#[ august is the anniversary of when I survived the murder attempt ]

[fantasies-fairytales-n-fics]

Code Blue Ch. 46- Afterburn

Summary: Lee has some splainin to do. An unwanted visitor arrives which pushed Lee over the edge. Jo is once again annoyed with Luke. A verbal bomb goes off. Can JoLee survive?

*Chapter Warnings* strong language, intense angst, violence, death, mentions of rape, graphic depictions, terrorism mentions,

Stories Stories Stories Masterlist

Chapter characters: Lee, Josie, Jason, Luke, Charles in memory form,

Salem, Massachusetts

March 21, 2023

"How?" Lee queried Jason, incredibly stunned. "No one. No one knew. Only myself and..."

Lee paused, unable to collect his scattered thoughts. Jason then quietly and confidently finished Lee's sentence.

"Only you and Luke knew....and then there's Peter who..."

Lee, who was still dazed and highly perplexed over his dark delinquent past rapidly unraveling before his very eyes, cut Jason off at the mention of Peter's name.

"Peter. He didn't even use that alias then and the only photo that existed of him at that time in his profile was a boarding school I.D. under the name Henrik Faison, his birth name. He must have only been 18 in that picture. I had never come face to face with him nor his now dead father...only his older half brother Charles, the one we were after...who's also dead."

"Yes. Charles Rane. British terrorist, best known as the Rane of terror for hi-jacking planes, devil worship, changing his face and killing anyone who got in his way." Jason confirmed, sparking a morbid memory flash for Lee of a mission where he witnessed the murderous side of the barmy blonde Brit attempting to alter his appearance with plastic surgery, killing the plastic surgeon with one deep swipe of a scalpel across his throat.

"Peter was and still is quite similar in the fact he's a also a heinous monster and changes his appearance as well, just not under the knife like Rane did. And of course, his names too as you know." Jason continued.

"Yes, so you can skip telling me what I already know and start telling me what I don't know. How do YOU know?? That part of my life, it's classified and privileged information."

"Well." Jason said, rubbing his palms together as he sighed. "First and foremost, I have a long violent history with Faison, Peter too and...and I don't know if you're aware of August's infatuation with my sister and the whole hospital incident 4 years ago?"

"Yeah, she told me and I was actually there that night, locked down on the floor below. What does any of that have to do with this??"

"Because it's very possible that Peter, even Faison were targeting you over Rane's death."

"It crossed my mind but...Jo told me Faison's presence was tipped off to the police and they trapped him and Peter in the hospital because they had sought out Britt for refuge."

"Well that's what it appeared to be. But.. why was Faison in Salem in the first place? And on the 6th anniversary of Rane being blown to bits."

"You just said you had an extensive not so nice history with the guy and of course, Britt and Nathan are his family so maybe it was all for one happy fucking reunion or to shoot the shit with you, pun intended." Lee snapped, becoming agitated that he knew Jason was right.

"Lee...Britt and I were not in town then. Faison didn't even know yet that Nathan was his son. To finally answer your question from earlier, Peter began writing Britt from prison when he found out somehow that she was seeing you. Britt wouldn't read them, nor tell Jo about it and gave them to Spinelli in case there was anything in them that he or Sonny needed to know."

Lee chuckled and shook his head as he pulled his hand down his face.

"So that's how you know. From the real Sam Colin himself."

"It is. According to Peter, he had figured out your true identity a few years after his brother's death and he was attempting to get Britt to tell Jo about your past in hopes that she would leave you. And since Peter knows who you are, I guarantee you Cyrus knows since they were two peas in a cellblock with nothing better to chat about. It makes sense now as to why Renault is so interested in you. I'm willing to bet my life, ok wrong choice of words.... I'd bet anything... that he has plans of trying to recruit you on his side because after all...you did take out one of the most indestructible antagonists with nothing but an aerosol can and a microwave."

"Rane AND his men and...it was much more than just an aerosol can."

"Almost too good to be true. Either way, it got the job done and I think it's safe to say that Peter wants you dead so that's why I had Spinelli warn you that your cover was blown. Peter may be in prison but we all know that don't stop ruthless scum like him from using outside sources to do their dirty work. Cyrus could be helping him for all we know if it benefits him in some way."

"Then why am I still alive? I know you know Cyrus quite well Jason, but from what I can see, he's a leader, and an independent one. He works for or with no one, they work for him. What could Peter possibly have to interest someone like Cyrus? They are both quite similar in their evil ways but yet so very incompatible, for even evil despises opposing evil. I know the profiles. Peter has nothing to offer, not even as an ally and he has no blood ties now, except Britt but she remained strong and smart and fought the insidious influence of her father and both brothers. Not Peter. He's weak and he gets careless as a man and a business man. Always has been and is even more so now. If Cyrus wants me in his circle of vultures as you first theorized, then that's what will benefit him. But what about Luke? I mean, he's the one who arranged the entire setup with Rane all the while Luke set me the fuck up with that alias to draw him out. Luke must have been mentioned in the letters for you to know about him."

"He was. That's how Peter was able to track you down, but he got tangled up in my sister, luckily for you, not so lucky for her. Did she tell you why he's in prison?"

"No. She had said he did terrible things to her but she never told..."

You intentionally appeared from around the side of the deck where you had been standing to stop Jason from blabbing your personal nightmare. Britt slowly followed in your shadow, wondering to herself what she would have done if she had read those letters.

The two men remained silent and stunned as Lee's sapphires met your eyes that were flooded with pain, confusion and tears that refused to fall.

"Well, since you're both stuck on stupid...how about if I start. Yes, we heard every word and..."

"Jo...baby please...just let me expl..."

"I'm sorry SAM, have we met? You seem familiar. Like, you look a whole hell of a lot like my boyfriend, the good doctor Lee, but I wasn't aware he had an evil twin and now it seems Britt was justified in referring to you as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, hide being the key word only spelled differently just like your three letter names are and it also seems that I was justified in once asking you who the hell you were."

"Jo...stop. I have been trying to talk to you abo..."

"Like, I don't even know where I should start?? Such as with the fact that you were off blowing up terrorists with Luke who was a WSB agent or the fact that I told you about Peter and Faison ages ago and you said NOTHING!"

"Jo, you were a wreck that night after telling me what happened to you at the hospital and... I didn't know him as Peter August then. In fact, I didn't know him at all. We never met. Since you were listening, you should know that. We were after his brother."

"But you knew exactly who Faison was and again, that Peter was his son AND you had everyday after that to tell me and you didn't."

"Peter being his son told me nothing about Sam Colin. I didn't know they were the same person until tonight Jo. You saw my reaction. When I walked away from that life with Luke, I didn't look back...in any way at ALL. He went his way, I went mine. When the hospital shootout occurred and I found out who it was, I went into a fight or flight mode. I chose flight by taking an immediate long fucking vacation because all the gunshots were very audible and it triggered some bad shit for me that I didn't want to remember and I wasn't sure if Faison knew who I was and had been there for me. It was also after Jacob's funeral which made everything just too much and Ethan was there and we began hanging around for awhile and...well you know all about that...and Jesus...can we just go talk about this alone??"

"Sure! Where would you like to go?? How about the boat house where you were at earlier being all weird and secretive too!"

Jason sighed. "Jo, just let Lee talk for a minute without jumping down his throat so you know and understand everything."

