice to say it was probably for nefarious reasons, and Jimmy found out about it and took care of business. "Only I don't think he realized exactly who he was taking out at the time he did it, or else he never would have put the body in the River for somebody to find. And then the other three showed up to avenge their brother, only two of 'em never made it past Bianchi any farther than Antoni did." "The fuck are you trying to say?" Her tone says she already understands just fine and doesn't want to. "I'm saying your dear sweet Mamma killed your boyfriend, Becca. She removed all the identifying marks from his body, ate what she wanted, then pulled all his teeth out and chewed off his hands and his feet. They dumped the body in the East River and they found him about 5 days ago, floating off of Battery Park." "Oh God. That's why. I asked Tatiana where Antoni was going to be buried and she told me in the public cemetery on Hart Island. They're not claiming the body because they don't wanna go to the cops. For the last week I been cussing him for everything he was worth, and he's been laying in the fucking morgue." She pressed her hand to her mouth, and I saw her bloodshot eyes filling with tears again. "Please don't cry, Becca, cause I'm gonna start crying again and I've cried enough for today." She sniffed back her tears and swallowed hard. "But I don't understand, Tony, what the fuck does that have to do with you?" "They knew, Beccs, they knew how the Zabrowskas died, who killed them, and they knew I helped Moretti get rid of the bodies afterwards. That's why Antoni's father went after me. The uh… the fucking Pakhan thought Jimmy sent me there to rub it in their faces that they weren't going to be able to bury any of their boys." "How the fuck would they know that?" She barked at me. "Somebody's feeding them information and not some asshole on the street, somebody from inside the Camorra." "Who would do that?" I saw her eyes darting about wildly as she tried to think of the answer to her own question. "I don't know, uh, the driver that brought Moretti, he didn't look like he was too fond of Bianchi, maybe he's a fucking option." "Frankie? I mean, him and Ma have never gotten along. He's never liked her and the feeling's mutual but… that doesn't make any sense, Frankie's always been loyal to the Camorra. Rossi always said he practically muttered the Omerta in his fucking sleep, that he was a soldato down to the bones." "I have no idea, Becca, but it gets worse," I said quietly. If it didn't hurt so goddamned bad, I would've squeezed my eyes shut. "How the fuck could it possibly get worse, Tony?" "First you gotta promise you're not gonna hit me again." Her hand balled into a fist, and I couldn't help but flinch. "I'm gonna knock you the fuck out right now if you don't stop wasting my time, Cipriani." "I sold her out, Becca. Bianchi. I told them where she lives and how to find her tonight." "You what!?" "I had to! He was gonna cut my fucking fingers off, and I don't know if he was going to take all four or just three but I wasn't about to fucking find out. I kind of need those fingers seeing as I'm a fucking southpaw!" I held my left hand out to her, curled my fingers inward, but the third finger just… stayed straight. "Ah, fuck, I didn't even notice that." "Jesus Christ, the tendon's been cut," she whispered, and when she pressed her hand to her mouth again she looked less like she was swallowing back tears and more like she was trying to swallow back vomit. I couldn't really blame her. I felt pretty nauseous myself. "You know, I'm, I'm not worried about Ma," she said, finally. "It wouldn't be the first time somebody's tried to take her out. She's harder to kill than they think." "Would, uh, would cutting her head off work? Cause if so I think they're already pretty aware of how to get the job done. They… they know Bianchi's not human, Becca." Her face got paler, if that was even possible, and her eyes were the size of saucers. "This is a goddamn nuclear disaster. Jesus fuck." We stood the last few minutes waiting for the train in silence. As the doors slid shut and we sat down, Becca began laughing wildly. "So you're in hysterics for real, huh?" I asked. "You're gonna have to forgive me, I'm a little slow on the uptake today, but I just got it, Polish sausage… only, he wasn't little, you know, he was hung like a fucking horse, and it's a goddamn tragedy for women everywhere that the man isn't on this earth anymore. And he knew how to use it, too. Best sex I ever had in my life… only sex I ever had in my life, but that's not the fucking point." A short, barking sob tore out of her. I groaned. "You know, that is way, way more information than I ever wanted to know about you and Antoni's sex life. You couldn't, uh, you couldn't let that one pass by, huh?" "I never pass up the opportunity to make a good dick joke. And he had Good Dick." I laughed and regretted it as it tightened muscles in my stomach that were still a little angry about being used as Antoni Sr's personal punching bag. "Touché, Miss Rebecca, touché." "The two-faced bastard, I gotta give the motherfucker that much, you know, it's a uniquely personal way to say Fuck You to the Underboss, getting his teenaged daughter pregnant. I am so, so goddamned tired of being a pawn in other people's games. He's lucky he's already dead or I'd kill the bitch myself," she whispered. "It wasn't a game, Becca, what happened between you and Antoni," I whispered back. I knew because Antoni's corpse had told me as much. "Don't ask me how I know, cause I don't wanna talk about it, but it wasn't a game. You didn't know about him and he didn't know about you and it was a big, fucked up coincidence. You loved him, and he really, truly loved you... he worshiped the ground you walked on." Actually, he had said he worshiped the boots she walked in, but I figured it was a translation issue. "It was a regular old Romeo and Juliet: Brooklyn Edition." She squeezed her eyes shut, snorted and at the same time choked on another sob. "Yeah, but Romeo and Juliet ended in a double suicide, not a murder and a single mother." Her tiny hand went to her mouth again, and she wasn't able to hold back the tears this time. "I miss him, Tony, I miss him so fucking much." "You know, Beccs, I miss him, too." I miss him when he was alive, not looking like a walking nightmare, and talking my goddamned ear off half the time, but I wasn't about to tell her that. "He was the first friend I made down here." "It's fucking stupid. I still remember every single thing he said to me those first few times I met him." "Odd as it is, I do too, Beccs. He was that kind of guy, I guess, he didn't have to work hard to make an impression on people. It was, uh, three days after I moved in, I think. I was in the basement, getting ready to do my laundry that morning, fighting with the stuck knob on that machine down at the end? And he walks in with his clothes basket balanced on his hip and reaches past me and just… turned the fucking thing, like it wasn't even stuck to begin with. 'It has an attitude, but it likes me,' he says, and I say, 'I can see that.' "And he, he told me his name. 'Zabrowska,' he says, 'Antoni.' And I laughed and said, 'Nice to meet you, Toni, I'm Tony.' 'Really?' he says, and I say 'Yeah. Really. Antonio Alessio Gioele Cipriani, the third, if you please.'" "Goddamn, that name is painfully Italian. No wonder you tell everybody 'Just call me Tony,'" Becca snorted. "Thank you, Miss Rebecca, I can assure you I didn't pick it myself. But, 'Ah,' Toni says and kind of taps his hand in the center of his chest, 'Junior.' And I laughed again and said 'Our parents were goddamned creative when it came to the baby naming, right?' And he laughed, too, and shook my hand. "And uh, a few days after that he showed up outside of my apartment and asked me if I wanted to go watch a game with him and his brothers at the sports bar down the street. It was Poland vs Korea. I still don't know shit about soccer, I've always been more of an American football kind of guy, but I did learn quite a few Polish swear words that day. Apparently they'd all bet money on the home team winning that game." "I bet you did. Poland kept catching red cards that whole game. I bet on Korea, of course, and altogether I won 8 grand from four extremely pissed off Polish dudes when we stomped their ass all over the pitch. I had no idea how seriously the four of them took soccer. Antoni wouldn't even talk to me for three days. Probably didn't help I made an ass of myself laughing at all of them. Course, I woulda bet more if I'd known they were good for it. Dry cleaners, my ass," Becca spat. "Well, in Antoni's defense, he probably did work at a dry cleaners like he told us, just like you work at a bodega, and Jimmy and me work at a restaurant, and Pops works at a hardware store. We all got day jobs. You know, I hate to bust your balls, Becca, but did it… never occur to you to ask Antoni if the tattoos meant something?" "No," she said weakly. "I mean, I knew they were prison tats but Jesus Christ, half the people I know have been to prison. You've been to prison, half of my cousins have been to prison, hell, Pops has been to prison. You weren't here then, but all of 2016 to 2020 I was wearing a 'Free Rossi' t-shirt everyday, a lot of people in this neighborhood did. Ma got him off on the Murder 1 charges but numbers are numbers, and she couldn't get him out of the Tax Evasion. But I figured, if Antoni didn't wanna talk about it, then it was none of my business what had happened before we met each other." She'd minded her own business a little too hard this time. "What did you and Antoni talk about, Becca?" "Everything! And anything, and nothing, all at the same time. He'd complain about living with his brothers, about Misiu always leaving hair all over the bathroom, and how Ciech always left sugar all over the kitchen counter after he made his coffee. And I'd complain about having to pick up all the empty bottles of makgeolli after my Dad in the morning. I'd help him wash all the dishes his dirty ass brothers would leave piled in the sink, and fold everybody's clothes. "We got along well, me and Antoni, we were actually very compatible, we were both neat freaks when it came to our housekeeping. We even folded our towels the same way. And he'd bitch about how Igor could never balance the register correctly at the end of the day, and I'd bitch about how my Dad never checked our invoices correctly, and I was always having to cuss out the distribution reps for shorting us on our deliveries myself. "And we'd watch TV together. He always made fun of me for the lame ass old Chuck Lorre sitcoms I loved to watch, and I'd make fun of him for all the stupid cop dramas he watched, every Law and Order known to man, and Blue Bloods and shit. We just… talked to each other, like we were two regular people, just living our lives. It was simple and it was easy, and it was enough, it was goddamned enough for me. Our relationship was the one normal thing I had going in my fucked up life." She cracked at the end, sobbing brokenly. She turned her head to the side, pressed her face into my bicep as she wrapped both arms around mine. Tears filled my eyes, as well, and now I was wiping snot out of my nose as well as blood. I felt goddamned sorry for the kid, and I felt like she had a right to cry, but I had to distract her, for my own sake. "So tell me, when was the first time you talked to Antoni? Was that the same day he asked you out?" "No, there was some time between the two. He'd been there about a week, I guess, after they moved in. They got there back in like April. I'd fucked with him the first day, you know, asked him where the hell the accent came from, and he said Poland, and I told him welcome to America cause I felt like being a dick. And he said that he'd already been in country five years and I laughed at him and told him, goddamn, I couldn't tell cause he still sounded like he was fresh off the boat. And he got this look on his face, like he was trying to decide if he needed to be offended or not, so I told him I was just fucking with him, that he was doing better than my Mom, God rest her, cause it was seven years after she got here from Seoul before she even learned a word of English and my Dad was the one that had to teach her." "Makes sense. I moved in in June, Toni mentioned he'd only been in the building about two months hisself." She nodded, I could feel the movement in the sleeve of my coat where her cheek was pressed to my arm. "Him and his brothers started coming in every day after that and you know, I kind of had my eye on him from the first time I talked to him. He was goddamn gorgeous, quite literally the walking definition of 'tall, dark, and handsome.' He had those incredibly blue eyes, and that fucking accent, man, shit put me in knots everytime he came in. I learned them all pretty quick, and Antoni was easy. He got the same thing everyday, box of Newport 100s and a pack of Russian Cream Backwoods with a large slushy. You know I gotta keep the cups behind the counter because motherfuckers'll fill it up and walk out when I get busy. I saw him when he came in, and went over to the ATM, so I had his shit sitting on the counter waiting for him." Becca had a talent for memorizing all of the regular's orders, it wasn't unusual to see a long line of cigarettes, blunts, medicine, sometimes even crack pipes and Chore Boys, and anything else she kept behind the counter, set up neatly next to the register. She also had a talent for running both registers at the same time when the line got overly long and she was there alone. Sometimes I had no idea how she kept up with it all, but that was just Becca. "And this drunk asshole came in, right after, he didn't even belong in the neighborhood, he stayed in Bed-Stuy, but he was with his cousin, and his cousin I knew and he was shooting me apologetic looks so I was already on guard. I was in a bad goddamn mood that day, anyway. And the drunk bitch, he walked over to the bathroom and tried to open it." "Key's behind the counter," I said, and she nodded. "And the key costs five dollars cause people make a fucking mess in the bathroom and I ain't cleaning that shit everyday for free. Well, drunk fuck got pissed and started talking a bunch of shit and threw his five dollars down on the counter, and you know, I can't stand that. You don't throw money at me, I ain't a goddamned stripper, you can put that shit in my hand or you can get the fuck out my store. And, I said 'Naw, son, for you it's gonna cost ten, five dollar Drunk Dick surcharge for being an asshole and cutting my line.' And the motherfucker… he called me a fucking stupid little bitch, and he told me people like me needed to be sent back to my own country." I made a sound of disapproval, already seeing where this was headed. "I hate that stupid shit. Where the fuck am I getting sent back to? The fucking hospital in Manhattan where I was born? Everybody in the store just kind of stopped and stood there, and dude's cousin? He just shook his head at me and walked right out the store and left him there." "He wasn't gonna get involved, huh?" I asked. "Fuck no. He wasn't stupid. I… uh, I was seeing red by that point so I balled up his money and I threw it across the store and told him to get the fuck out. I don't even remember half the shit I said to him, but I was yelling and he was yelling back and all of a sudden Antoni was… just there. I never even noticed him walking up. He was a big motherfucker, but goddamn he was quick and quiet when he wanted to be." Becca laced her fingers through the fingers of my right hand and I gave them a squeeze as she readjusted her head against my shoulder. I turned mine to press a kiss to her hair. She was short enough that I didn't have to worry about bumping my nose. As I turned back, I noticed that there was a puddle of water on the seat across from us, and a pit formed in my stomach immediately. My face felt cold as the blood drained from it. The puddle of water made me more than just a little nervous to see it. I had new enemies stacking up quick, and the last thing I needed was a pissed off, jealous ghost because his grieving fiancée was getting a little handsy with me. But… Antoni never showed himself, so I could only assume he approved of my offering her comfort in her time of need. Either that or he was waiting till I was alone to express his displeasure. "'Is there a problem here?' was all he asked and the drunk bitch turned around and he got even more pissed. He goes 'Man, fuck you, white boy. Mind your own goddamned business.' And Antoni kind of got in his face, and goes, 'I have made it my business. She told you to leave. Either remove yourself or I will remove you.' "And the liquor must've given him a bigger set of balls than he actually had, cause he took a swing at him. And Antoni, he just kind of… leaned back a little to avoid the swing and then