"Oh, don't you even speak. You knew too and also said nothing. Of course, I expect that from you. Secrets and lies are your entire world and it obviously don't bother you but it bothers me Jason! Because I'm just never good enough for the truth and then I'm the bad guy when I react! Do you know what that feels like?? and now, I guess I should expect this from you too Lee, since it's becoming a pattern. You two are the real peas in a pod with how much you are alike. Jason...you should go tell Britt what else you kept from her about Jacob and leave us alone!"

You marched back into the house with Lee hesitantly following. Tears were now free falling down your face as you felt his presence behind you and then his hands on your arms.

"Please don't touch me."

Your voice was cold, flat and shaky which Lee knew he should have expected but it still bitterly stung him no less.

As Lee let you go and moved in front of you, his pained eyes and yours momentarily locked but then you turned away.

"Jo...baby...please...please look at me. There's so much you don't understand.

You couldn't do it. If you looked at Lee, his baby blues would suck you right in like a black hole in outer space, so instead, you rambled on, hands waving about as your crying eyes wandered around to any place opposite to the windows of his soul.

"I can't. It hurts too much to look into the eyes that once looked faithfully into mine as you swore that you had no more secrets and would never keep anything from me again. I mean, I really thought with the whole Ethan thing, that you would never risk what we have again...god how stupid was I?? I'm the one that seems to have patterns of being a bad boy magnet and the funny fucking part is, I didn't see that in you when we met...but..how stupid on my part, judging a book by it's cover. I'm the one who pays attention to the signs and yet I was too love blind to see them! Well, until lately with this crazy change in you."

"You...you think I'm...crazy?" he quietly asked, his voice somewhat broken up.

"Yes!!" you shouted, your eyes betraying you as they made a bullseye right onto his. "Am I crazy too? for saying that???"

Lee's eyes fell from yours as he endured the deserved dagger to his heart and then they rose again, but this time they were filled with a resentful rage.

"THIS. This is ONE of the reasons I didn't want to tell you because like Jason said, you jump down my throat before you even know anything Jo!"

"So, if I know everything, that will change the fact that you keep fucking hiding shit from me???"

"NO...but it will explain why! Just like with Ethan. Once you knew the truth, you understood and we got through it."

"This is nothing like that! You kept from me that you were off playing OO7 with Luke and it involved a very dangerous man who's psycho family was VERY relevant in my life."

A hard pounding on the door startled both you and Lee, sending you running beside him regardless of how angry you were.

"Don't move." Lee strongly whispered and looked through the crack in the window's curtain.

He immediately stiffened straight up and angrily pursed his lips, releasing a massive sigh through his nose.

"Well if it isn't James Bond himself."

Lee marched straight to the door and whipped it open so hard, you felt the breeze whirl over your face.

"What the fuck do you want??" Lee barked.

"Your girlfriend." Luke smugly answered, followed by a brief pause to let it get under Lee's skin, in which he greatly succeeded. "To question that is. She here?"

"You just called her this morning, not even two hours ago. You're really eager for the backing of my alibi eh??" Lee retorted as he leaned on the door frame, his arm blocking the entryway.

You appeared behind Lee, visible to Luke under Lee's armpit.

"Just let him in so I can get this over with."

Lee shook his head and glared at the new detective, letting his arm fall to his side with a slap of his hand on his thigh as he only moved a few inches to let the 5 inch shorter Luke slide past him.

"I'd offer you some water since you're so...thirsty, but...faucet's broke." Lee snarked as he walked to the sink, turned it on and rinsed an apple he would momentarily cut up.

Luke scoffed as he grinned, then looked at you.

"You...ok? You've been crying."

Lee slid out a large butcher knife from it's wooden holder, cut a chunk of the apple and munched on it as he intimidatingly walked back to Luke, wiping the 8 inch blade with a towel and wielding it to gesture his smiling sarcasm. His words rolled out in a spot on British accent to mock Luke's. So perfect that one would never have known Lee was American.

"Of course she's been crying. A girl is dead and you're badgering her to corroborate her boyfriend's alibi by showing up at his home unannounced and most certainly.... uninvited."

Lee then laid the knife down on the stand by the front door and leered down at Luke who stood with a riposted stare and a curled smirk.

"Jesus Lee." you huffed. "Can you just give Luke and I fifteen minutes alone please???"

Lee's sullen eyes darted to yours.

"You want ME to leave my own house and you alone to be grilled about ME by someone who looks at you like you're something to eat??"

"I just want to get this over with and set him straight without things escalating and you giving Luke a reason to arrest you. I don't have to be psychic to see that happening."

"Hmmm. Funny, you wanted me there when Gerry questioned you."

"And that didn't go so well either, but hey, at least you didn't smash a vase over his head or indiscreetly wave a knife around at him."

"Like he did that very day. Lets try to also remember here that I'm not the one who almost choked my own brother to death. Luke had it coming just like he felt Ethan did when he hurt Landy too. Go ahead. Defend Luke some more Jo. I love hearing it."

"Lee, what's the problem? You have nothing to hide...right? And Jo here is a big girl and from what I've witnessed, she can hold her own by giving a bloody crack over the head as well."

Lee's lips turned slightly inwards as the two tall, dark and handsome giants exchanged fixed fearless stares.

"Right. Fifteen minutes, not a second more. Watch yourself." Lee snarled at Luke and headed out to the boathouse, slamming the door behind him.

"Lee, I wasn't defen..."

You shuttered as the front door's bang brought silence.

"ding....him." you finished in a whisper and went to sit on the couch.

"He actually told you about that? Shocking." Luke asked as he followed, sitting in a chair across from you.

You were very inclined to agree but swallowed the urge.

"Do you have to antagonize him??"

"He started it."

You rolled your eyes and sighed. It boggled your mind that Luke had been an agent, Lee possibly too, when they both acted like bratty little boys at times.

"The Cult of Dolos? Interesting choice for reading." Luke stated as he caught sight of the book on the table. "This is what Lee reads now? Demons. Hmmmph."

"If you must know, I umm...I was reading it."

It wasn't a lie, you just didn't remember reading it.

"That's even more interesting. So it's...your...book?"

"Luke...cut to the chase. What are you getting at? It's a book."

"Oh nothing. Just an observation."

"So, is there any word on Blaise's whereabouts?? Have you found Ethan?"

"No. My brother is still missing as is Blaise. I did speak to her father though who's very adamant that Ethan is behind it."

"How...how was Craig? I mean, I'm sure he was a wreck."

"You know Mr. Parker?"

"He's my landlord."

"Ohhh. And here I thought it was because he works for Sonny Corinthos and was your brother's side kick. Gerry filled me in. Anyways, to answer your question, Parker is understandably a wreck as you put it and he's also infuriated. From what I've gathered, Ethan seems to think he is the girl's father, at least that's what your sister told me. Either way, legally, Parker is her father according to the birth certificate he had a copy of, waving it in my face."

"You questioned Megan??"

"Well, she actually came to the station of her own free will. She also seems to think it was Ethan that took Blaise."

"You're shitting me. Since when does my sister care about anyone but herself?"

"That I don't know. Another thing Josie. Elizabeth's toxicology. There was another finding. She um... she was pregnant."

"W...what? Oh my god."

"Yeah. Estimated about 6 weeks. And um...that's not all. Upon an outer body study. she um. Josie, Elizabeth had very recent severe vaginal trauma, appearing that she was raped."