leaned back in and… he knocked that bitch out cold with one punch. And then he picked him up, literally picked him up, and threw his ass out on the sidewalk, and kind of dusted his hands off afterwards." "Well, if he's anything like his father then he could throw a hell of a right cross." Becca laughed weakly. "Yeah, his Dad boxes, they all did, you know, from when they were young. Antoni told me he got in his Dad's face once when he was about 16, and Old Papa Zabrowska coldcocked him in the kitchen, and when he woke up on the couch, his Dad dragged him out back in the alley and beat him bloody. Told him if his little grown ass thought he was a man, then he was grown enough to get his ass stomped like a man." That made me feel a little better, to be honest. At least I wasn't the only one I knew who had caught an ass kicking from Antoni Sr. "I bet he didn't talk shit to his Pops again after that, huh?" "I asked him that exact question, he said 'Oh no, no, never again. I learned my lesson.' Toni and his brothers, though, were always getting in fights, even when I knew them. He told me it was hard on their Mama, back in Kraków, having four hormonal, teenaged boys with just shy of a year between each of them, you know cause… us fucking Roman Catholics ain't too fond of any method of contraception." "I didn't know you was Catholic, too, B." "Of course. Rossi is a devout Catholic, and that's how he raised me, and Nia, she's an Angel, you know, a Fallen One, that's what they call themselves, but she's even got real wings. A little more leathery and less feathery, but… same thing. She goes to Mass daily, turns out demons are actually very religious. Both of my parents were atheists, and that's how they raised me, but after some of the shit I've seen, you know, it ain't too unbelievable that there's a Big Guy upstairs." She sniffed again, wiped at her nose and I offered her a bit of toilet paper from my pocket. "That's how it all got started, the War in Heaven. God created Adam, the first living human body, and he told all the spirits in Heaven to kneel to him. And at least half of them weren't too fond of that idea, and the Morning Star stepped up as representative and said they wouldn't kneel to anyone but God. And they, uh, they lost the War, and He banished them all to Earth, to wander without bodies of their own while the other side got to come to Earth one at a time, to live their lives. "But… then there was the first murder, Abel. Cain beat him to death with a rock, and the blood on the ground, the first human blood ever shed in violence, it called to God, but He wasn't the only one it called to. The blood, it gave him a way inside of a body. Lucifer. He was the First One. He's still here, you know, I've met him. He has a particular fondness for Nia, he calls her Young One, cause according to him 1607 wasn't all that long ago." "I guess it isn't when you're that old." "But, back to what I was saying about Toni, all of them were packed into one place together like fucking sardines, the four boys sharing one bedroom in a two bedroom apartment, and all having vastly different personalities. Tatiana is little, like me, and I don't imagine she could do much to break them up when they got to fighting about everything from who ate all the leftovers to who got the top bunks on the beds." "Probably not," I answered. "I mean, I could practically smell the testosterone in their fucking apartment whenever I walked in, and it was probably even worse back then. And apparently, that had been their Dad's method of keeping them from tearing up his wife's house all the time. Whenever a problem inevitably developed, he'd just take them down to the gym and throw them in the ring without any gloves and tell them to fucking handle it, and whoever was still standing at the end was the one that won the argument. "Uh, but, uh, when Toni hit the guy, all, all I could do was stand there with my mouth hanging open like a fucking fish. I mean, I was in love, right that fucking second, standing there. The hormones were running on overdrive, my head was practically spinning with how fast all the blood rushed south, you know? Everybody was still standing there and Antoni tried to get back in line and I said, 'Uh-uh. Take your shit and go on.' And he goes," Beccs began laughing again, laughed so hard there were tears in her eyes once more. "He goes, 'Am I in trouble?''' I had to wrap my left arm tight around my stomach because I couldn't stop myself from laughing either. The makeshift bandage on my left hand that I'd wound out of paper towel had soaked through, I was going to have to change it soon. "He didn't say that, Becca." "Yes the fuck, he did. And I went, 'No, you dumbass, it's on the house, and in case I gotta translate, that means it's free. Small price to pay for a security detail.' And he just kind of blinked at me for a second, before he nodded his head and grabbed his things off the counter, went and filled his slushy up." "You probably scared the piss out of him for that second, he probably thought he'd been found out. That's what they call it, what he was, Obshchak, Security Group." "He stopped before he left, and told me thank you. And I said 'No, dziękuję', thank you. And then I winked at him and said 'Miłej nocy, piękna.'" She straightened up as the train began to slow for our stop. "And what did that mean?" "Have a good night, gorgeous." She said with a watery grin. "Smooth, B, real smooth. Nothing quite like hitting on a man in his native language. " "I mean, you know us, Tony, we got Southern Hospitality down here. As long as you're not an asshole, I do everything I can to make sure everyone feels welcome when they come inside. That's why there's a sign on the door that says 'DMZ.' They might have beef on the streets but don't nobody take that shit inside my store. And that means asking the Mexicans down the street if they need a bolsa, and making sure I ordered Farid's miswaks so he didn't have to walk all the way down to the Pakistani store, and sometimes it means learning a little bit of Polish so I could flirt with the new guy downstairs the next time he came in." We exited the train, made the switch, and stood on the platform waiting for the next to take us back to Avenue U. As I glanced to the side, I could see a puddle forming on the platform next to me, drip by drip. It was already freezing around the edges. As it turned out, I wasn't the only nosy fuck around here. "And apparently the flirting was well received by our dearly departed half-Russian friend." "Apparently, cause about a week later I was having a busy fucking Friday night and my Dad had already gone home, and I was trying to shut her down but motherfuckers kept coming inside right up until 11. I made DeAndre from downstairs stand at the door and tell people we were closed and that he was the last customer for the night and after I rung him up I told him to flip the sign on the door and I'd lock it when I finished my cigarette count… only, I forgot to ever lock it, and DeDe's traitorous ass, he fucking set me up. He knew I had a thing for Antoni, and when he saw him coming down off the platform and rushing down the sidewalk, he let him in and told him he was the last customer for the night and to flip the sign on the door." She closed her eyes for a moment. "It took me… exactly 16 minutes to notice he was there. I know, cause after I was done pissing myself when I figured out I wasn't alone, the Polish smart-ass showed me his watch. He'd set a timer when he realized I wasn't paying any attention to him, and then just stood there, waiting to see how long it would take. I had my earphones in, and it took four songs," she held up her hand and ticked them off with her fingers. "'Savage Like', 'Money, Sex, Drugs', 'Proud' and 'Only.' "I turned around and screamed like a little bitch when I saw him. And then I got pissed, cause I was embarrassed, I'd been singing along to all the songs cause I thought I was alone in the store. I started screaming at him. 'What the fuck, you can't read? The sign says Closed.' And he goes 'No, it didn't. It still said Open. I turned it myself.' I hadn't counted down my register yet, so I just went ahead and grabbed his shit and rung him up, cussing DeDe the whole time and I asked him how long he'd been standing there, and he showed me his watch. And he says, 'You shouldn't wear those, it's dangerous,' talking about my headphones, and I said, 'What are you, my fucking father?' And he got kind of a funny look on his face." I released a weak snicker, holding my stomach tight again. I couldn't resist fucking with them both a little bit. "He kinda had a point, Becca. Although, I can tell you he was probably less concerned about being your father and more concerned about becoming your Daddy." "Oh, so now you got the dirty jokes," Becca said flatly. "What can I say, B, you're a bad influence on me." "Eh," she said after a moment, "You wouldn't be the first. You know, months later he told me that he'd stood there that long because he didn't think he'd have the nerve to ask what he wanted to ask the next time if he left, which, you know, what the fuck? What am I, scary?" I couldn't help but laugh again. "Yes, Becca, you are, you're fucking terrifying half the time. You might be a short fuck but dynamite comes in small packages, you know? He was probably afraid you'd tell him to suck your dick and ban him from the store for a month like every other poor motherfucker I've seen ask you out, and he probably didn't want to go through your particular brand of ridicule in front of an audience, on top of that, with all the other customers laughing him out of the store." "It ain't my fault I'm this size," she said after a moment, shooting me a perturbed look. "No shit, Sherlock. It's genetics." "It ain't even that. It's the blood. I mean, my parents were both tall, you know, for Koreans, anyway, my Mom was 5'6. I probably would've been too if I'd had the chance, but, you know, the blood it… stops things. Why do you think Jimmy looks the way he does? I mean, Pops believes in 'aging gracefully,' as he says, but old Giacomino is a vain fuck, and he's got more of a taste for 'the Stuff' than Rocco ever had. He turned 65 this year, he's only two years younger than Pops, he was already 34 years old when he met Nia for the first time. He tells people he's got a good plastic surgeon, when they ask. And the same thing happened to me. My body wanted to stay 8 years old, forever. "Rossi had to get hormones, fucking estrogen and progesterone and HGH, off the black market to force my body to start puberty and to fucking grow. It's not like we could go to a doctor and explain why I needed the prescription. I mean, these tits aren't even mine. Ma bought 'em for my sixteenth birthday so I wouldn't feel so goddamned self-conscious. Nia's not exactly flat-chested, as you know, neither was my Mom, and it kind of gave me a fucking complex when I was growing up." "I mean, is she? I haven't really noticed," I replied, evasively. "Yes, you have, you lying fuck. There isn't a straight or bisexual man, or a lesbian or bisexual woman for that matter, that comes within fifty feet of Appolonia Bianchi that doesn't notice all of her unnatural charms. It made for some interesting 'family' trips during the summer when we'd leave the city, lemme tell you. I asked Pops once, you know, if he ever got jealous when she'd show up with some random dick she'd run across, cause I used to think it was pretty shitty of her. "I said she could've at least kept things on the downlow and not throw it in Rocco's face every few days. But he told me no, he loved her, he understood her nature very well and he'd accepted what she was years before I was even born, and that she loved him too, and more importantly, respected him. She always introduced the men to him because that was what he'd asked of her. That it was the one aspect of control he had in the situation, giving his 'permission' for her little liaisons. That it made him feel better to let them know they might be getting a piece, but she'd be ending every night lying in his bed, regardless of what they did." I nodded. "I guess I can kind of see his point." "But, the blood, that's how I ended up pregnant. I mean, I'm not a dumbass, I know how babies are made, but I wasn't worried about using condoms with Antoni, neither of us wanted to. I told him if he gave me anything I'd cut his dick off, and he knew I was serious, too, and he considered it a proportional response. I didn't even think I could get pregnant. "I stopped the birth control when I was 16 because it was making me gain weight and my cheer coach bitched me out in front of fucking everybody, and Rossi's guy said I needed to keep taking it to keep my hormone levels even. So I told Antoni I didnt want to get into my medical history, but suffice to say I was probably fucking sterile anyway, so he didn't have to worry about it, and he told me he wasn't worried about it at all. But apparently my fucking parts work better than I thought." "Or maybe he had some damned determined swimmers, who knows." "I don't know why I was even concerned about not using condoms anyway. Technically we were all excommunicated as of 2014. Pope said the mafiosi lifestyle isn't compatible with the Catholic one. You know, I wonder how Antoni would feel about all this, I wonder if he'd be pissed, think I lied to him about not being able to get pregnant." "You're just gonna have to take my word for it, B, but he's not angry in the least, he's pretty fucking proud of hisself." I'd say his chest was stuck out but he didn't have much of a chest left these days, so I just kept that part to myself. "Pretty sure he said he wasn't worried about it because he was hoping you were wrong about being sterile." Beccs gave me a strange look but the train arrived at just that moment. The people exiting did quite a bit of staring, unlike the people leaving the funeral, but I just tucked my arm around Becca and shouldered my way past them and found us a seat. The drops of water followed us into the train. "What's with the present tense, Tony? Is that some kind of cliche 'he's lookin' down on you' bullshit?" I snorted and wiped the bubble of blood from my nose, staring at the puddle of water that was starting to form in the seat next to us. I could feel the cold emanating from Antoni all along my left side. Oddly enough, it was easing the intense ache in my nearly severed ring finger. "He ain't looking down on us, B, I can tell you that much." "So it's a Hell joke?" "No, not really. But then again, I'm pretty sure we're all in Hell right this second, Miss Rebecca, so yes, yes it is." |
2023.05.28 05:56 DoYouBelieveInThat My Mother Died, And She Will Do Everything To Make Sure I Won't.
I was sitting across from my mother. She has been dead for quite some time, yet she was always present when I needed her the most. Of course, no one else can see or hear her, but that would not matter anyway. She had little interest in anyone else. Her presence is soothing. A calming anchor in an all too real sea of uncertainty and danger.
I was at the back of a boat gazing into the wake that it created. I don't know much about boats, but as far as I can tell, it has seen some wear and tear. As it idles through the water, I looked back over our journey. White waves were created as we pushed through the ocean. The Sun had long abandoned us. Only silver streaks of moonlight on the peaks of the waves broke up the endless black. A wake usually means there is going to be a funeral, I thought to myself.
I turned and faced towards the front of the boat and took in my immediate surroundings. A small veteran boat with oars, a tired petrol engine, and some basic supplies. The captain held an unfriendly demeanor. I counted people, but after 20 my anxiety increased. The opposite of counting sheep. At least 20 people. 20 lives present.
Who were these strangers?
What is their life before this?
What is their life going to be?
Every question I could think of was equally important. The boat shook as we collided into a small wall composed of ocean. It spat at us as if we had interrupted it from its slumber.
An old lady cried, "اللَهُمَّ ساعِدْني"
Tears streamed down her face as she collapsed into the nearest person beside her; a thin man with a tight moustache and a furrowed brow. The thin man was just as frightened and clutched onto her as cold air whistled around their faces. The air cut into our cheeks like tiny paper cuts. I picked out faces. The old lady. The thin man. A kindly faced woman in front of me. Her shawl was protecting at least three under it. Their three sets of eyes. Like little kitten's peering out from the warmth of the shawl. Their faces were obscured. She was humming something. A soothing little note designed to create a forcefield against the harsh reality of our situation. My Mother began to hum a tune that I knew well. The little kittens braced as each wave unsettled the boat.