A gasp and then an involuntary gulp rolled down your throat, immediately accompanied by another involuntary reaction of your thoughts jumping to yesterday morning when you found Lee in the kitchen after his run. His hoodie and sweats were filthy with dirt. No...no. There was no way! Lee told you he fell when a coyote surprised him. How could your mind betray you like this? How could it betray him?? Lee swore to you only hours ago that he did not attack Liz and you told him you believed him because you did and that was that. With your inside voice, you cursed yourself and abruptly banished the insane thoughts, then continued on in defense of the man you loved.

"Look...I don't know what you're thinking Luke...but Lee was here with me four days straight up to now and he never left, nor did I. It's as simple as that." you lied, hoping it would satisfy him, but you should have know better than that with a man of his intelligence.

"DNA testing is being done on her entire body, so only time will tell."

"Well it won't tell that Lee is guilty! You can't possibly EVER think he did such a heinous act?? He's not violent! Not like that! Sure, he blows his temper sometimes, but who don't??"

"You don't consider smashing a vase over my head violent?"

"Well he must have had a good reason Luke because you sure seem to push his buttons. Wanna fill me in on that part??"

"It seems you may already know. And Lee had plenty of reason to hurt Liz too, did he not? He left that morning for his shift that began when? and what time did he leave? and was anyone else here to verify what you told me?"

"Two dogs and a cat!!" you snapped. "Would you like me to go get them so you can interrogate them too??"

"Josie...I'm just doing my job. I have to ask these questions."

"Yeah and I wasn't born yesterday to know you can't be objective when it comes to Lee, for many reasons. Gerry should be here, not you."

Luke got the distinct feeling that you knew about his and Lee's history but he remained quiet about it, for he wasn't quite sure yet.

"Gerry is the one who told me to come. So, can you tell me the times....please?"

"His shift was 11 am to 9 pm." you spat out as you folded your arms over your chest, giving Luke a cocky eyebrow.

"Annnnd. What time did he leave here and get home?"

"Don't you seriously already know this? Lee told me you questioned him and I'm sure you verified his shift with the hospital??"

"Josie...they're simple questions really. The sooner you answer them, the sooner I can get out of your hair."

You hesitated because you knew Lee had left two hours early that morning and you weren't sure what time he arrived at the hospital so you had to tell the truth, because Luke probably knew when he got there.

"He left here at 9 am. He wanted to settle himself in first and he got home at almost midnight because he had to stay over for a patient that was brought in."

"So he left two hours before his shift started. Video shows him walking in at 10:45."

Your heart sunk into your stomach. What else did Lee not tell you. Where did he go?

"Well maybe he had to get gas and run some errands Luke?? This is ridiculous. I think it's safe to say that Liz was probably a bloody mess when she was brought in. You seriously think he would show up at the hospital all squeaky clean? Because if you take off his drive time, he didn't have a lot of time left to do all that. And...where was she all that time then, while she bled out? because she wasn't brought in until after dusk."

"He has two other homes that he could have cleaned up at. What was Lee wearing when he left?"

"Unbelievable."

"We found a blood stained shirt in his office that is being tested and it's not the same one he was wearing when he came in."

Now you felt like you were going to hurl. "It was...it....Jesus."

You closed you eyes and inhaled deeply, the exhaled to try and focus.

"Hey, you ok??" Luke genuinely asked and reached over the table to touch your hand that rested on your knee.

"I'm fine." you reeled as you yanked your hand away. "He was wearing a white long sleeved dress shirt with a red tie and he carried a black suit jacket with him."

"Ok. That's what he came in with and we found that too."

"Look, Lee has extra clothes there because his job does get messy and don't you have to have like a ...search warrant to go through his office?? What about all the other employees? Why are you singling Lee out?? And better yet, shouldn't you be asking HIM all of this?? You're just using me and we're done here. Times up. You know, I thought you and I had come to a better place but now I'm not so sure about you. I liked you better before you became a cop when I had actually thought I saw glimpses of the real you. But maybe this is really you just like Lee and Orlando have been trying to warn me about. You're supposed to be Lee's friend Luke. God...what the hell did you do to him in the past???? He was doing just fine until you came back."

"Josie...I swear to you this is not personal. Lee...he just dwells on things and holds grudges."

"I'd dwell and hold a grudge too if I felt someone set me up for something. You need to go. Now."

Luke now knew that Lee had told you of their past. Part of it anyways, for you just weren't as mad as you should be for knowing all of it.

Luke stood outside the front door as you went to close it.

"Josie wait...I'm...I'm really sorry. This...this...isn't how I wanted things to be between us."

"And exactly...how...did you want them to be Luke?? I think you should be worrying about your friendship with Lee instead." you directly said and slowly closed the door, then headed to the window to watch him leave.

Once you witnessed Luke drive away, you headed down the path to the boathouse.

Lee had been pacing non-stop for the mere 15 minutes that, to him, seemed like an hour and he was ready to snap. What was Luke telling you? Would he change your belief in Lee's innocence and your belief in him period?

When Lee heard the door open, he spun around with a gasp, his eyes wide and desperate, his breaths heavy as he stood frozen, trying to read your face.

"He's...he's gone." you softly assured him as you noticed the panic he was trying to control. "Lee...they um...they found out something else about Liz."

You went on to tell Lee everything Luke told you, failing miserably at holding back your tears to have to speak such horrific words and from guilt in finding yourself studying Lee's body language and reaction.

Lee stumbled back a step and then slowly sat down in a chair, momentarily rendered speechless as his eyes fluttered in shock over to the wash basin that concealed the washed evidence of his knife and car keys.

"It...it had to be Ethan then...it...it had to be. He....Jesus, did he try to set....how?" he quietly stammered and then stood back up, for he was unable to sit still.

"Luke seems to think it was you."

A scoffing sigh flowed heavily out of Lee's nose as he lowered his head, shaking it in disbelief.

"I'm not a cold blooded murderer. I'm not a rapist. Those things are all Ethan and he knows it. You know it. That's all I care about."

You were silent for a moment, hating yourself for the relentless intrusive thoughts insinuating even the slightest possibility that Lee could be capable of something so diabolical.

"Jo?? You...you said you... believed me. Has...that changed?? Did Luke...did he get to you???"

The tears that had been floating in the corners of your eyes, poured over the rims as you began to feel your stomach twist in sickness.

"Lee...Luke...they umm, they searched your office and found a bloody shirt and...and he said that video shows you entering the hospital at almost 11, but...you...you left here at 9 and..."

You aggressively wiped your tears and sniffled, then continued without making eye contact into the incredulous stare you felt burning right through your soul.

"And you...you were so dirty after...after your run that took longer than usual and...you..you were out here...burning and washing something earlier and I...I just....I don't understand is all."

Your crying eyes unwillingly glided up to his, for like the song said, he was a magnet and you were steel. The expression on his face was of absolute horror, confusion and pain as if you had punched a hole right through his chest and ripped his heart clean out, then stomped on it. Your regret was instant.

"Oh HELL no!" Lee finally snapped and walked away with his hands up when he was able to process what he just heard.

"So which is it then Jo Jo??? Did I do it on my morning run or did I do it just before work???? OR better yet, did I do it in the library with the fucking candlestick??? Oh, my bad, I meant knife. Come on Jo, which CLUE was it that determined my guilt for you huh??? Because I'll tell you right fucking now, you don't have the SLIGHTEST clue and do you know why that is?? Because you don't let me explain anything!"

"Lee, please...I'm sorry!!! I don't know what to even think at all! You always keep things from me and you even said you couldn't blame me for these thoughts. I mean, I heard you tell Jason that you blew people up and the other night, you and him were plotting against Liz to set Ethan up and..."

"Why do you do this??!! Why do you all turn on me like this???!!! I love you!!!" Lee raged in a way you had never seen him before. But now...could you actually blame HIM?

"What I told you happened that morning HAPPENED! I took my pocket knife with me because I know there are coyotes out here in these woods and I ran in to one just like I said and I FELL in the dirt like...I...said! I rested for awhile which is why I took longer...like I said and when I left for work, I ran an errand that happened to involve a surprise for YOU that I'm beginning to now feel was a big mistake. And I spilled a damn red bull on my shirt at work, so I changed and then that shirt got blood on it because a car crash victim was brought in who fucking died on me on my first day back. SO is that what you think now, that I went through with setting Ethan up??? That I would actually force myself on a woman and then brutally attack her ALL to frame him??? Do you think she was pregnant with my kid too???Jesus, if you only fucking knew Jo, what I discovered and that I was trying to protect YOU!"

"M..m..me?" you squeaked as you stood shaking and crying.

Lee stormed over to the sink and quickly walked back to you holding his keys in one hand and his knife in the other, then held them out, shaking them.

"This Jo! This morning, I saw the inside garage door partially open and then I realized my car was parked in the opposite direction that I always put it in. I found the keys in the ignition with blood on them and buried in the bottom of the trunk, I found a bag with bloody clothes and my knife in it, also bloodied. YOUR clothes Jo, that you had on that morning. So you know what I did?? The reason I was out here?? I burned the clothes and scrubbed the keys and knife clean! To...protect..you, because I think you had a blackout from mixing your anxiety meds with that bottle of wine. At least that's what I thought, but now....now I think Ethan turned the tables and tried to set you up while I was at work. So...what do you think now baby???!" Lee shouted and threw the keys across the floor.

"Maybe I'm not the crazy monster you seem to think I am after all huh??" he then said, his voice cold and resentful, then he walked out, leaving you a blubbering sobbing mess as you fell to your knees, your mind spinning with no memory of what Lee just told you and wondering if the damage you caused was irreparable. Could your relationship be salvaged now? Could Lee ever forgive you for ever doubting him? Had you now lost him....forever?

@redeemer46

[findingjoynweirdstuff]

Crash Course: The History of Dream SMP Season One

So...

You want to get into the Dream SMP, but oh no! There’s eight months of extensive and event-filled history to catch up on, and dozens of highlight videos to watch that don’t always include everything, and pages upon pages of detailed Wiki articles...where do you start!?

Well, I’ve created this to summarize the events of Dream SMP Season One into a single post as a sort of “narrative timeline.”

I’ve also included the dates of the events to the best of my ability, so that everything is in (mostly) chronological order.

I’d highly recommend also checking out the Wiki for more detailed descriptions of the big events if you’re interested. 

Happy one-month anniversary of the Grand Finale!

Enjoy!

---

Note: Some dates, but not all, are taken from VOD upload dates, and Tommy’s VODs are usually uploaded a day later than initial broadcast, so they may be slightly inaccurate. Dates marked with * are the dates the VOD was uploaded, in cases where I am unsure of the original broadcast date.

---

The Early Days

April 25th: 

The SMP started out as an ordinary survival server, and was often referred to as “the survival world” on early Dream Team streams. The first eight members to join the SMP were: Dream, George, Sapnap, Badboyhalo, Ponk, Alyssa, Callahan and Sam, though Sam took a hiatus until the events of the Election Arc. The Community House was the first thing to be built in the center of a lake. 

It was in this period that Beckerson and Mars were named from donos (the various named knicknacks in the Community House are also from donos), Dream tamed a white horse named Spirit, and Sam tamed Fran. There were also several other various pets like dogs and foxes that were tamed by the members.

Some notable events from this period include: the construction of the Court House (and subsequently Sapnap and George’s murder trials there), Dream building the wooden path, George texting Dream’s mother, Sapnap’s Famous Storytime Stream (in which Spirit died due to mobs), and the burning of Ponk’s first Lemon Tree due to a conflict with George.

There was also a running joke that Callahan and Alyssa were dating (they aren’t)

Tommy’s Arrival

Tommy joins July 4th. Tubbo arrives shortly after, with Fundy a day after Tubbo.

The day of Tommy’s arrival:

Tommy joins the SMP. His first day, George and Dream get him to stand on a crafting table and he subsequently murders George and takes from the Community House chests. Dream and George put Tommy on trial in the Court House. After a brief manhunt, Tommy is banished 2,500 blocks away (the first of three exiles) in the snow and is ordered to stay there. He fails to comply and is briefly banned before Dream lets him back on. He chooses to settle on a hill next to Ponk’s Lemon Tree.

The Disc War: Start of the Disc Saga

Taking place from July 9th* - July 11th*, though there were various events/conflicts relating to the discs that happened before and after this time.

After listening to two discs, Cat and Mellohi, with Tubbo on a bench while watching the sunset (VOD: July 8th*), Tommy considers the two discs to be his most prized possessions. 

This event is considered the first major war of the server, and the Disc Saga would continue to have developments throughout the rest of Season One.

The events of the first Disc War began due to another conflict between Sapnap, Ponk and Alyssa. Punz and Tubbo were also involved. Tommy ended up siding with Sapnap, and much vandalism and fighting happened before Dream logged on with the intention to stop it. 

Tommy and Sapnap murder Dream, and Dream steals Tommy’s discs in return, threatening to burn them unless Tommy returns his gear. Tommy, Tubbo and Sapnap end up combining forces to murder Dream and take back the discs, which Tommy hides under his base. Dream spends time off stream digging up the entirety of Tommy’s land in search of them. 

The rest of the Disc War proceeds with Tommy and Tubbo working repeatedly to take back the discs from Dream. It only ends when Tommy crafts an Ender Chest to put the discs in.

This was also around the time that Fundy’s Socializing Club was built, which later led to a brief conflict taking place there. 

(It was also during this time in the middle of the Disc War that Wilbur joined a call with Tommy and asked Dream out on a date to Pizza Hut, with Tommy speaking in game chat as Wilbur’s wingman. Dream says yes, George gets jealous on Twitter, and the infamous Vlog plot starts. It would go on from July to October.)

Schlatt and Wilbur

July 12th: During a short conflict between Tommy and Tubbo over the death of Tubbo’s pet bee, Tommy burns down Tubbo’s house. Wilbur logs onto the server to act as Tommy’s lawyer. 

On July 17th, Schlatt gets whitelisted on the server without Dream’s knowledge and Tommy spends a day with his idol. The SMPLive Cuck Shed is recreated in Dream SMP, and Tommy listens to the disc Blocks with Schlatt. People trend #kickschlatt on Twitter. Both Wilbur and Schlatt log off the server “permanently,” Wilbur by choice and Schlatt by banning (as Dream didn’t know who he was). Tommy gains ownership of Wilbur’s ball house.

Also worth mentioning is Eret joining July 19th.