I continued to look around. A well-built man was barking orders. He was ranting about life jackets. My mother nudged my arm. She pointed to some lifejackets strewn underneath my seat. I shouted out. The well-built man scrambled to them. "Here, here, here". He threw them into the group. The most vulnerable were seen to first, but even then, I could see numerous people with no life jackets. I know that they could not swim; either too old or not old enough. They wouldn't be able for the mercilessness of the ocean.
The thin man who had just consoled the elderly women sat himself down beside me. He turned to me and smiled. I smiled back. He laughed. It isn't a particularly happy laugh, but something has caught his eye. He passed over a small photograph. It was composed of a large family with him proudly centred. Libyan or Algerian was my best guess, but then again, he could truly be from anywhere. My mother leaned over his back and pointed at a young woman sitting off to the left. I get it now. I resemble this woman. I glanced around. He is alone. I have a feeling his family only exists as memories or through haunting lookalikes. I felt a mixture of emotion. Perhaps they are also here, I thought to myself. Like my mother.
He doesn't speak, as I returned the photograph like it was a delicate flower. He picked himself up and squeezed to the back of the boat. Even though we didn't talk, we knew a lot about each other. I remember my mother whispering to me.
".إذا كان الكلام من فضة فالسكوت من ذه"
People were moaning in pain around me. An injured woman had been passed out for most of the journey. Her leg looked infected, and her partner, a beautiful woman, clutched her tightly. I helped put a lifejacket on the injured woman. Her partner's eyes appreciated me. I sat back down at the end of the boat. We continued into the darkness of the night. To busy myself and to keep warm, from my pocket, I took a small photo out. It was wrapped in a plastic I found on the beach.
My grandparents. The ones who raised me and cared for me. I closed my eyes and saw it vividly. In fact, I always saw it when I closed my eyes. The smoke choking their frail bodies. The heat of burning rubber, wood, and flesh. My own blood drenching the dust in the sitting room as my ears rang from the impact blast. My throat still winces when I remember the caked dust that nearly suffocated me. They appear sometimes as well. Charred and tearful. Sometimes they scream, but mostly they just smoulder. My Mother was oblivious to this, of course. I didn't have the heart to tell her. From what I gathered; they don't interact. I drifted back into my past. Stumbling out of the apartment just in time to see the foundations begin to crumble. Another jet closing in on our little town.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
The noise was getting louder. I blinked my eyes and returned to reality. I was cold and alone. Everyone in this boat was. Cold and alone together. My story wasn't new. In fact, most know it. Thinking of my grandmother, I squeezed past the worried faces. I took my torn jacket and placed it around the old lady. She smiled. I smiled. I returned to my tiny area. The waves were now pelting the underneath of the boat as if some evil creature was trying to tear it apart.
A large splash destroys the shallow peace. I looked down and quickly realised someone has gone overboard. Among the trashing and screaming, people reached out in a vain effort to rescue him. The Thin man was sinking into the black. His eyes widened with fear as he came to the realisation of his situation. That is when I saw it. That is when I saw him. Pale arms wrapped silently around his body. Gently, but firmly, they pulled him towards the depths of the ocean.
His struggle lessened and lessened. The panic of the thin man's eyes slowly turn into acceptance.
I think he has chosen his new life underneath the chaos above the waters. Eventually, his body disappeared into the black. The screams on the boat became less and less. People were just gazing into the water. Perhaps they were wondering if the reasons he chose were convincing. Perhaps, they wanted to be next. He has a new family now.
The creatures had been following us since the first day. While I wouldn't say they are friendly, they seemed to keep a healthy distance from us, only interacting when we breach the sanctity of their waters. From what I gathered; the creatures were not Sirens. Sirens lure you into a false reality with their music. These creatures are different. They don't leap onto your boat. They don't pull you into their depths. The thin man wasn't forced into his fate. He merely fell overboard.
How? I don't know, but he knew the consequences of his actions. He chose out. The overwhelming reality of our human world simply became too much. Death was a viable acceptance, and it had it hands out to welcome him. The creatures embraced him. Were these creatures human at one point? I do not know. Their eyes are human like. As we drifted for hours aimlessly into the darkness, I thought about them a lot. I also saw them. Little yellow dots bouncing up and down in the water, patiently waiting for the next.
I dropped my hand overboard and allowed it to glide over the surface of the water. Very briefly my fingers interlock with another. I loosened my grip on the boat and allowed myself to sway side to side. The touch was kind and gentle. A small part of me knew the danger, but another, far more desperate part just needed to feel something. Suddenly, I felt a grip around my back. My Mother ushered me away from the water. I hugged myself for warmth and closed my eyes. As I drifted in and out of consciousness, I overheard some of the conversations around me.
"How much did you pay?"
"Can't we go back? Maybe he is still alive"
"Stop talking nonsense. He is gone"
"Move over, I am almost falling out here."
"No, my family had couldn't come, they didn't make it."
"When do we get there? He said only three days"
"Three days? He said a few hours to me."
"A few hours! You must be foolish? Two days at least."
"The water is beautiful, let's us embrace the calm"
"I am cold"
Wait, I thought, "the water is beautiful?"
I looked around to see who would say such a strange thing. The voice didn't seem to come from anyone on board. The cold was getting to me. I closed my eyes again.
"We won't make the journey"
"Keep yourself quiet and don't be foolish"
"Leave her be, she's just nervous!"
"Nervous, look around, we are all nervous! Don't start lecturing me about nervous"
"I said stop it!"
I opened my eyes. Where's the mother of three?, I thought.
I perched up on the back of the boat and looked across the faces. Ah! There she was. She was cupping water and cleaning their faces. The injured woman looked very poorly. I wondered if there was a medical professional here. The injured lady had a partner. Another woman. She was beautiful.
In an instant, the boat violently shook. Rain tore into us so badly that we crawled as far into the boat as humanly possible. 20 or more voices were helplessly crying into the ocean's indifference. I tried to reassure the people around me that it was okay. When it calmed, I lifted my head and assessed my surroundings. I had cuts from the razor rain, but I was more or less intact. Then I heard the howling. A banshee cries. I could not figure out the dilemma. Who was screaming? It was the woman of three. She was howling.
The well-built man grabbed a torch from the box where the life jackets were and pointed it to the ocean of waves. It took me a few minutes to discern the ugly truth. Tears fell down the well built man's face. The woman of three. Now the woman of two. Yellow eyes were dotted around us. Another offering to their insatiable appetite.
Our mental and physical strength was drained. Food had been scarce for some time and as the old rhyme goes, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink. The injured woman looked terrible. Apart from small gulps of freshwater and a makeshift bandage, we had nothing to give her. I began scouring the boat for something, anything that might relieve her pain. Her injuries looked deep. Her partner, the beautiful woman was stoic. She knew that nothing could be done, although the closer to the shoreline the better.
I rested my head against the yellowed, damaged side of the boat. Before I could get comfortable, it hit. A wave smashed against us. The boat lifted upwards into the sky. I fell backwards into the wake as the boat pounded back down into the water. Although, I didn't know at the time. The boat had ruptured its hull. The cold stinging pain of the water jolted my lungs. For a brief moment, I was paralysed. As I bobbed up and down in the water, my face dipped below the waterline. I couldn't make out much, but those yellow eyes.
They were still there. I saw faces, hundreds of them, surrounding my body. Grabbing and pulling me towards the deep. Many of the faces were those already dead, and I was being pulled towards them. In that moment of paralysis, there was almost serenity. The physical world full of its pain and anguish seemed to melt away in the midst of this calm inevitability.
A part of me was ready to give in. Join the chorus of distraught yellow eyes. I knew I couldn't. I froze as we made brief eye contact, but it was my mother’s voice snapped me back to the moment. I pulled and swam upwards in a feeble attempt to break away. I rose above the water and tried to grasp my surroundings. The boat was sinking. People were thrashing about in the water. It was panic. I knew I couldn't. I pulled and swam upwards in a feeble attempt to break away.
I saw the old lady.
"Jump", I cried to the old lady.
"It's sinking, it's sinking!"
The boat was decompressing rapidly.
"Jump", I shouted.
Just as the moon hit her face, I saw it. I saw many emotions, but I also saw what she couldn't bear to say. She couldn't swim. Before I could swim back to try and get her a lifejacket a wave from behind lifted me forward and I crashed into the side of the boat. In a daze, I grasped onto the thick rope that surrounded the boat. Mouthfuls after mouthfuls of salted air and water began to take their toll.
People were thrashing in the water. The cold was intense. The boat was almost fully sunk, and my upper body strength was gone. Then I saw it. A beam of light over the water. The sound of an incoming ship. A sigh of relief. Men threw out water doughnuts and rope. People clambered onto the boat. Those who were left anyway. By the time everyone was on board the sun was just peering out on the horizon. I was wrapped in a dry blanket and then I went dark.
When I woke up, I was in a tent. New clothes set out before me. I assessed my wounds. Cuts reddened the skin, but I was more or less okay. I sat up in the makeshift tent and grabbed a cup of coffee to warm my hands. I was exhausted, but I had to know where I was. I wandered out of the tent. The searing heat reminded me of home. People were shouting, vehicles were ferrying food and supplies back and forth. This must be one of the biggest camps there is.
In front of me was a new war with its own special injured. I walked throughout the camp looking for anyone I could recognise. The well-built man was looking pale and shell-shocked. His eyes were red and two doctors spoke in rapid-fire to one another. He didn't understand a word they were saying.
I moved through the camp for the rest of the day. I saw many faces, and harrowingly, I didn't see many others. When I came across the woman of two, my heart ached. She was inconsolable. The woman of two. My emotions knew nothing of her plight. I pushed my mind forward as much as I could.
The woman of none.
I walked on to find an empty bench. I collapsed into it and looked out over the horizon. I had survived.
A small whisper of encouragement filled my ears. My Mother. She soothed over the anxiety I was feeling. My anger, pain, and the hatred I had for myself to feel relief when so many others only feel pain. She whipped herself around the branches of a tree causing leaves to lightly dance in front of me. I thought back to the days of the olive trees that we used to have in our back garden. She continued to flit in a frenzy of happiness.
I understood.
Perhaps the afterlife is a lot simpler. I shrugged my shoulders as to say, "What do I do now?"
She cracked a wry smile. And whispered, "whatever you set your heart to."
With that, she began to move away from me. She extended her arms, and that is when I realised. She wasn't alone. Hiding behind the tree were three small individuals. Three that I recognised. The three little kittens looked at my mother and rushed towards her. She smiled at me and back at them.
She had saved me on my journey, and now it was her time to guide three little lives into a new one. A mixture of sadness and happiness crept over me. My Mother faded out. I shut my eyes and thought about dry land.
submitted by DoYouBelieveInThat to nosleep [link] [comments]
I was at the back of a boat gazing into the wake that it created. I don't know much about boats, but as far as I can tell, it has seen some wear and tear. As it idles through the water, I looked back over our journey. White waves were created as we pushed through the ocean. The Sun had long abandoned us. Only silver streaks of moonlight on the peaks of the waves broke up the endless black. A wake usually means there is going to be a funeral, I thought to myself.
I turned and faced towards the front of the boat and took in my immediate surroundings. A small veteran boat with oars, a tired petrol engine, and some basic supplies. The captain held an unfriendly demeanor. I counted people, but after 20 my anxiety increased. The opposite of counting sheep. At least 20 people. 20 lives present.
Who were these strangers?
What is their life before this?
What is their life going to be?
Every question I could think of was equally important. The boat shook as we collided into a small wall composed of ocean. It spat at us as if we had interrupted it from its slumber.
An old lady cried, "اللَهُمَّ ساعِدْني"
Tears streamed down her face as she collapsed into the nearest person beside her; a thin man with a tight moustache and a furrowed brow. The thin man was just as frightened and clutched onto her as cold air whistled around their faces. The air cut into our cheeks like tiny paper cuts. I picked out faces. The old lady. The thin man. A kindly faced woman in front of me. Her shawl was protecting at least three under it. Their three sets of eyes. Like little kitten's peering out from the warmth of the shawl. Their faces were obscured. She was humming something. A soothing little note designed to create a forcefield against the harsh reality of our situation. My Mother began to hum a tune that I knew well. The little kittens braced as each wave unsettled the boat.
I continued to look around. A well-built man was barking orders. He was ranting about life jackets. My mother nudged my arm. She pointed to some lifejackets strewn underneath my seat. I shouted out. The well-built man scrambled to them. "Here, here, here". He threw them into the group. The most vulnerable were seen to first, but even then, I could see numerous people with no life jackets. I know that they could not swim; either too old or not old enough. They wouldn't be able for the mercilessness of the ocean.
The thin man who had just consoled the elderly women sat himself down beside me. He turned to me and smiled. I smiled back. He laughed. It isn't a particularly happy laugh, but something has caught his eye. He passed over a small photograph. It was composed of a large family with him proudly centred. Libyan or Algerian was my best guess, but then again, he could truly be from anywhere. My mother leaned over his back and pointed at a young woman sitting off to the left. I get it now. I resemble this woman. I glanced around. He is alone. I have a feeling his family only exists as memories or through haunting lookalikes. I felt a mixture of emotion. Perhaps they are also here, I thought to myself. Like my mother.
He doesn't speak, as I returned the photograph like it was a delicate flower. He picked himself up and squeezed to the back of the boat. Even though we didn't talk, we knew a lot about each other. I remember my mother whispering to me.
".إذا كان الكلام من فضة فالسكوت من ذه"
People were moaning in pain around me. An injured woman had been passed out for most of the journey. Her leg looked infected, and her partner, a beautiful woman, clutched her tightly. I helped put a lifejacket on the injured woman. Her partner's eyes appreciated me. I sat back down at the end of the boat. We continued into the darkness of the night. To busy myself and to keep warm, from my pocket, I took a small photo out. It was wrapped in a plastic I found on the beach.