The L’manburg War for Independence (aka “Revolution”)

This was a relatively short but very consequential arc, taking place from July 24th to August 2nd, a little over a week in total. It is the second major war of the server, and the first to be faction-based.

July 24th: Wilbur joins the server again.

He decides to start an empire with Tommy. He builds the Camarvan (aka “hto dog van”) in a remote part of the woods and recruits Tommy to help create artificial scarcity in the server’s drug market by stealing everyone’s blaze rods. This isn’t taken too kindly by other members, especially Sapnap. One thing leads to another and they decide to mark out a tiny square in the woods to declare as an independent country. Tubbo joins them, and he and Tommy sing “Hallelujah” to a tilled patch of dirt (this melody would later become the L’manburg National Anthem). They also recruit Eret to help build. They decide on a name: L’manburg, and also don revolutionary skins.

Dream comes over, displeased by this, and declares war. His side consists of Dream, George, Sapnap and Punz, though the L’manburgians attempted to convince George to their side due to his Britishness. 

Eret builds the walls, Fundy joins the revolution after logging in within the walls and being very confused, Wilbur claims Fundy as his son. Tommy constructs a fight club beneath his house and, after poorly speaking Dutch to Fundy, goes down the path placing signs in various languages saying “the green bastard shall die!” as propaganda to Dream’s viewers of various nationalities.

July 31st: 

Dream and Sapnap log on during one of Dream’s streams, inspect the area, and go through a multi-step plan to demoralize the L’manburgians: they burn down all the trees around their land, lavacast a huge cobblestone wall just outside, construct obsidian TNT cannons around the walls, and fire several TNT blasts into the country, destroying part of the hotdog van’s roof. George joins the call, gets filled in on what’s been happening, and assists in the chaos. Eret, the only L’manburgian online, is helpless and can only meekly protest in game chat. As a final message, Dream and Sapnap set fire to Tubbo’s house (the second time) and Dream gives his famous “white flags” ultimatum. 

August 1st:

The ultimatum’s war date was pushed back a day due to Twitter drama. The final evening before war, Dream, after doing his serious stream, logs onto the server and blows up Tommy’s land with TNT, exploding part of the beloved Cuck Shed. Wilbur, in VC, tells Tommy to return the favor to Dream, but instead, Tommy chooses not to fight fire with fire. Impressed, Wilbur makes Tommy his right hand man. Eret joins Dream’s side around this time.

August 2nd:

The day of war comes. Dream’s side goes to Tubbo’s jungle base to kill Tubbo repeatedly. There’s a brief conflict at the Power Tower. Wilbur logs on - the L’manburg side is grossly underprepared. They meet at the Embassy and exchange fire with the Dream SMP members. After Dream seems to retreat, Eret suggests they return to L’manburg, saying he has a “secret weapon:” Eret has been grinding for items.

He leads them down a long tunnel into a blackstone “Final Control Room.” The chests are empty, and Tommy pushes a button in the middle of the room, wondering what its function is. The redstone doors slide open and Dream’s men ambush and kill all of them, leaving them with nothing.

After speaking with Wilbur, who refuses surrender, Dream returns to L’manburg and lights a piece of TNT at the entrance, triggering tons of TNT that had been laid beneath the ground beforehand to ignite. Tommy leads everyone into a final bunker. As one last chance at independence, Tommy challenges Dream to a bow duel for Mellohi. George and Wilbur have a short exchange in which they reflect on their Pizza Hut Date, wondering how they could end up like this, with their men fighting each other on opposite sides. Wilbur tells George he should have been on their side as a British person. Eret too.

Tommy and Dream take ten paces and fire at each other on the Prime Path.

Tommy loses the duel.

Instead of giving up just Mellohi, though, Tommy asks Dream if he could give up Cat as well in return for “technical independence.” Dream agrees. Wilbur declares independence again, putting himself as President, Tommy as Vice President, and Tubbo as Secretary of State. Eret, meanwhile, is declared king of the Dream SMP. 

YOOOOOOOOOOOO...you know the rest.

Jack Manifold is whitelisted. It’s a silver-lining ending.

Post-War Period General Events

August 3rd (?), VOD uploaded August 6th*:

On Jack’s first day, Dream attempts to bribe Jack onto his side with riches, real money, and books containing secret codes. Jack decides to act as a double agent.

VOD uploaded August 7th*:

Fundy and Eret continue their pranks. Eret builds his two towers to watch over L’manburg - Fundy completely destroyed the first of them, which is why Eret’s towers are now reinforced with obsidian. That same stream where Fundy “shrank” the tower was where Tommy and Jack first heard the tale of Fundy’s heritage. Fundy explained that his mother was a salmon (they came up with the name “Sally”) and that she was an accountant who raised him the best she could. Tommy and Jack are understandably weirded out by this.

August 6th:

Niki is also whitelisted and joins the server. The original Camarvan is torn down, and Wilbur introduces the first version of the L’manburg National Anthem.

The Drug Park Trivia Contest

August 9th:

Due to L’manburg needing more funds, Wilbur, Tommy and Tubbo get together and create a drug park business to attract drug dealers and women. They see four chickens hanging out near some gravel and name them Clementine, Clementine, Clementine and Clementine, deciding that gravel must attract women. PPA (Ponk-Purpled-Alyssa) signs a trade agreement with L’manburg.

The drug park attracts a confused Dream, who wanders around through the alleyways. Dream gets scammed and then scams them back, so Wilbur challenges Dream to a trivia contest.

August 10th:

Fundy takes off his revolutionary outfit and he and Wilbur get into a brief argument over it. Eret continues to build his second tower. Wilbur asked Tommy and Tubbo to prepare the trivia questions together, but while Tubbo had researched real trivia, Tommy put in bullshit questions that were later removed from the point score.

Dream loses the trivia contest and jumps off a cliff.

The Disc Saga: Showbiz Business

 August 13th*:

After Tommy, Tubbo, Thunder, Skeppy and Fundy give a performance of Hamilton and Macbeth to Dream, gaining Dream’s favor, Skeppy tells Tommy he has Spirit’s leather. Tommy, seeing an opportunity to use Dream’s sentimental attachment to get Dream on his good side, asks Skeppy for the leather. Instead, Skeppy trades the leather back to Dream in return for one of the discs. Tommy gets Quackity in a VC to try and intimidate Skeppy (Quackity fails), then asks for Quackity to be whitelisted. Dream whitelists Quackity.

This was also around the time that Fundy kidnapped Punz’s bee, Beenis, and was put on trial, resulting in the birth of Tubbo’s alter ego: Big Law. This would come into play during the Pet War.

The Cartel

August 17th: 

Quackity joins the server.

He is initially not allowed to join L’manburg. 

He and Tommy start the Cartel together, going on a heist and cracking jokes about John Lennon. This is an overarching scheme over the course of several streams. Tommy ends up building a summer house for himself in the hills, and constructs a drug lab in its basement which he uses with Quackity to attempt a drug scheme.

August 28th*:

Later, after Tommy finishes his summer home and names the several cows who live there, Quackity kidnaps the one named Henry and threatens his life, as he feels that Tommy has become too attached to Henry and is no longer dedicated to the Cartel. Quackity forces Tommy to play a sick trivia game show where if he gets an answer wrong, a cow dies. Tommy asks Tubbo for help, but Tubbo sides with Quackity for the drama. The conflict ends in violence, but Henry is still alive.

Tommy and Wilbur Revive the Server

August 19th*:

Tommy, concerned that the SMP is dying due to Tubbo not being online, calls in Wilbur and Quackity for a chill stream. He and Wilbur rebuild the Camarvan very, very poorly, turning it into a monstrosity of a dirt-bug held together by cobblestone. This wasn’t very consequential, I just included it to explain how the Camarvan ended up looking like That.

The Disc Saga: Railway Skirmish

August 23rd*:

One day, Tommy was hanging around at his summer home. He hops in a minecart and accidentally runs Dream over. Dream uses the /kill command as a funny way to mess with Tommy (and the audience), causing him to die and lose all his stuff. Dream hadn’t been expecting Tommy to take advantage of it. Unbeknownst to Tommy, Tubbo runs in and snatches Dream’s prized sword, hiding it underground.

Tommy and Tubbo realize that with all of Dream’s gear in their possession, they finally have the high ground, and try and use that high ground to trade Dream for the disc. Wilbur joins and questions Tommy about why they’re trying to cause conflict, as L’manburg can’t afford to fight another war so soon. Wilbur orders them to return Dream’s things and apologize. Dream doesn’t give Tommy the disc, but does trade Tommy for Spirit’s leather in return for his stuff back. Tommy tries and fails to trade Skeppy the leather for the disc. He and Sapnap also then team up to kill Dream, but Sapnap betrays Tommy after being threatened and Tommy never succeeds in getting a disc back.

Tubbo reveals to Tommy afterwards that he’d hidden Dream’s sword, and they’d successfully kept it: they now have leverage.

Church Prime

August 24th:

Tommy and Dream put their differences aside for one day and start a religion together after plugging Twitch Prime for twenty minutes straight, to Tubbo’s disapproval. Quackity assists as well. The Vape Tower and Holy Land are created. Dream levitates into the air and /kill’s himself, then gets resurrected. One of the funniest streams the SMP’s ever had.

Church Prime has been born!

The Disc Saga: Spirit Scam / Start of the Pet War

August 27th*:

Tommy is enraged by Sapnap killing one of his beloved cows, Harold. He griefs Sapnap’s house and also informs Niki that her pet, a little fox named Fungi, was also killed by Sapnap. Niki is furious. She, Tommy and Tubbo kidnap Mars and Beckerson with the intentions of holding them for ransom as revenge. Dream, concerned about this, tries to reason with them. He can’t let Mars and Beckerson die at any cost. 

While the sides make their threats, Dream locks up the jukebox room in Tommy’s house with obsidian and starts playing the real Mellohi to taunt them out of cockiness. Tubbo and Tommy manage to snatch Mellohi and put it in an ender chest. Dream, realizing he’d screwed up, names a fake Mellohi disc “Tommy’s Disc” and tries to convince them that that was the real one. 

After plenty of scamming involving Dream’s sword, Spirit, Mellohi, the fish, and a confusing switcheroo, Tommy ends up with the real Mellohi and the real Spirit, while Dream keeps Beckerson and Mars in his possession. Niki just wanted an apology.

The Pet War

August 29th*:

After taking a brief recess from the SMP, Fundy logs on and starts to catch up on what he’s missed. He’s confused by Church Prime, but is more concerned with chat spamming “RIP Fungi.” He doesn’t believe it at first, but sees Fungi’s grave in L’manburg and calls Niki, who tells him what happened. Furious, he says that Sapnap must pay.

He asks Dream for Mars, but Dream is unwilling to give her to him. Instead, Dream leads Fundy and Niki to the dog house and show them the pets. He tells them that Skechers is Sapnap’s fox, but they didn’t hear it from him. As he is unable to kill one of his own kind, Fundy asks Niki to murder it with a pickaxe.

After a scavenger hunt stream with George, Dream tells Sapnap what happened. Sapnap, enraged, kills Niki’s animals and Fundy’s enderman pet. The Dream Team hide their remaining animals off screen.

August 31st*:

Fundy gets Beenis and a beehive at Tubbo’s base and offers to play a cruel game with Punz in which Punz chooses to spare one of the beenests while the other is thrown into fire. Punz decides that choosing is better than leaving Beenis in an enderchest and chooses. They place down the spared beenest but no bee comes out. Tommy and Tubbo arrive in full armor, looking ominously at Punz. Fundy explains the situation to them, favoring his side of the story, and Tommy and Tubbo defend him as one of their own. Fundy has started a war.

September 1st:

Fundy and Niki get a pet bee named Beelloon. They hide it in an obsidian box to keep it safe. They also locate Sapnap’s pets based on small details in the background of George’s stream.

Sapnap and Punz arrive one day after a Twitch Rivals tournament and force Fundy to watch as they explode Fungi’s grave with TNT. Fundy says they should end the fighting for good with a duel: one vs. one, Sapnap and Fundy.

September 10th:

Fundy builds a scaled-down version of Technoblade and Dream’s arena just behind his base. Tubbo referees the duel between Fundy and Sapnap. Fundy loses. Sapnap takes Niki’s fish and starts to play the same game with Fundy, but stops at the last second - it’s not worth stoking up the fires of war again. He congratulates Fundy on being a worthy competitor and leaves after returning the fish to Fundy. The Pet War ends there.

The Election

September 3rd*:

Tubbo and Fundy get into an argument that threatens to tear L’manburg apart in Civil War. Tommy, while Wilbur isn’t online, is the one left in charge of diffusing the conflict, which he does successfully. The next day (September 4th*), Wilbur logs back on and Tommy fills him in on what he’s missed. They decide that they need to consolidate power, and choose to hold a rigged election where they’re the only party that can be voted for. Quackity, after learning this, states that he’ll be running as well to prevent their dictatorship, declaring his campaign “SWAG2020.” This throws a wrench in Wilbur and Tommy’s plans. Wilbur and Tommy’s party is renamed “POG2020.”

September 9th*:

The Presidential debate is held in Tubbo’s King’s Court. Quackity reveals that Georgenotfound is his running mate. Tommy attempts a smear campaign against him, then later accepts bribery from Karl, who was overseeing the debate. Tubbo takes Karl’s spot to be less biased. Fundy states that he wants to run for president as well. September 15th, Tommy gains Sapnap’s vote by publicly denouncing Fundy, telling him that if Wilbur weren’t Fundy’s father, Fundy would be kicked out of L’manburg. The following days, they hold a few more rallies, sing a duet of Let it Go, and Wilbur, Tommy and Quackity construct the White House while speaking Spanish. This is also the birth of “Tubbox.”

September 20th:

They hold one last rally where the parties show off their endorsements. POG2020 is endorsed by Vikkstar. Georgenotfound is a no-show. Everyone wonders where he is, with one of the running theories being that he’s off editing the Vlog. Fundy and Niki announce their campaign: COCONUT2020. 

Tommy and Wilbur have one last endorsement up their sleeve: Schlatt logs onto the server. He’s been unbanned. Instead of endorsing POG2020, however, he accidentally endorses COCONUT2020 and then decides to run his own candidacy, SCHLATT2020. Violence breaks out, Tommy, Wilbur and Quackity all escape underground. Wilbur and Tommy offer to combine votes with Quackity, but Quackity refuses after they reveal the offer is conditional on their own defeat. Instead, Quackity decides to partner with Schlatt.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that Wilbur asked for Tommy’s Mellohi disc, the real one, to keep until they’d won the election. Tommy gives it to him.