My grandparents. The ones who raised me and cared for me. I closed my eyes and saw it vividly. In fact, I always saw it when I closed my eyes. The smoke choking their frail bodies. The heat of burning rubber, wood, and flesh. My own blood drenching the dust in the sitting room as my ears rang from the impact blast. My throat still winces when I remember the caked dust that nearly suffocated me. They appear sometimes as well. Charred and tearful. Sometimes they scream, but mostly they just smoulder. My Mother was oblivious to this, of course. I didn't have the heart to tell her. From what I gathered; they don't interact. I drifted back into my past. Stumbling out of the apartment just in time to see the foundations begin to crumble. Another jet closing in on our little town.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
The noise was getting louder. I blinked my eyes and returned to reality. I was cold and alone. Everyone in this boat was. Cold and alone together. My story wasn't new. In fact, most know it. Thinking of my grandmother, I squeezed past the worried faces. I took my torn jacket and placed it around the old lady. She smiled. I smiled. I returned to my tiny area. The waves were now pelting the underneath of the boat as if some evil creature was trying to tear it apart.
A large splash destroys the shallow peace. I looked down and quickly realised someone has gone overboard. Among the trashing and screaming, people reached out in a vain effort to rescue him. The Thin man was sinking into the black. His eyes widened with fear as he came to the realisation of his situation. That is when I saw it. That is when I saw him. Pale arms wrapped silently around his body. Gently, but firmly, they pulled him towards the depths of the ocean.
His struggle lessened and lessened. The panic of the thin man's eyes slowly turn into acceptance.
I think he has chosen his new life underneath the chaos above the waters. Eventually, his body disappeared into the black. The screams on the boat became less and less. People were just gazing into the water. Perhaps they were wondering if the reasons he chose were convincing. Perhaps, they wanted to be next. He has a new family now.
The creatures had been following us since the first day. While I wouldn't say they are friendly, they seemed to keep a healthy distance from us, only interacting when we breach the sanctity of their waters. From what I gathered; the creatures were not Sirens. Sirens lure you into a false reality with their music. These creatures are different. They don't leap onto your boat. They don't pull you into their depths. The thin man wasn't forced into his fate. He merely fell overboard.
How? I don't know, but he knew the consequences of his actions. He chose out. The overwhelming reality of our human world simply became too much. Death was a viable acceptance, and it had it hands out to welcome him. The creatures embraced him. Were these creatures human at one point? I do not know. Their eyes are human like. As we drifted for hours aimlessly into the darkness, I thought about them a lot. I also saw them. Little yellow dots bouncing up and down in the water, patiently waiting for the next.
I dropped my hand overboard and allowed it to glide over the surface of the water. Very briefly my fingers interlock with another. I loosened my grip on the boat and allowed myself to sway side to side. The touch was kind and gentle. A small part of me knew the danger, but another, far more desperate part just needed to feel something. Suddenly, I felt a grip around my back. My Mother ushered me away from the water. I hugged myself for warmth and closed my eyes. As I drifted in and out of consciousness, I overheard some of the conversations around me.
"How much did you pay?"
"Can't we go back? Maybe he is still alive"
"Stop talking nonsense. He is gone"
"Move over, I am almost falling out here."
"No, my family had couldn't come, they didn't make it."
"When do we get there? He said only three days"
"Three days? He said a few hours to me."
"A few hours! You must be foolish? Two days at least."
"The water is beautiful, let's us embrace the calm"
"I am cold"
Wait, I thought, "the water is beautiful?"
I looked around to see who would say such a strange thing. The voice didn't seem to come from anyone on board. The cold was getting to me. I closed my eyes again.
"We won't make the journey"
"Keep yourself quiet and don't be foolish"
"Leave her be, she's just nervous!"
"Nervous, look around, we are all nervous! Don't start lecturing me about nervous"
"I said stop it!"
I opened my eyes. Where's the mother of three?, I thought.
I perched up on the back of the boat and looked across the faces. Ah! There she was. She was cupping water and cleaning their faces. The injured woman looked very poorly. I wondered if there was a medical professional here. The injured lady had a partner. Another woman. She was beautiful.
In an instant, the boat violently shook. Rain tore into us so badly that we crawled as far into the boat as humanly possible. 20 or more voices were helplessly crying into the ocean's indifference. I tried to reassure the people around me that it was okay. When it calmed, I lifted my head and assessed my surroundings. I had cuts from the razor rain, but I was more or less intact. Then I heard the howling. A banshee cries. I could not figure out the dilemma. Who was screaming? It was the woman of three. She was howling.
The well-built man grabbed a torch from the box where the life jackets were and pointed it to the ocean of waves. It took me a few minutes to discern the ugly truth. Tears fell down the well built man's face. The woman of three. Now the woman of two. Yellow eyes were dotted around us. Another offering to their insatiable appetite.
Our mental and physical strength was drained. Food had been scarce for some time and as the old rhyme goes, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink. The injured woman looked terrible. Apart from small gulps of freshwater and a makeshift bandage, we had nothing to give her. I began scouring the boat for something, anything that might relieve her pain. Her injuries looked deep. Her partner, the beautiful woman was stoic. She knew that nothing could be done, although the closer to the shoreline the better.
I rested my head against the yellowed, damaged side of the boat. Before I could get comfortable, it hit. A wave smashed against us. The boat lifted upwards into the sky. I fell backwards into the wake as the boat pounded back down into the water. Although, I didn't know at the time. The boat had ruptured its hull. The cold stinging pain of the water jolted my lungs. For a brief moment, I was paralysed. As I bobbed up and down in the water, my face dipped below the waterline. I couldn't make out much, but those yellow eyes.
They were still there. I saw faces, hundreds of them, surrounding my body. Grabbing and pulling me towards the deep. Many of the faces were those already dead, and I was being pulled towards them. In that moment of paralysis, there was almost serenity. The physical world full of its pain and anguish seemed to melt away in the midst of this calm inevitability.
A part of me was ready to give in. Join the chorus of distraught yellow eyes. I knew I couldn't. I froze as we made brief eye contact, but it was my mother’s voice snapped me back to the moment. I pulled and swam upwards in a feeble attempt to break away. I rose above the water and tried to grasp my surroundings. The boat was sinking. People were thrashing about in the water. It was panic. I knew I couldn't. I pulled and swam upwards in a feeble attempt to break away.
I saw the old lady.
"Jump", I cried to the old lady.
"It's sinking, it's sinking!"
The boat was decompressing rapidly.
"Jump", I shouted.
Just as the moon hit her face, I saw it. I saw many emotions, but I also saw what she couldn't bear to say. She couldn't swim. Before I could swim back to try and get her a lifejacket a wave from behind lifted me forward and I crashed into the side of the boat. In a daze, I grasped onto the thick rope that surrounded the boat. Mouthfuls after mouthfuls of salted air and water began to take their toll.
People were thrashing in the water. The cold was intense. The boat was almost fully sunk, and my upper body strength was gone. Then I saw it. A beam of light over the water. The sound of an incoming ship. A sigh of relief. Men threw out water doughnuts and rope. People clambered onto the boat. Those who were left anyway. By the time everyone was on board the sun was just peering out on the horizon. I was wrapped in a dry blanket and then I went dark.
When I woke up, I was in a tent. New clothes set out before me. I assessed my wounds. Cuts reddened the skin, but I was more or less okay. I sat up in the makeshift tent and grabbed a cup of coffee to warm my hands. I was exhausted, but I had to know where I was. I wandered out of the tent. The searing heat reminded me of home. People were shouting, vehicles were ferrying food and supplies back and forth. This must be one of the biggest camps there is.
In front of me was a new war with its own special injured. I walked throughout the camp looking for anyone I could recognise. The well-built man was looking pale and shell-shocked. His eyes were red and two doctors spoke in rapid-fire to one another. He didn't understand a word they were saying.
I moved through the camp for the rest of the day. I saw many faces, and harrowingly, I didn't see many others. When I came across the woman of two, my heart ached. She was inconsolable. The woman of two. My emotions knew nothing of her plight. I pushed my mind forward as much as I could.
The woman of none.
I walked on to find an empty bench. I collapsed into it and looked out over the horizon. I had survived.
A small whisper of encouragement filled my ears. My Mother. She soothed over the anxiety I was feeling. My anger, pain, and the hatred I had for myself to feel relief when so many others only feel pain. She whipped herself around the branches of a tree causing leaves to lightly dance in front of me. I thought back to the days of the olive trees that we used to have in our back garden. She continued to flit in a frenzy of happiness.
I understood.
Perhaps the afterlife is a lot simpler. I shrugged my shoulders as to say, "What do I do now?"
She cracked a wry smile. And whispered, "whatever you set your heart to."
With that, she began to move away from me. She extended her arms, and that is when I realised. She wasn't alone. Hiding behind the tree were three small individuals. Three that I recognised. The three little kittens looked at my mother and rushed towards her. She smiled at me and back at them.
She had saved me on my journey, and now it was her time to guide three little lives into a new one. A mixture of sadness and happiness crept over me. My Mother faded out. I shut my eyes and thought about dry land.
2023.05.28 05:43 No-Perception9546 Funeral director pleads guilty after 31 decomposing bodies were found inside his funeral home
 | 🤯🤯 submitted by No-Perception9546 to askfuneraldirectors [link] [comments] |
2023.05.28 04:31 Ramzy191 Spider-Man fans After Today’s Spoiler
submitted by Ramzy191 to Spiderman [link] [comments]
2023.05.28 04:26 Bitchshortage The unfairness is staggering
Damn bromos…I went to the funeral for a really good dad today and I’m so fucking devastated. Here was a man who dedicated himself to his family, was a stay at home dad and a volunteer for addicts in crisis, cooked and cleaned and did a huge amount of the mental load.
Watching my daughter’s best friend try to say goodbye to her dad, looking like a ghost in so much pain, made me so angry. My kid’s dad has seen her once in the past 3 years and is a total shit heel, does Jack shit all and never did.
I know the world isn’t fair, but I needed to yell into the void. And I know it’s fucked but the fact that he was a good dad and an equal partner is really wrecking me extra because every day we see these soul sucking men out here just take take take and then this man who was out spreading good lost his life on a fucking accident, and i feel like you mamas would kinda get why this messed me up so bad
submitted by Bitchshortage to breakingmom [link] [comments]
Watching my daughter’s best friend try to say goodbye to her dad, looking like a ghost in so much pain, made me so angry. My kid’s dad has seen her once in the past 3 years and is a total shit heel, does Jack shit all and never did.
I know the world isn’t fair, but I needed to yell into the void. And I know it’s fucked but the fact that he was a good dad and an equal partner is really wrecking me extra because every day we see these soul sucking men out here just take take take and then this man who was out spreading good lost his life on a fucking accident, and i feel like you mamas would kinda get why this messed me up so bad
2023.05.28 04:24 hashtagjlove Parents' probate is taking way too long and I'm getting frustrated
I just need some confirmation or maybe some relatable anecdotes about a pretty sad situation I'm dealing with because it's causing me major anxiety and I have no idea how to approach it and idk maybe I just need to vent and idk a more appropriate place for this post. I tried the AITA subreddit but it kept deleting my post.
So to set the stage; 2021 was an awful year for my family. Shortly before the pandemic my father was diagnosed with cancer of the mouth from his lifelong dipping tobacco habit. He was going through that while the pandemic took hold and not long into it my stepmother began to lose balance a lot and would fall and not be able to get back up frequently. My dad underwent treatment and went into remission very briefly before having to go back for a skin graft while my stepmom would slowly become wheelchair bound. Then in March of 2021 my dad went to the hospital for shortness of breath. The doctors put him into a medically induced coma to run tests, and the next day my stepmom had to go to the hospital for major stomach pain (bowel obstruction from the wheelchair). I lived in FL at the time, they lived in TX. I flew out and found that my dad had a mess of chest/heart/lung complications related to his cancer and the only options were hospice or numerous surgeries for a very long shot with lots of suffering so me, my stepsister, brother in law and her children all had to go to my stepmom's room across town and first explain the situation to her which crushed us, then she and I had to sit down and make the decision to let him go into hospice peacefully and we managed to get her to his hospital to say goodbye and I flew out shortly after. I flew back into town for my dad's funeral, my mom was now starting to lose her voice and upper body strength. I fly home, a few weeks later mom is back in the hospital and I get the call from my sister who also told me one of her sons had passed shortly after she went in and I got to fly in to town to see mom and we had to tell her as a family about my nephew which was heartbreaking. Another month goes by, we finally get mom's diagnosis: ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease). By this time she has to be on a respirator and I'm flying into Texas every few weeks to visit her but she eventually became unresponsive in September and we had to let her pass, too, and to cap it off it happened on my dad's birthday. I flew back shortly after to scatter her ashes on the beach (which she made sure all of us knew she wanted before she lost her voice, she didn't want us to not know like we went through with dad). So to recap, Dad passes in March, nephew passes in June, Mom passes in September. I lost my parents and a nephew inside of six months. My biological mother is still alive and I've become a little worrisome about her now but still it was the hardest year of my life.
After the worst year our family ever experienced I just wanted some time to process it all and grieve and I'm glad to say I'm at a point where I'll catch a glimpse of something that reminds me of them and I'll just think of whatever memory is attached to it for a minute and smile, though the anniversaries are still hard. Thank you for sticking with me so far. So during that time the process of probate was going on but I didn't much care about that, I just wanted to grieve and see my other nephew get married last year which was beautiful but..
It's almost two years now since mom passed away. She named my brother in law as the executor of her will. I think he was the best choice bc he would be the one to get things done and stand up to my stepbrother who was kind of the black sheep of the family (long story) but still thinks he should have been the executor. He's started a few fights over it. Anyway, about a year ago I had managed to move past the grieving process and it felt like my sister and BIL had, too. We've grown a lot closer over this time so I didn't want to ask about probate besides keeping up with how my parents' house is holding up (and retrieving a wooden chest I had made in high school that mom cherished and my dad's ring that my mom left to me) because I trust them. I also feel like asking about money after someone has passed is in poor taste.. but like I said we're almost two years past that now.