Schlatt’s Inauguration

September 21st:

HBomb is added to the server. Wilbur gets on the podium and states the election results: POG2020 won the popular vote by 45%, but was beaten out by the combined vote total of SCHLATT2020 and SWAG2020 of 46%, making Schlatt the President and Quackity the Vice President. Schlatt designates Tubbo as his right-hand man, still Secretary of State.

Schlatt’s decrees are as follows, given throughout the rest of the stream: Tommy and Wilbur’s citizenship is revoked, the walls are torn down, L’manburg is renamed to Manberg.

Tommy and Wilbur escape into the woods (Tommy’s second exile) and Technoblade offers them assistance. Technoblade logs onto the server and they find a ravine to make a barracks in: Pogtopia.

Tommy and Wilbur then go to negotiate with Schlatt for a one-day visa to L’manburg for Ninja’s visit. Schlatt agrees to it.

Ninja’s Visit

September 25th*:

Ninja visits and streams with Tommy for a day. He ends up getting married to Georgenotfound and using their marriage to get the Pogtopians an extended visa without Schlatt’s knowledge.

Pet War II: Battle of the Lake

Sapnap and Karl, who were engaged to marry with a wooden Eiffel Tower as their honeymoon spot, attempt to kidnap Henry. Instead, Sapnap accidentally kills Henry with fall damage.

October 5th:

Tommy is beyond enraged at the death of Henry, and goes to grief Skeppy’s property with Niki while he’s grieving. Dream joins and helps Tommy lavacast the Eiffel Tower. They attempt to frame Badboyhalo for this, which starts a new conflict and a battle between Skeppy and Bad against Dream and Tommy. 

Sapnap logs on, Tommy confronts him, and Sapnap eats Henry’s corpse. Antfrost also joins in on Bad and Skeppy’s side. The fight continues, and Dream and Tommy escape into the wilderness together and a chase ensues. Niki is taken hostage.

Dream decides to entrust Tommy with one of the most valuable pets on the server: Mars. Tommy must never, under any circumstances, harm her. Tommy tells Sapnap he has Mars, but Sapnap doesn’t believe Dream would trust Tommy with such a thing at first.

Everyone heads to Pogtopia. Tommy gives his famous “I have the Blade” line and Technoblade logs on. Dream also joins Techno and Tommy’s side. They declare it the Battle of the Lake after a tiny pond next to Tommy’s Intimidation Tower. Punz swaps sides mid battle, and Dream, Tommy and Techno overpower the opposing side, claiming victory.

Dreamon Hunters

October 7th:

Tubbo and Fundy want to create some chaos, but their targets keep logging off and foiling their plans. Eventually, Dream logs on, and that’s when they get the idea to perform an exorcism on Dream. They get Dream to Skeppy’s Mansion and perform a complicated ritual, ending with them logging out and then back in again, and Dream exploding TNT, killing himself and also Tubbo in the blast. After this exorcism, Dream seems...different. He says he wants to be a builder, he wants to hug Technoblade, and his IQ is...75! 

Tubbo and Fundy think at first that they’ve successfully removed the Dreamon, but after performing a test with an iron door, everything goes sour. In a last effort to get Dream back to normal, Fundy recreates his marriage proposal scene with Dream. Dream ascends into the air, explodes, and all seems to go back to normal...until DreamXD logs on.

October 15th:

In a second stream, Tubbo and Fundy get their proper Dreamon Hunter outfits, set up a base of operations on the beach near the Mansion, and recruit Sapnap to assist them.

The Festival

VOD uploaded October 10th*:

Tommy has an idea to connect the Prime Path from Pogtopia all the way to Dream SMP, but accidentally reveals Tubbo’s tunnel to Quackity in the process. This leads to a split between Tommy and Wilbur, in which Wilbur snaps and tells Tommy that this is why he isn’t the President and never will be.

Schlatt comes on. He ignores the tunnels, but announces something new: The official Manberg Festival, a celebration of democracy and freedom. With this announcement, Wilbur starts to have doubts about his intentions. Why should he want to go against someone who was democratically elected, hosting fun events for the citizens? Wilbur has a realization: he’s the villain. A few minutes pass, and he’s completely gone, slipping into paranoia about everyone’s loyalties as he starts to distrust that even Tubbo is on his side. He has a plan to blow the entire place up with TNT, and asks Dream to help.

At the end of the day, Tubbo and Tommy have a moment by the bench. Tubbo reveals to Tommy that he’d been given a Mellohi disc by Wilbur, who had also given a copy to Tommy as well. They question why Wilbur would give them both copies of Mellohi, and try to hide the truth about the disc. Tubbo says he probably has the real one.

In the coming days, Tubbo and Fundy help create the decorations. Fundy, meanwhile, has been questioning his loyalties. He wonders what Tommy and Wilbur ever really did for the country in their administration.

October 16th:

The day of the Festival arrives. Everyone, including Technoblade, has been invited except for Wilbur and Tommy. Techno joins in with the party activities, and it’s a joyous day. Tommy and Wilbur wait on the roof, and have a brief conversation with Tubbo before the moment arrives. Wilbur accuses Tubbo of being a yes-man, explains that there’s a key phrase in the speech to activate the TNT. There are twenty pieces of TNT beneath Schlatt’s chair alone.

He puts Tubbo in charge of making the final decision of whether Manberg stays or falls. It’s up to Tubbo to say the line. As the party settles, Tubbo goes up to give his speech. He says it, Schlatt prompts him for more, and Tubbo says the line. Wilbur and Tommy hop down to press the button, but Schlatt gives a little chuckle. He and Quackity start trapping Tubbo in concrete, keeping him in Schlatt’s chair while everyone looks on in confusion. Wilbur and Tommy pause – they can’t detonate the TNT with Tubbo in the blast radius. Schlatt reveals that he’d known about Tubbo’s spying all along, and calls up Technoblade for a favor.

Schlatt orders Technoblade to execute Tubbo. A few shots from Techno’s rocket launcher, and the deed is done. Techno then turns and massacres the crowd as Tommy pearls onto the podium and Wilbur searches around for the button, which he’d lost. Wilbur confronts Schlatt in order to defend Niki, but Schlatt orders Niki’s death and everyone runs back to Pogtopia.

Tommy is fuming at Technoblade, and the two have a short fist fight in a combat pit to settle their differences. Tommy loses, but his rage still remains. Techno tells him that the only universal language is violence, and now that they’ve settled that issue, it’s time to move on.

October 19th:

A few days after the festival, Tommy comes online and overhears an argument between Quackity and Schlatt over the destruction of the White House. Quackity snaps at Schlatt, shoots him, and runs off into the forest while Schlatt tears the building down. Tommy meets with him, and Quackity is recruited into the rebellion. Wilbur comes on and gets filled in. Wilbur also reveals that he’d found the button room off stream, and shows it to Tommy and Quackity. He only needed two witnesses. Tommy and Quackity trap Wilbur into the corner before he can press it, though, and talk him down into taking another approach for now. 