My mom left me, my stepsister and brother in law equal portions of her estate after the specific things like furniture, jewelry etc, and a small portion to my stepbrother. I haven't heard anything about that and until recently I was content to let it be bc I wasn't the only one that had a really hard time with so much loss so suddenly but the house hasn't even been listed for sale. I've tried asking what's going on with it, it seems there's a plumbing issue that needs to be addressed but the house is an hour and a half from their house so scheduling is hard. I get it but... stepsis doesn't work. She has health issues that slow her down but nothing that stops her from taking a day to go to the house to meet a plumber. Mom left her car to her so she definitely has her own transportation and she can do exactly what she does at home.. at mom and dad's house. She smokes cigarettes and does puzzles on her porch. She can bring her dogs for company. I don't understand how this plumbing issue has held things up for at least two months. I've tried suggesting ways to have someone meet the plumber and alert her so she can drive to the house (neighbor, friends, someone from the law office). The last option kind of put a little unwanted intrusive thought into my head, though. When I suggested just having someone from the law office as a throwaway bc I'm getting a little frustrated my sister told me "Oh, the lawyer's job was done a long time ago."
What does that mean? Sister had to let me go before I could ask, claiming she had to go to the doctor for a possible infection (which is was but she's fine now). I haven't called since then because I'm more than a little frustrated after that last conversation. I'm assuming it means all my parents' debts have been paid, all insurance policies have been collected, savings/retirement accounts have been consolidated etc. The only thing that appears to be left is the house. That's a monthly mortgage payment, insurance, possibly utilities and probably the car. I'm not going to lie, I have thought about what I might do with my inheritance. Nothing concrete but I've considered using it for a house or to get some training to switch careers and I'm in no immediate rush to get it but my main issue is how in the dark I feel. Stepsis and brother in law have since bought their first house and have done extensive renovations to it. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt bc BIL had been promoted at work shortly before everything happened and they were looking at houses.. but I'm not unconvinced their budget didn't get bigger? Like I don't think they're spending my portion of the inheritance... but it's a bad look isn't it? They're the only family I have left on my dad/stepmom's side and I don't want to cause tension with accusations but I don't even know how much the estate was. I'm still paying off the flights, rental car and hotel bills from all the trips to Texas. I have severe PTSD and chronic anxiety diagnoses and piling this on top has been keeping me up at night for a year now. WIBTA if I called the probate lawyer and asked to see all the statements? Is this normal?
submitted by hashtagjlove to venting [link] [comments]
So to set the stage; 2021 was an awful year for my family. Shortly before the pandemic my father was diagnosed with cancer of the mouth from his lifelong dipping tobacco habit. He was going through that while the pandemic took hold and not long into it my stepmother began to lose balance a lot and would fall and not be able to get back up frequently. My dad underwent treatment and went into remission very briefly before having to go back for a skin graft while my stepmom would slowly become wheelchair bound. Then in March of 2021 my dad went to the hospital for shortness of breath. The doctors put him into a medically induced coma to run tests, and the next day my stepmom had to go to the hospital for major stomach pain (bowel obstruction from the wheelchair). I lived in FL at the time, they lived in TX. I flew out and found that my dad had a mess of chest/heart/lung complications related to his cancer and the only options were hospice or numerous surgeries for a very long shot with lots of suffering so me, my stepsister, brother in law and her children all had to go to my stepmom's room across town and first explain the situation to her which crushed us, then she and I had to sit down and make the decision to let him go into hospice peacefully and we managed to get her to his hospital to say goodbye and I flew out shortly after. I flew back into town for my dad's funeral, my mom was now starting to lose her voice and upper body strength. I fly home, a few weeks later mom is back in the hospital and I get the call from my sister who also told me one of her sons had passed shortly after she went in and I got to fly in to town to see mom and we had to tell her as a family about my nephew which was heartbreaking. Another month goes by, we finally get mom's diagnosis: ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease). By this time she has to be on a respirator and I'm flying into Texas every few weeks to visit her but she eventually became unresponsive in September and we had to let her pass, too, and to cap it off it happened on my dad's birthday. I flew back shortly after to scatter her ashes on the beach (which she made sure all of us knew she wanted before she lost her voice, she didn't want us to not know like we went through with dad). So to recap, Dad passes in March, nephew passes in June, Mom passes in September. I lost my parents and a nephew inside of six months. My biological mother is still alive and I've become a little worrisome about her now but still it was the hardest year of my life.
After the worst year our family ever experienced I just wanted some time to process it all and grieve and I'm glad to say I'm at a point where I'll catch a glimpse of something that reminds me of them and I'll just think of whatever memory is attached to it for a minute and smile, though the anniversaries are still hard. Thank you for sticking with me so far. So during that time the process of probate was going on but I didn't much care about that, I just wanted to grieve and see my other nephew get married last year which was beautiful but..
It's almost two years now since mom passed away. She named my brother in law as the executor of her will. I think he was the best choice bc he would be the one to get things done and stand up to my stepbrother who was kind of the black sheep of the family (long story) but still thinks he should have been the executor. He's started a few fights over it. Anyway, about a year ago I had managed to move past the grieving process and it felt like my sister and BIL had, too. We've grown a lot closer over this time so I didn't want to ask about probate besides keeping up with how my parents' house is holding up (and retrieving a wooden chest I had made in high school that mom cherished and my dad's ring that my mom left to me) because I trust them. I also feel like asking about money after someone has passed is in poor taste.. but like I said we're almost two years past that now.
My mom left me, my stepsister and brother in law equal portions of her estate after the specific things like furniture, jewelry etc, and a small portion to my stepbrother. I haven't heard anything about that and until recently I was content to let it be bc I wasn't the only one that had a really hard time with so much loss so suddenly but the house hasn't even been listed for sale. I've tried asking what's going on with it, it seems there's a plumbing issue that needs to be addressed but the house is an hour and a half from their house so scheduling is hard. I get it but... stepsis doesn't work. She has health issues that slow her down but nothing that stops her from taking a day to go to the house to meet a plumber. Mom left her car to her so she definitely has her own transportation and she can do exactly what she does at home.. at mom and dad's house. She smokes cigarettes and does puzzles on her porch. She can bring her dogs for company. I don't understand how this plumbing issue has held things up for at least two months. I've tried suggesting ways to have someone meet the plumber and alert her so she can drive to the house (neighbor, friends, someone from the law office). The last option kind of put a little unwanted intrusive thought into my head, though. When I suggested just having someone from the law office as a throwaway bc I'm getting a little frustrated my sister told me "Oh, the lawyer's job was done a long time ago."
What does that mean? Sister had to let me go before I could ask, claiming she had to go to the doctor for a possible infection (which is was but she's fine now). I haven't called since then because I'm more than a little frustrated after that last conversation. I'm assuming it means all my parents' debts have been paid, all insurance policies have been collected, savings/retirement accounts have been consolidated etc. The only thing that appears to be left is the house. That's a monthly mortgage payment, insurance, possibly utilities and probably the car. I'm not going to lie, I have thought about what I might do with my inheritance. Nothing concrete but I've considered using it for a house or to get some training to switch careers and I'm in no immediate rush to get it but my main issue is how in the dark I feel. Stepsis and brother in law have since bought their first house and have done extensive renovations to it. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt bc BIL had been promoted at work shortly before everything happened and they were looking at houses.. but I'm not unconvinced their budget didn't get bigger? Like I don't think they're spending my portion of the inheritance... but it's a bad look isn't it? They're the only family I have left on my dad/stepmom's side and I don't want to cause tension with accusations but I don't even know how much the estate was. I'm still paying off the flights, rental car and hotel bills from all the trips to Texas. I have severe PTSD and chronic anxiety diagnoses and piling this on top has been keeping me up at night for a year now. WIBTA if I called the probate lawyer and asked to see all the statements? Is this normal?
2023.05.28 04:14 _shikkimon_ I'm not handling my grandpa death that great
It's been 5-6 months since my grandpa and I'm only now starting to process it. And I did some stuff I'm not proud of in my grief. When the house is completely empty and I mean just me I can't handle it and start crying, because I don't know what's happening or who's coming home safe. When I got the call he died I was under the impression it was on the road on the way to his sisters, thank God it wasn't, but never made it past his hallway. I lost someone who stepped up as a dad to me basically and now I have to deal with bio dad again who I never had a great relationship with and i know his dad died but he acts like I wasn't his granddaughter I don't want to here his paranoid theories that he was murder, he wasn't but because of his shady shit crowd he kept around he's built that paranoia. I've been acting like it's fine but it's not. It feels like the funeral was last week. Me finishing high school doesn't feel as good because he's gone and he won't be at my graduation. I hate this. It's not even over because I have to go to court once I'm 18 so we can work on a probate to put it in my name. It's not allowed to be over and it's a reminder everyday when I wake up in his house since moving in and my dad wants to sell the other one! The fucking idiot! He doesn't work and renting it out from the people my grandpa has living there would give him a monthly paycheck. Or he could move in and stop living with his mom!
submitted by _shikkimon_ to Vent [link] [comments]
2023.05.28 04:00 Sushi_chan18 Weekly Manga Live Tracker: 28-05-2023 to 03-06-2023
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2023.05.28 03:39 bobgooober Hell is real.
Hell is real. I’ve known this since the accident. I just didn’t know it would turn out to be this literal.
I was driving home on the interstate around two on Sunday morning. I was coming back from a short vacation, and had to report to my parole officer at 8:00 A.M. on Monday. I probably should have left earlier, but it had been over two years since I’d seen my family. I’d had letters and a few phone calls, and they visited me when they went to the funeral. Other than that though, visiting their son in prison hadn’t been a good enough reason to drive down from Wisconsin. I didn’t blame them. I wouldn’t have visited me. Nonetheless, I’d waited as long as I could to start back to Colorado. Being home with my parents, I could almost pretend my life wasn’t empty anymore. It was with a bleak heart that I started the twenty hour drive home. I had just gone through some podunk little town near the border of Nebraska when I saw him.
The stranger was walking on the right side of the road, with his back to traffic. I remember having a hard time making out his shape in the darkness, until he walked into the pool of light cast from my car. He made a striking silhouette. His coat was the color of coal and fell to just above his knees, and he wore a matching fedora. He carried a briefcase, also black, and strode along through the dust and weeds with the air of a man who had important business to attend to. He looked like he would have been perfectly at home on a city sidewalk during the morning bustle. His presence on that lonely stretch of dark road was discordantly incongruous, like seeing a small child doing shots in a bar. As my car approached he turned his head until I could see his face in profile, and grinned as he stuck out his thumb.
I can’t explain what compelled me to pull over. I have never in my life picked up a hitchhiker, but in that moment I didn’t hesitate for a second. It never even occurred to me to do anything different, as though picking up a strange man 5 miles out from the nearest town in the middle of the night was a completely reasonable and rational thing to do. He never stopped smiling at me as I pulled up alongside him.
“Do you need a ride?” I asked through the window, then felt a little stupid. People don't stick out their thumbs for strange cars to have a beer. He nodded, seeming not to notice my slip. Still smiling at me, he reached to open the door. Again, I acted without thinking about it, and hit the unlock button. A distant voice in my mind reacted with alarm but the feeling was quickly snuffed out as the stranger took a seat beside me. The crunch of gravel being crushed beneath my tires was the only sound as I pulled back onto the road.
As we drove, I studied him out of the corner of my eye. His salt and pepper hair was cut close to his head above his tanned and weathered face. He stared straight ahead, still smiling, his fingers drumming on his suitcase. There was an arrogant tilt to his head, and his whole body thrummed with a predatory tension, as though he might explode into action at any second. The alarmed voice in my head piped up again, louder this time, but I forcibly shoved it back down. Lord knows I needed to do everything I could to balance out my karma, and I think the Bible says something about helping travelers. My slate wouldn’t so easily be wiped clean, but every little bit counts.
“So where are you headed? Did your car break down around here or something?” I looked back over at the man and flinched as my gaze met his leering smile less than six inches from my face. I slammed on the brakes as my body convulsed in shock and the car screeched to a stop. My heart thundered, beating a staccato rhythm against my ribs. I caught my breath and gave the man a sheepish grin. “Sorry, sir. You startled me.”
He didn’t appear to hear me. I realized he hadn't moved at all through my sudden braking. The only difference was his face. He wasn’t smiling anymore. In fact, he wore no expression whatsoever as he paused for a beat and then slowly shook his head. It was eerie as all hell. I laughed nervously.
As I prepared to get moving again I flicked my eyes back and forth between him and the road. Nothing. No expression. No movement. I couldn’t even see him breathing. He was absolutely still, not like a person, but like the emptiness of a silent tomb. His eyes were unreadable as he stared, not at my face, I realized, but out my window. I licked my lips as the skin on the back of my neck tried to crawl up and over my scalp. I had a sudden, intense feeling that I did not want to see what he was seeing.
“Wh-what are you looking at?” My voice came out shaky as my earlier sense of unease bloomed into full grown fear. As I turned my gaze back to his face, a feeling of suffocating wrongness swept over me. It was like suddenly being plunged into the lightless depths of the ocean. Vast darkness, empty except for monsters knowing neither the touch of the sun nor anything even remotely like mercy or compassion, engulfed my soul. He met my eyes, and a grin began to stretch across his face once again. As it widened, I realized with dawning horror that his teeth had lengthened and become serrated like a shark’s. His smile kept widening, the corners of his mouth splitting until that hideous grin stretched all the way up to his temples. His eyes darkened to midnight black, and reflected oranges, reds, and yellows in disconcerting incandescence. When he spoke, his voice was cold and hollow.
“I am looking at your future, Child of Adam. I am watching your fate. You are unclean, and the blood cannot be washed from your hands. Your reckoning is coming. Behold, the end.”
His words echoed weirdly through the small car and rang with terrible certainty. As I clutched my ears against that booming voice and felt blood trickle between my fingers, I knew that the words he spoke were Truth.
A vast roaring sound came from my left, and my head snapped around on instinct. The empty plains of Nebraska had transformed into an inferno. Roiling seas of fire and lava splashed against jagged obsidian cliffs. Creatures crawled on all fours over the surface of the sea, alien things made of ash and charcoal with long, knobby limbs, like skeletons warped into something hellish by intense heat. Where there should have been eyes in their skulls there was only inky oblivion.
I recoiled in horror as my brain tried to make sense of what I was seeing. As I watched, one of the monsters seemed to notice me and scuttled forward, blindingly fast, reaching claw tipped fingers through my window. I screamed hoarsely as it wrapped its inhuman hands around my neck in a vice, before its grip cut off my air. I bucked wildly, trying desperately to pull away, but it was insanely strong. My head began to pound as the blood in my brain tried to flow back to my heart and was blocked by the creature’s grip. My lungs begged for oxygen they had no way of getting. My desperation became stronger as I realized I was dying, but my movements became more and more sluggish. As my vision began to darken and finally fade out, the last thing I saw was that demonic grin.
The sound of a blaring car horn slowly came to me out of the blackness. I became aware of my body only as pain lit through my nerve endings. I groaned, disoriented, as I slowly understood my predicament. I was upside down in my car, being prevented from falling onto the roof only by my seat belt. Something was illuminating the wreckage that had been my car, and I heard movement outside. I feebly tried to get away from the source of the sound, sure that the man or his creatures were back, but the effort was too much and I sagged back against the restraints.
Rustling from my right caught my attention again, and I reluctantly turned my eyes to the passenger seat to see what fresh horror awaited me. I was not prepared to see my wife, dangling from the ceiling all over again, blood pooling underneath her pale body. The tremendous injuries to her face and chest hid the woman I had loved beneath a hideous mask. Her skull was misshapen from where her head had broken the window as the car rolled. In real life, I knew she had died instantly, but the monstrosity beside me stirred and turned to look at me with midnight eyes.
“Your fault,” it whispered. It was my wife’s voice, but it had been corrupted somehow, like the rotting carcass of an animal lying on the side of the road. I couldn’t take my eyes from the gory injury to her skull, and the creature wearing my wife’s face seemed to take some sort of perverse pleasure in that.
“Your fault,” it said again, its face lighting up with malice. It took a hand and purposefully pressed a finger into the break in its skull. I stared in nauseated fascination as it pulled away bits of hair and bloody scalp, revealing bone crushed into tiny pieces. "We paid for your mistakes, your arrogance with our lives," it hissed. "Our blood is on your hands." The demon's voice pressed painfully against my skull, and I thought that my head might fly apart. Worse, her words tugged on a memory, and I tried desperately to bury it before I could start remembering.
Our blood. Dear God, please no.
Our blood. The memory stirred and writhed some more, a nearly physical presence in my brain.
Our blood. And then, amidst the demon's slithering voice and the sickening dripping and splatting noises as my wife pulled herself apart in front of my eyes, I heard the rustling from outside again. Terrified squalling started coming from a small throat and the memory finally broke free.
Some small corner of my brain noted that she couldn’t possibly be crying, because her lungs and basically everything else had been crushed after she was thrown from the vehicle and caught in its rolling path. If I'd installed her car seat correctly, maybe she would have made it. If I hadn't been drinking that night, maybe I never would have crashed the car in the first place. I would never know, because I had done those things, and the two people I loved most had paid the price.
I couldn’t bring myself to look for my daughter’s mangled corpse, to see what I had done to her again. Something inside me cracked. I broke into hysterical sobs, my voice joining my dead infant’s and the evil laughter coming from her mother’s body as waves of anguish and regret crashed over me.
The man appeared suddenly, leaning through my broken windshield, again looking totally out of place in the wreckage of my life. He grinned, then blew in my face. I succumbed to blackness, my family's cries ringing in my ears.
When I woke up again, I was in a hospital bed. The nurses told me I’d been in an accident, but that I would be ok. They kept telling me how lucky I was to have survived, but I know it isn’t luck. Out of the corner of my eye, I see them prowling, eyeless nightmares with twisted bodies. Sometimes it’s my wife, her accusatory eyes black, her body broken. She holds a weakly stirring bundle and weeps, singing lullabies to a child who no longer sleeps.
The stranger visits me in my dreams. He always greets me with that terrible grin and those hellfire eyes and tells me, “The reckoning is coming. Behold, the end.”
Hell is real. I knew that the night I killed my wife and infant daughter. But now I know there is no hope for redemption. My reckoning is coming, and no amount of good deeds will wash the blood from my hands. I’m so sorry Jen. I’m sorry Elena. Daddy will see you soon.
submitted by bobgooober to nosleep [link] [comments]
I was driving home on the interstate around two on Sunday morning. I was coming back from a short vacation, and had to report to my parole officer at 8:00 A.M. on Monday. I probably should have left earlier, but it had been over two years since I’d seen my family. I’d had letters and a few phone calls, and they visited me when they went to the funeral. Other than that though, visiting their son in prison hadn’t been a good enough reason to drive down from Wisconsin. I didn’t blame them. I wouldn’t have visited me. Nonetheless, I’d waited as long as I could to start back to Colorado. Being home with my parents, I could almost pretend my life wasn’t empty anymore. It was with a bleak heart that I started the twenty hour drive home. I had just gone through some podunk little town near the border of Nebraska when I saw him.
The stranger was walking on the right side of the road, with his back to traffic. I remember having a hard time making out his shape in the darkness, until he walked into the pool of light cast from my car. He made a striking silhouette. His coat was the color of coal and fell to just above his knees, and he wore a matching fedora. He carried a briefcase, also black, and strode along through the dust and weeds with the air of a man who had important business to attend to. He looked like he would have been perfectly at home on a city sidewalk during the morning bustle. His presence on that lonely stretch of dark road was discordantly incongruous, like seeing a small child doing shots in a bar. As my car approached he turned his head until I could see his face in profile, and grinned as he stuck out his thumb.
I can’t explain what compelled me to pull over. I have never in my life picked up a hitchhiker, but in that moment I didn’t hesitate for a second. It never even occurred to me to do anything different, as though picking up a strange man 5 miles out from the nearest town in the middle of the night was a completely reasonable and rational thing to do. He never stopped smiling at me as I pulled up alongside him.
“Do you need a ride?” I asked through the window, then felt a little stupid. People don't stick out their thumbs for strange cars to have a beer. He nodded, seeming not to notice my slip. Still smiling at me, he reached to open the door. Again, I acted without thinking about it, and hit the unlock button. A distant voice in my mind reacted with alarm but the feeling was quickly snuffed out as the stranger took a seat beside me. The crunch of gravel being crushed beneath my tires was the only sound as I pulled back onto the road.
As we drove, I studied him out of the corner of my eye. His salt and pepper hair was cut close to his head above his tanned and weathered face. He stared straight ahead, still smiling, his fingers drumming on his suitcase. There was an arrogant tilt to his head, and his whole body thrummed with a predatory tension, as though he might explode into action at any second. The alarmed voice in my head piped up again, louder this time, but I forcibly shoved it back down. Lord knows I needed to do everything I could to balance out my karma, and I think the Bible says something about helping travelers. My slate wouldn’t so easily be wiped clean, but every little bit counts.
“So where are you headed? Did your car break down around here or something?” I looked back over at the man and flinched as my gaze met his leering smile less than six inches from my face. I slammed on the brakes as my body convulsed in shock and the car screeched to a stop. My heart thundered, beating a staccato rhythm against my ribs. I caught my breath and gave the man a sheepish grin. “Sorry, sir. You startled me.”
He didn’t appear to hear me. I realized he hadn't moved at all through my sudden braking. The only difference was his face. He wasn’t smiling anymore. In fact, he wore no expression whatsoever as he paused for a beat and then slowly shook his head. It was eerie as all hell. I laughed nervously.
As I prepared to get moving again I flicked my eyes back and forth between him and the road. Nothing. No expression. No movement. I couldn’t even see him breathing. He was absolutely still, not like a person, but like the emptiness of a silent tomb. His eyes were unreadable as he stared, not at my face, I realized, but out my window. I licked my lips as the skin on the back of my neck tried to crawl up and over my scalp. I had a sudden, intense feeling that I did not want to see what he was seeing.
“Wh-what are you looking at?” My voice came out shaky as my earlier sense of unease bloomed into full grown fear. As I turned my gaze back to his face, a feeling of suffocating wrongness swept over me. It was like suddenly being plunged into the lightless depths of the ocean. Vast darkness, empty except for monsters knowing neither the touch of the sun nor anything even remotely like mercy or compassion, engulfed my soul. He met my eyes, and a grin began to stretch across his face once again. As it widened, I realized with dawning horror that his teeth had lengthened and become serrated like a shark’s. His smile kept widening, the corners of his mouth splitting until that hideous grin stretched all the way up to his temples. His eyes darkened to midnight black, and reflected oranges, reds, and yellows in disconcerting incandescence. When he spoke, his voice was cold and hollow.
“I am looking at your future, Child of Adam. I am watching your fate. You are unclean, and the blood cannot be washed from your hands. Your reckoning is coming. Behold, the end.”
His words echoed weirdly through the small car and rang with terrible certainty. As I clutched my ears against that booming voice and felt blood trickle between my fingers, I knew that the words he spoke were Truth.
A vast roaring sound came from my left, and my head snapped around on instinct. The empty plains of Nebraska had transformed into an inferno. Roiling seas of fire and lava splashed against jagged obsidian cliffs. Creatures crawled on all fours over the surface of the sea, alien things made of ash and charcoal with long, knobby limbs, like skeletons warped into something hellish by intense heat. Where there should have been eyes in their skulls there was only inky oblivion.
I recoiled in horror as my brain tried to make sense of what I was seeing. As I watched, one of the monsters seemed to notice me and scuttled forward, blindingly fast, reaching claw tipped fingers through my window. I screamed hoarsely as it wrapped its inhuman hands around my neck in a vice, before its grip cut off my air. I bucked wildly, trying desperately to pull away, but it was insanely strong. My head began to pound as the blood in my brain tried to flow back to my heart and was blocked by the creature’s grip. My lungs begged for oxygen they had no way of getting. My desperation became stronger as I realized I was dying, but my movements became more and more sluggish. As my vision began to darken and finally fade out, the last thing I saw was that demonic grin.
The sound of a blaring car horn slowly came to me out of the blackness. I became aware of my body only as pain lit through my nerve endings. I groaned, disoriented, as I slowly understood my predicament. I was upside down in my car, being prevented from falling onto the roof only by my seat belt. Something was illuminating the wreckage that had been my car, and I heard movement outside. I feebly tried to get away from the source of the sound, sure that the man or his creatures were back, but the effort was too much and I sagged back against the restraints.
Rustling from my right caught my attention again, and I reluctantly turned my eyes to the passenger seat to see what fresh horror awaited me. I was not prepared to see my wife, dangling from the ceiling all over again, blood pooling underneath her pale body. The tremendous injuries to her face and chest hid the woman I had loved beneath a hideous mask. Her skull was misshapen from where her head had broken the window as the car rolled. In real life, I knew she had died instantly, but the monstrosity beside me stirred and turned to look at me with midnight eyes.
“Your fault,” it whispered. It was my wife’s voice, but it had been corrupted somehow, like the rotting carcass of an animal lying on the side of the road. I couldn’t take my eyes from the gory injury to her skull, and the creature wearing my wife’s face seemed to take some sort of perverse pleasure in that.
“Your fault,” it said again, its face lighting up with malice. It took a hand and purposefully pressed a finger into the break in its skull. I stared in nauseated fascination as it pulled away bits of hair and bloody scalp, revealing bone crushed into tiny pieces. "We paid for your mistakes, your arrogance with our lives," it hissed. "Our blood is on your hands." The demon's voice pressed painfully against my skull, and I thought that my head might fly apart. Worse, her words tugged on a memory, and I tried desperately to bury it before I could start remembering.
Our blood. Dear God, please no.
Our blood. The memory stirred and writhed some more, a nearly physical presence in my brain.
Our blood. And then, amidst the demon's slithering voice and the sickening dripping and splatting noises as my wife pulled herself apart in front of my eyes, I heard the rustling from outside again. Terrified squalling started coming from a small throat and the memory finally broke free.
Some small corner of my brain noted that she couldn’t possibly be crying, because her lungs and basically everything else had been crushed after she was thrown from the vehicle and caught in its rolling path. If I'd installed her car seat correctly, maybe she would have made it. If I hadn't been drinking that night, maybe I never would have crashed the car in the first place. I would never know, because I had done those things, and the two people I loved most had paid the price.
I couldn’t bring myself to look for my daughter’s mangled corpse, to see what I had done to her again. Something inside me cracked. I broke into hysterical sobs, my voice joining my dead infant’s and the evil laughter coming from her mother’s body as waves of anguish and regret crashed over me.
The man appeared suddenly, leaning through my broken windshield, again looking totally out of place in the wreckage of my life. He grinned, then blew in my face. I succumbed to blackness, my family's cries ringing in my ears.
When I woke up again, I was in a hospital bed. The nurses told me I’d been in an accident, but that I would be ok. They kept telling me how lucky I was to have survived, but I know it isn’t luck. Out of the corner of my eye, I see them prowling, eyeless nightmares with twisted bodies. Sometimes it’s my wife, her accusatory eyes black, her body broken. She holds a weakly stirring bundle and weeps, singing lullabies to a child who no longer sleeps.
The stranger visits me in my dreams. He always greets me with that terrible grin and those hellfire eyes and tells me, “The reckoning is coming. Behold, the end.”
Hell is real. I knew that the night I killed my wife and infant daughter. But now I know there is no hope for redemption. My reckoning is coming, and no amount of good deeds will wash the blood from my hands. I’m so sorry Jen. I’m sorry Elena. Daddy will see you soon.
2023.05.28 02:52 GetOffMyGrassBrats Director of Indiana funeral home where police found 31 decomposing bodies pleads guilty
 | submitted by GetOffMyGrassBrats to nottheonion [link] [comments] |
2023.05.28 01:07 Civil_Preparation934 [16M] CANT SAY HOW THE DAYS WILL UNFOLLLLD
Anyway about me, I am a huge, huge romantic. Seriously might be the biggest romantic here. Challenge me. I dare you.
I love music, heres my top TWENTY!
Only 14 to 22 pls!
Goodnight and Goodmorning
submitted by Civil_Preparation934 to MakeNewFriendsHere [link] [comments]
I love music, heres my top TWENTY!
- The Nights - Avicii
- Future Days - Pearl Jam
- My Person - Spencer Crandall
- Hurt - Johnny Cash
- Jailhouse Rock - Elvis Presley
- Stand By Me - Ben. E. King.
- If The World Was Ending - J.P Saxxe feat. Julia Michaels
- Hey Soul Sister - Train
- Running Home To You - Grant Gustin
- Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol
- You Were Meant For Me - Jewel
- All The Faces - Creed Bratton
- Drops Of Jupiter - Train
- Photograph- Ed Sheeran
- Tenerife Sea - Ed Sheeran
- You'll Never Walk Alone - Gerry & The Pacemakers
- Perfect - Ed Sheeran
- Rewind - Goldspot
- The Funeral - Band of Horses
- The Wind - Yusuf/Cat Stevens
- How I Met Your Mother - 19 watches
- The Office US - 7 watches
- Brooklyn 99 - 4 or 5 watches
- Peaky Blinders - currently watching for first time (S6 E2)
- The Big Bang Theory - 3 or 4 watches
- Skulduggery Pleasant - 39 reads
- Percy Jackson - 17 reads
- Harry Potter - 8 reads
Only 14 to 22 pls!
Goodnight and Goodmorning
2023.05.28 01:06 Civil_Preparation934 [16M] [friendship] CANT SAY HOW THE DAYS WILL UNFOLDDD
Anyway about me, I am a huge, huge romantic. Seriously might be the biggest romantic here. Challenge me. I dare you.
I love music, heres my top TWENTY!
Only 14 to 22 pls!
Goodnight and Goodmorning
submitted by Civil_Preparation934 to MeetPeople [link] [comments]
I love music, heres my top TWENTY!
- The Nights - Avicii
- Future Days - Pearl Jam
- My Person - Spencer Crandall
- Hurt - Johnny Cash
- Jailhouse Rock - Elvis Presley
- Stand By Me - Ben. E. King.
- If The World Was Ending - J.P Saxxe feat. Julia Michaels
- Hey Soul Sister - Train
- Running Home To You - Grant Gustin
- Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol
- You Were Meant For Me - Jewel
- All The Faces - Creed Bratton
- Drops Of Jupiter - Train
- Photograph- Ed Sheeran
- Tenerife Sea - Ed Sheeran
- You'll Never Walk Alone - Gerry & The Pacemakers
- Perfect - Ed Sheeran
- Rewind - Goldspot
- The Funeral - Band of Horses
- The Wind - Yusuf/Cat Stevens
- How I Met Your Mother - 19 watches
- The Office US - 7 watches
- Brooklyn 99 - 4 or 5 watches
- Peaky Blinders - currently watching for first time (S6 E2)
- The Big Bang Theory - 3 or 4 watches
- Skulduggery Pleasant - 39 reads
- Percy Jackson - 17 reads
- Harry Potter - 8 reads
Only 14 to 22 pls!
Goodnight and Goodmorning
2023.05.28 01:05 Civil_Preparation934 [16/M] CANT SAY HOW THE DAYS WILL UNFOLLLD
Anyway about me, I am a huge, huge romantic. Seriously might be the biggest romantic here. Challenge me. I dare you.
I love music, heres my top TWENTY!
Only 14 to 22 pls!
Goodnight and Goodmorning
submitted by Civil_Preparation934 to friendship [link] [comments]
I love music, heres my top TWENTY!
- The Nights - Avicii
- Future Days - Pearl Jam
- My Person - Spencer Crandall
- Hurt - Johnny Cash
- Jailhouse Rock - Elvis Presley
- Stand By Me - Ben. E. King.
- If The World Was Ending - J.P Saxxe feat. Julia Michaels
- Hey Soul Sister - Train
- Running Home To You - Grant Gustin
- Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol
- You Were Meant For Me - Jewel
- All The Faces - Creed Bratton
- Drops Of Jupiter - Train
- Photograph- Ed Sheeran
- Tenerife Sea - Ed Sheeran
- You'll Never Walk Alone - Gerry & The Pacemakers
- Perfect - Ed Sheeran
- Rewind - Goldspot
- The Funeral - Band of Horses
- The Wind - Yusuf/Cat Stevens
- How I Met Your Mother - 19 watches
- The Office US - 7 watches
- Brooklyn 99 - 4 or 5 watches
- Peaky Blinders - currently watching for first time (S6 E2)
- The Big Bang Theory - 3 or 4 watches
- Skulduggery Pleasant - 39 reads
- Percy Jackson - 17 reads
- Harry Potter - 8 reads
Only 14 to 22 pls!
Goodnight and Goodmorning
2023.05.28 01:01 Civil_Preparation934 [16M] CANT SAY HOW THE DAYS WILL UNFOLDD
Anyway about me, I am a huge, huge romantic. Seriously might be the biggest romantic here. Challenge me. I dare you.
I love music, heres my top TWENTY!
Goodnight and Goodmorning
submitted by Civil_Preparation934 to TeensMeetTeens [link] [comments]
I love music, heres my top TWENTY!
- The Nights - Avicii
- Future Days - Pearl Jam
- My Person - Spencer Crandall
- Hurt - Johnny Cash
- Jailhouse Rock - Elvis Presley
- Stand By Me - Ben. E. King.
- If The World Was Ending - J.P Saxxe feat. Julia Michaels
- Hey Soul Sister - Train
- Running Home To You - Grant Gustin
- Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol
- You Were Meant For Me - Jewel
- All The Faces - Creed Bratton
- Drops Of Jupiter - Train
- Photograph- Ed Sheeran
- Tenerife Sea - Ed Sheeran
- You'll Never Walk Alone - Gerry & The Pacemakers
- Perfect - Ed Sheeran
- Rewind - Goldspot
- The Funeral - Band of Horses
- The Wind - Yusuf/Cat Stevens
- How I Met Your Mother - 19 watches
- The Office US - 7 watches
- Brooklyn 99 - 4 or 5 watches
- Peaky Blinders - currently watching for first time (S6 E2)
- The Big Bang Theory - 3 or 4 watches
- Skulduggery Pleasant - 39 reads
- Percy Jackson - 17 reads
- Harry Potter - 8 reads
Goodnight and Goodmorning
2023.05.28 00:39 as_leep_1 Lankford Funeral Home Director Pleads Guilty to Theft
 | submitted by as_leep_1 to Indiana [link] [comments] |
2023.05.28 00:13 Deradius What happens when family wants to transport the deceased themselves?
Suppose the decedent lived in Townsville, but the family lives in Cityburg.
Decedent dies, ME releases the body, funeral home in Townsville embalms the body. The family insists one of them will rent a van and drive the remains to Cityburg for service and burial there.
Are there special instructions given to the family for how to make the trip?
Can the family stop overnight along the way?
What happens if they have to slam on the brakes? Do the remains get all out of place? How do you keep momentum from sliding the body everywhere?
How is the decedent contained? Full casket? Special box? Bag?
Does Townsville Mortuary have to talk to Cityburg funeral home and provide information on what procedures were done with what fluids, so Cityburg knows how to make final preparations?
Are there any other interesting facts related to this process?
submitted by Deradius to askfuneraldirectors [link] [comments]
Decedent dies, ME releases the body, funeral home in Townsville embalms the body. The family insists one of them will rent a van and drive the remains to Cityburg for service and burial there.
Are there special instructions given to the family for how to make the trip?
Can the family stop overnight along the way?
What happens if they have to slam on the brakes? Do the remains get all out of place? How do you keep momentum from sliding the body everywhere?
How is the decedent contained? Full casket? Special box? Bag?
Does Townsville Mortuary have to talk to Cityburg funeral home and provide information on what procedures were done with what fluids, so Cityburg knows how to make final preparations?
Are there any other interesting facts related to this process?
2023.05.28 00:03 Apollo_136 hot
 | submitted by Apollo_136 to doodoofard [link] [comments] |
2023.05.27 23:43 gomichan I contacted his work and I don't regret it
For some context, we had an amazing but long distance relationship up until last summer when something traumatic happened at his work and he was just never the same. He was always a workaholic, and admitted in the past he would throw himself into work to distract himself, but he was working on it. We were communicating less and less, and since we're long distance, there was really nothing I could do but hope he would respond.
Christmas was the last I heard from him. I had mentioned taking a break because at that point, we hadn't spoken on the phone (only texted) for two months, he had forgotten my birthday and anniversary, and he was very apologetic but it was clear he was just throwing himself into work again. He admitted to frequently turning off his phone and just burying his head in the sand instead of confronting what he was doing.
I tried to reach out in various ways over the past 5 months, and sometimes he'd read my messages, but never reply. Recently, he's started deleting me or blocking me on socials. I've been losing my mind with why. I tried contacting people he knew, I've tried everything. Trust me.
Well it finally worked. I found the email of his boss of this organization he volunteers for (it's not his main job, just one of them). I thought of her because they are very close, and she knows who I am. I asked her to keep the email between us and just wondering how he was, but obviously it didn't and this morning I got the first message from him in 5 months.
"I am alive I've just come off a lot of my socials but please I get you're concerned but my work is my work and I don't mix it with my personal life, please respect that."
I know what this looks like - I look insane contacting his work like that. I would NEVER do that if I wasn't desperate and didn't know that he was close to his boss and she knew of our situation. But I was filled with so much anger at his response.
For one, he didn't just come off a lot of his socials, he disappeared off the face of the earth for 5 months without a word to anyone and no way to contact him. I was looking up obituaries to see if he was dead. I also know his snapscore was going up all while he was ignoring me, and his instagram profile picture was taken within the last 5 months which he has me blocked on. That's not coming off socials, that's coming off me.
Next, "I get you're concerned," but do you? How many nights I stayed up screaming because my boyfriend of a year and a half, who I was making marriage plans with, planning my future around, was acting like I didn't exist? How I've been on and off drugs, pills, and am now entering a rehab program because of?
I find it extremely ironic that the ONE thing that got him to reply was work... Of course it was. Work is his one true love, after all. I can scream and cry and break down, but only when his work is threatened does he care. He disrespected me for years taking late night calls, picking up shifts when he promised to spend time with me, then being too tired when he got home to even text me. Date nights that ended early because his boss had to vent, and I'd just sit there quietly waiting for him to finish, just for him to hang up hours later saying he was exhausted and wanted to sleep. He says he doesn't mix his personal and work life, but that's not true at all. It's all he ever did. And I'm so angry that he dare say that to me knowing that it was his work that ruined us.
Five months of the worst hell I've ever experienced. And he asks for me to respect his work. His work that ruined his life and mine. I feel sick.
submitted by gomichan to BreakUps [link] [comments]
Christmas was the last I heard from him. I had mentioned taking a break because at that point, we hadn't spoken on the phone (only texted) for two months, he had forgotten my birthday and anniversary, and he was very apologetic but it was clear he was just throwing himself into work again. He admitted to frequently turning off his phone and just burying his head in the sand instead of confronting what he was doing.
I tried to reach out in various ways over the past 5 months, and sometimes he'd read my messages, but never reply. Recently, he's started deleting me or blocking me on socials. I've been losing my mind with why. I tried contacting people he knew, I've tried everything. Trust me.
Well it finally worked. I found the email of his boss of this organization he volunteers for (it's not his main job, just one of them). I thought of her because they are very close, and she knows who I am. I asked her to keep the email between us and just wondering how he was, but obviously it didn't and this morning I got the first message from him in 5 months.
"I am alive I've just come off a lot of my socials but please I get you're concerned but my work is my work and I don't mix it with my personal life, please respect that."
I know what this looks like - I look insane contacting his work like that. I would NEVER do that if I wasn't desperate and didn't know that he was close to his boss and she knew of our situation. But I was filled with so much anger at his response.
For one, he didn't just come off a lot of his socials, he disappeared off the face of the earth for 5 months without a word to anyone and no way to contact him. I was looking up obituaries to see if he was dead. I also know his snapscore was going up all while he was ignoring me, and his instagram profile picture was taken within the last 5 months which he has me blocked on. That's not coming off socials, that's coming off me.
Next, "I get you're concerned," but do you? How many nights I stayed up screaming because my boyfriend of a year and a half, who I was making marriage plans with, planning my future around, was acting like I didn't exist? How I've been on and off drugs, pills, and am now entering a rehab program because of?
I find it extremely ironic that the ONE thing that got him to reply was work... Of course it was. Work is his one true love, after all. I can scream and cry and break down, but only when his work is threatened does he care. He disrespected me for years taking late night calls, picking up shifts when he promised to spend time with me, then being too tired when he got home to even text me. Date nights that ended early because his boss had to vent, and I'd just sit there quietly waiting for him to finish, just for him to hang up hours later saying he was exhausted and wanted to sleep. He says he doesn't mix his personal and work life, but that's not true at all. It's all he ever did. And I'm so angry that he dare say that to me knowing that it was his work that ruined us.
Five months of the worst hell I've ever experienced. And he asks for me to respect his work. His work that ruined his life and mine. I feel sick.
2023.05.27 23:00 AutoModerator What is #VALZUBIRIAGENDA and some ideas and insights
The 3 basic parameters of hashtag #Valzubiriagenda:
- We artists and everyone else can write and self-publish art- and artist-related books: memoirs, biographies, art books and art catalogs. Books are forever. Pamphlets and brochures are not books.
- We announce a schedule of increasing prices of our art pieces, which includes quantities (scarcity numbers) per price point and overall (the total quantity of art pieces we might ever make). This helps art traders, art investors and art collectors speculate or even stop speculating and instead join a community of investors working together to hopefully skyrocket to the higher announced prices in a shorter span of time.
- We can use the NFT world, because NFTs provide the tracking (who owns what) and trading.
Valzubiriagenda NFTs
NFTs only came about a few years ago. But I had been working on this since the 1990s. I wrote a book, Valzubiriagenda, along with fellow artist Silverio Perez, and released it in 2018 (Amazon and elsewhere), tackling everything related to #1 & #2. We'll come up with #3 in a later book/ memoi marketing book.
Any artist, including tangible artists can release 10,000 NFTs if the artist chooses to do so. For tangible artists, the NFT first becomes an Art Commission Contract for sight unseen, yet-to-be made art. Once the art is made, the NFT becomes proof of ownership that the actual, tangible art is theirs.
Warehousing our tangible art
Another related idea is that the tangible art may be warehoused by the artist so that the NFT traders continue to trade. This means that even 10-ton 10-foot tall sculptures can be owned and traded by anyone without worrying about shipping, reshipping, scratches, smudges, parts breaking off, etc. The newness of the pieces remain because they are stored by the artist, source, gallery, etc. The art piece gets shipped to the art collector, the ultimate owner.
An artist who makes ceramic coffee mugs - smaller art pieces, can release 10,000 NFTs with a schedule of increasing prices so that NFT traders can trade immediately. The 10,000 coffee mugs can get damaged, so as they are made, they continue to be stored by the artist, until the time when art collectors decide to have the art pieces shipped to them.
Why only now?
I decided to write as many book-length memoirs as I can before I came out to promote this.
I'm an artist and an author. Both need time to "master." I would not even fully use "master" on myself, because there's always something new, even to my own art, my own writing and publishing.
I am now claiming that I'm the visual artist who has produced the most artist memoirs in the world. I have 5 on Amazon. I count Valzubiriagenda as both a marketing book and a memoir-of-sorts, because it has a lot of my own life lessons on writing and publishing. I would not care to contest my claim of having the most memoirs. I will release 5 more over the next 3 years.BARTER! Get help to write, photograph art and publish your books!
Anyone can hire 11 ghostwriters for 11 memoirs. If you can make art, but you cannot write, then barter your forever art with those who can help you produce forever books.
I don't feel the pressure of writing and publishing because I feel my focus should be on art students and art experts who would study my art and my books 100 years from now. Don't expect relatives and friends to read your books.
I call myself the Dollman
For my NFTs, I am proposing to make dioramas - my original, costumed, bejeweled porcelain dolls in backdrops that will also have precious metals and gemstones. This way I can incorporate precious metals and gemstones in my work, to make sure that people perceive my art as expensive, just in case I myself don't become "famous" - there's no need to get world famous. We are artists and all we need to do is to satisfy the art niche.
Use your laptop now!
I will encourage you to start writing your book-length memoir. Write, Edit and then Self-publish it. Get help. Why wait a hundred years for someone to write about you when all you need is a laptop and a nearby coffee shop.
Don't start counting chickens before the eggs hatch. I have encountered a lot of would-be writers who immediately see themselves as bestselling. world famous assets to society. Two even wanted me to sign NDAs (Nondisclosure agreements), because they did not want me to steal their book ideas.
Here's a suggestion. I would not personally do it. From one manuscript can come 2 books: The Original Draft (unedited, with misspellings, considered to be an art piece, scanned pages(?) of your handwritten original effort), and The Final Edition (edited).
PROVENANCE!
Another way to enhance our investability, tradability and collectability is PROVENANCE - how art ownership proceeds through time. The way this can be done is also through publishing books. Everyone can write their memoirs, biographies, art books and art catalogs, including traders, investors and art collectors. In effect, we artists can continue to be included or mentioned in even more books, without any additional effort by us.
You as an investor, reseller, trader, art collector should be able to publish a catalog with 250 works by 250 different artists, but they need to agree to this right from the start - it's your money, you should require them to follow your version of the hashtag #valzubiriagenda parameters, which preferably should include permission for you to publish their art. Why would you track down 250 artists later?
No exclusive contracts
If you're a café, you can call for artists, and come up with a book with for example, 30 artists, with a chapter devoted to each artist's profile and images of the artist's art.
You can distribute your catalogs to businesses and individuals near and far and online.
The book Valzubiriagenda even cites that funeral homes and janitors closets can sell art, with or without exclusivity. Airline catalogs can include million dollar art pieces. Car manufacturers, showrooms and even car repair shops can sell art as well. Everyone should be able to do this, anywhere in the world, especially not just because of the pandemic, but right now, we are in really bad economies.
What's with the name #Valzubiriagenda
I was into conspiracy theories in 2018, and this term, "The Mandela Effect," was popular. I had read many times that an artist coined the term, but I had to research online, for her name, many times, before remembering it. I'm not good at remembering names. It took me a year and a half to finally tell you that Fiona Broome coined "The Mandela Effect."
I also thought I might have to research trademarks and copyrights just to come up with a generic name. So I decided on "Valzubiriagenda." I was not really sure at first, but I decided to use it as the title for my book (with co-authoartist Silverio Perez) so that there would be no turning back and I can move on.
Am I a FUTURIST?
Someone I recently met this May 2022 just called me a futurist.
In the 1990s, I proposed to a pension fund that they can raise billions of dollars, especially for emergencies, or as needed, or out of desperation, if the pension fund purchases a quantity of art from an artist who not only has a current, reasonable price, but an announced future price that the artist wants to reach.
That future price would obviously be higher than the current price. The art commission contract for multiple art pieces can be taken to the fund's financial lender for a loan. The higher future price can be used for financing purposes.
The pension fund's treasurer, a publicly elected official, said this idea might work, but we had to keep this a secret and discuss this some more, because other pension funds might copy and do this prematurely. This idea had to come from the two of us. The treasurer needed his votes and I needed credentials.
Added into the pot was my idea that I, as the artist, will also write one book-length artist memoir. This was and still is a strong factor, because the leadership and marketing books I had read then mentioned a strong tip. If you want to advance in your field, write a full-length book that is related to the field.
Unfortunately, the elected official, the treasurer of the pension fund, who was also a friend, passed away - he was old and had ailments. At that point in time, I cannot just approach another pension fund treasurer to share this idea with.
I realized I had to write a few memoirs. I needed to set an example for other artists, so I needed to write more than one memoir. Then I felt I should also make ready another book - the how-to of what I'm up to. I wrote Valzubiriagenda, which was a memoir of sorts. I knew how long it would take me to write a book, so I had to make sure I can also consider this book a memoir.
In 2008, I imagined that someone like Bernie Madoff, or a fund like Lehman Brothers, would be desperate enough to use this to save themselves and their companies. I was not ready. I had only written 1 manuscript for a memoir.
In 2012, I released Dollman the Musical, A Memoir of an Artist as a Dollmaker. Once again, I was not ready because writing it depressed me a little, and I knew I had to write more.
In 2014, I released 3 memoirs, and re-released Dollman the Musical. Besides releasing regular books, I released special editions of the 4 books, which had a "Special Secret Insert for Bankers," which explains my ideas of an announced schedule of exponentially increasing prices, to satisfy investors, and the publication of artist memoirs, to satisfy art collectors.
In 2014, I also issued out a press release. Google "Can Billion Dollar Artist Save Investors and World Economy Valentino Zubiri PRWeb August 19 2014" and you will see the press release.
What I did was stake a claim on my ideas. I did not promote my books and the press release. I just wanted them to stay online, like a sleeping giant or a dormant volcano. I even designed 3 of the book covers to look like indie books from the 1980s. I was planting the seeds, thinking they will eventually grow and bear fruit in the future.
In 2015, I was interviewed by Richard Syrett, about one of my memoirs, Hocus Pocus Lately. This book is my memoir with paranormal stories. I could have pursued promoting my paranormal stories, but I wanted to be known first as a visual artist and memoirist, so I allowed myself one interview related to Hocus Pocus Lately. Richard Syrett has(had?) his own syndicated radio show, The Conspiracy Show with Richard Syrett, about the paranormal. He also guest hosts on Coast to Coast AM, another internationally syndicated show about the paranormal.
In 2018, I released Valzubiriagenda (co-authored by artist Silverio Perez, a fellow artist). Finally, this book is "the how-to of what I'm to."
I'm going to end this with some strangeness. In 1986, a lady at a religious gathering went into a trance and left a good number of messages. Supposedly, anyone who got into a trance would have messages, but once the trance was over, the person would not remember what was said.
I was not part of the group, but the lady turned her head to face me. She "foretold" that whatever I would decide to do in the future, it will take time, but it will be the right thing. This is one of my stories in one of my memoirs, Hocus Pocus Lately.
The Tulipmania of 1634-37
I discovered that there was this incident of rare tulips becoming collectible during the Dutch Golden Age. There were tulips so rare and so well-desired that their prices equaled to that of a house. You can read more about this online (Wikipedia) or watch a few YouTube videos about it.
Here is the most useful idea that I gleaned from the Tulipmania. The tulip bulbs remained safe inside nurseries. The traders were carrying the deeds of ownership to the tulip bulbs.
Then NFTs came to the forefront
I started learning PHP, an HTML scripting language, and MySQL, the database that PHP can connect to in the background, in 1999, when there were only 3 books about PHP and MySQL at the bookstores.
By 2014, I was trying to figure out how to make the "ledger," or database that can be used to update ownership and who can be contacted. If we are trading art, then the art ownership should be updated.
Then NFTs came about. This can be used as our ledger. Everyone can immediately trade NFTs of future, yet-to-be made art pieces, especially because it takes time to make tangible art.
NFTs actually went a step ahead, by allowing digital art to be traded.
The only setback with NFTs, in my opinion, is that it still lacks a commission system for resellers and representatives.
For example, if a café wants to represent me, then they can promote me at their café and on their online pages. If I make one piece of art that will be exclusively represented by a gallery, then that commission will be different and more specific. As ownership is transferred, the subsequent owners should be able to reset the commission. We should also have the option of giving commissions to hundreds of representatives at one time with different percentages if need be.
The recent crypto crash
Lately, we have observed that NFTs and cryptocurrencies have been behaving like the stock market and other markets. They have been fluctuating.
I believe that it is time for a trend which discourages fluctuation of prices.
I have also seen YouTube videos where social influencers are encouraging us to be on the lookout for exponentially profitable ventures, because we have all seen this happen with the exponential increase of Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Let's see if #Valzubiriagenda trends
We can announce present and future art prices. The galleries won't do this (yet?) because they follow a more traditional approach to the business of art.
We have a choice of using incrementally or exponentially increasing prices. We still reserve the right to change things in the future, so everyone should know to follow the latest update.
If this trends, if you as an artist simply announces that you will write an artist memoir, or that you will include the future works in future art books, you might have more art traders, investors and collectors approaching you.
Get your pen, paper and calculator
Imagine yourself as an artist, where you are right now. Let's just say you still do not have a book about yourself and your art yet. Imagine now that you have a memoir out there. Don't you think it makes sense to charge more than what you are charging now? Writing and publishing books is just the beginning. I'm just standardizing this approach. The books also say to do other related projects. In my case, getting Dollman the Musical onstage is one idea. You will have other related projects, but the publication of memoirs, biographies, art books and art catalogs will help all of us.
You can also imagine that a law firm that has meeting rooms, with someone who wants to form a local #valzubiriagenda group, can have meetings. A local café can do the same. Local photographers for your art, writers, editors, book designers, proofreaders and others can join in.
I suggest have printed books to share. 15 copies of your memoir or art books will be better than an e-reader or laptop or your phone to show. These gadgets can be stolen, sabotaged, broken, have coffee spilled on them, etc. 15 printed books means simultaneously showing to 15 people. You can even give them away to potential resellers, investors, traders and collectors.
When it rains, it pours, as in the days of Noah
There's a saying, "When it rains, it pours." There is a negative interpretation and a positive interpretation.
Negative: When trouble comes, they cascade to even more.
Positive: When opportunity comes knocking, more follow suit. We can assume that if one gets our art because of #valzubiriagenda, more want to do it now, because of the rising prices, and FOMO - fear of missing out. What will they lose if they miss the boat?
As I have said earlier, if the #valzubiriagenda trends, if you announce a future memoir or art catalog, you might have an increase of investors, traders and art collectors who would want to check you out. You might encourage more sales. Just remember to write and publish that memoir and art catalog.
There's this saying, "As in the days of Noah." Imagine Noah, building his ark, with members of his own family, putting all his time and effort into it. Noah was a nice guy. I'm sure every once in a while a neighbor offered him coffee, or chai latte, or whatever refreshing drink they might have back then.
Here's the lesson to be learned. Just because they offered him some type of bubble tea drink, or coca cola, they still didn't make it to the ark. Rubbing shoulders with actors does not make you an actor. I have told my artist friends to write their memoirs. They told me that once they see me succeed, after all these many years of seeing my seemingly useless efforts, then they will write their memoirs and follow the road that I had paved for them.
Good luck to them, but if I were you, act now, get my art or make art. Support the 5-year old artist whose parent promised to release a comprehensive art catalog. If you get that 5-year old's art, and mine, I would be honored to be in the same art catalog that you will produce. I'm already successful at that point. You have gotten the mission just right.
I have already claimed to have written the most book-length artist memoirs in the world. Dethrone that claim. Barter. Use ghostwriters. Success to me means facing God one day and saying, I wrote my memoirs and left the world a legacy of books and art. I will not tell God, smiling and proudly, that I encouraged a run for my art by announcing a schedule of exponentially increasing prices that reached 9 figures. I'm sure God knows we had fun.
JOIN THIS GROUP
If you want to try out #valzubiriagenda, in any capacity, join this group. Let others know about this group as well.If you are an artist, you can let everyone know here that you will produce your memoir, art catalogs, etc. It's okay if you don't know how to go about publishing yet, I will discuss this. Please be honorable enough to produce what you promise to produce.
If you want to meet fellow artists, investors, resellers, etc., join us here.
If you are a book writer, editor, proofreader; if you can photograph art pieces; if you are a book designer, etc., join us here. Let us know if you charge, barter for art, or both.
If you have your own tips and knowledge to share, join us here.
If you have underaged artists you are managing (parents, etc.) join us here.
Join this group if you want to sell works. Post your works. You web links. I'm sure I will.
You can announce meetings in your area. You might have meeting rooms, a café, restaurant, etc. where people can meet. In the future, you can have the regular show and tell, where books can be shown and shared.
Thanks for reading. Please let me know if I need to edit some parts. Please share and join this group. - Valentino Zubiri, Dollman, Artist, Memoirist
Underaged artists are welcome here, so please be mindful of your language. We cannot post your adult-oriented art pieces, but you can direct us to a separate page or community. There will be limits to your posts, and there will be adult-oriented art that we cannot allow to be posted.
Thanks for reading. Please let me know if I need to edit some parts. Please share and join this group. - Valentino Zubiri, Dollman, artist & memoirist