The Meeting

November 2nd:

It’s Niki’s birthday party. A fun-filled gathering hosted by Karl at his new Haunted Mansion, featuring several members of the SMP. Wilbur and Quackity are both there, and hang around after the party to sing love-hate songs to one another while playing the guitar. After Quackity sings one last song to Wilbur, though, things turn south. Wilbur tells Quackity that he’s going to blow up Manberg, and Quackity is going to watch. Everyone runs to Manberg in a panic as Wilbur starts playing the chords to Hallelujah. He begins to sing the L’manburg National Anthem in preparation, but Quackity manages to convince him not to do it. Wilbur gives Quackity an ultimatum: set up a meeting with Schlatt by the coming Friday, or Manberg gets blown to smithereens.

November 6th:

Friday comes. Quackity and Schlatt have a meeting in which Quackity attempts to trick Schlatt into signing away his presidency. Schlatt doesn’t fall for it. He, Quackity and Tommy wander through the woods while Wilbur makes his way to the button. But Schlatt reveals that he’d found out about the Button Room, and he’d disconnected the button’s redstone and moved the TNT somewhere else.

Coincidentally, Fundy had just done a massive prank marathon the day before, and one of his many pranks was to fill Pogtopia to the brim with buttons…loads, and loads, of buttons.

Everyone meets in Pogtopia. Badboyhalo arrives as well, and Fundy comes to reveal his Spy’s Diary, a book of information he’d collected on Schlatt throughout the entire administration with details on Schlatt’s deteriorating health. Wilbur starts to realize that instead of no one being on their side, everyone was on their side. Just as he comes to that idea, though, Dream joins the call and there’s another reveal: a traitor in their midst. Wilbur and Dream agree to end things for good on November 16th: the final war for L’manburg’s fate.

Pet War III: The Panda Skirmish

November 5th:

While in the jungle, Punz finds a panda and Sapnap helps retrieve it, saying that if anyone touches the panda, who they named Dumptruck, it would be a battle.

Once they get back, though, Antfrost, with assistance from Badboyhalo, attempts to steal the panda for the animal sanctuary. During the movement of the panda around from place to place as Punz and Sapnap attempt to get it back, the panda dies due to Punz’ armor enchantments. They blame the Badlands for the panda’s death, as if they hadn’t tried to steal it, the panda would still be alive.

As things break out into all-out war, Sam joins the fray to help the Badlands. Sapnap threatens Fran, saying Fran would not be able to come back if the dog died.

The battle ends in the victory of the Dream SMP members, and the defeat of the Badlands.

Pet War IV: The Final Pet War

November 15th:

The night before the final war, Tommy and Sapnap finally have their confrontation about Sapnap stealing Tommy’s horse, Juorse, not too long before. 

Tommy and Techno meet with Sapnap. Sapnap, surprisingly, advocates for talking out the conflict instead of immediately breaking out into fighting. All he wanted was Mars back.

They meet at the Community House and negotiate. While Sapnap returned Juorse to Tommy, however, Tommy refused to give up Mars. Sapnap killed Juorse in retaliation, angering Tommy. Tommy runs away, while Dream and George join the server with the intention to kill Sapnap for an unexplained reason.

 After a chase, Tommy is led to Sapnap’s secret base and shown his remaining pets. Sapnap tells Tommy to kill them. Tommy, refusing to stoop to Sapnap’s pet-killing level, says no. To settle the conflict, Sapnap and Tommy agree to a duel at Eret’s museum. Sapnap wins very quickly. While Tommy is being made fun of by the others, though, Sapnap is gracious and does not. He respects Tommy as an opponent, and the two go off on their own to talk.

Tommy tells Sapnap that all the Pet Wars have to end, for good this time. He says Sapnap has to let go of Mars. If he truly loves Mars, and doesn’t want to see her passed around as a bargaining chip forever, she should be freed.

Sapnap, though saddened, agrees, and they set Mars free at the shore, watching her swim out to sea. 

Free at last.

The Manberg-Pogtopia War: Finale of Season One

November 16th:

It’s war day. All hell is about to break loose. Dawn of the finale.

Tubbo logs on to prepare, and ends up getting stalked and killed by Dream. Dream allows him to retrieve his items, though – it was just a show of strength.

Quackity and Tubbo share a few moments of reflection together. They discuss who could possibly be the traitor. They both suspect Tommy.

On top of Ponk’s tower, they make a promise to each other. At the count of ten, they would stand opposite each other with the Eye blocking their view, and would, at the same time, take a step to one side. Towards the city if they would stay and fight, and towards the forest if they would run. The count reaches zero: they both step to the side to fight. 

Tubbo starts to question if this is all just history repeating itself, if every war since the Disc War is just bound to end in defeat.

Karl attempts to bribe pretty much everyone on the Pogtopia side to join Manberg, with little success. 

Eret is confronted by Dream, who asks him where his power comes from. Eret says respect, but Dream says the only reason Eret is king is because of an axe and a shield: the people who fight in his name. Dream warns Eret to stay neutral, sit on his throne and look pretty. Eret decides to betray, and Dream revokes his kingship. In Eret’s place he puts George, fulfilling his promise from the first L’manburg war. George is pleased, and then goes off to continue building a little mushroom house for himself, which would of course go on to become a vital plot point of Season Two.

Eret joins the Pogtopians (minus Tommy and Wilbur) at Manberg. They head to a little spot by the sea and set up a board to discuss who is on their side, and who is not. Meanwhile, Tommy and Wilbur log on together. Tommy protects the L’mantree in a wall of obsidian, and beneath the Power Tower, Tommy plays the disc Mellohi and Wilbur rants, threatening to blow up the country. 

Everyone meets in Pogtopia. Wilbur has also started to give out blue dye, which he calls “blue.” Techno leads them all to his secret base and the vault beneath, revealing all the items he’d grinded for. Everyone stocks up on supplies, but they didn’t realize that the Netherite armor was full of useless enchantments that Techno had put on it to disguise the truth: that he was planning on fighting them all along.

Everyone then charges across Tommy’s bridge to Manberg and ascends Eret’s second tower to shoot down on the Manbergians. The fight continues on the ground, ending with Dream asking Wilbur to talk. It was time to negotiate for Manberg’s surrender.

He leads everyone to Schlatt, who was hiding out in the Camarvan completely drunk. Everyone gathers around Schlatt as he gives his last words, last rants, and then abruptly dies of a heart attack or stroke. Everyone is surprised, but uneasily happy.

Wilbur makes Tommy the President. Tommy goes up on the podium to give a speech, but says he can’t be the President right now: he still has a Disc War with Dream to fight. Instead, he makes Wilbur the President.

Wilbur gives a speech, but says he can’t be President as well. Instead, he gives the Presidency to Tubbo. (This is the point where, on Philza’s Hardcore stream, he tunes in to hear Tubbo’s speech)

Tubbo gives a speech and actually accepts the Presidency. Wilbur says he’ll be right back and heads off, causing Phil some concern. Wilbur heads to the button room, Phil realizes what’s going on, and Phil scrambles to get on the server, desperate to stop his son.

During Tubbo’s speech, Dream messages Techno, pointing out that Techno is anti-government. Techno doesn’t like how this is going, and decides to assassinate Tubbo with his rocket launcher, causing panic. A fight breaks out.

Tommy and the others are told by Dream that there is a traitor: the traitor is Wilbur. Everyone realizes in horror that Wilbur is nowhere to be seen.

Wilbur is confronted in the button room by Phil. He gives a short speech before giving his final line: “It was never meant to be,” and presses the button. Manberg goes up in a blast. Afterwards, as Tommy and the others watch, Wilbur begs Phil to kill him, and Phil does. 

Techno tells Tommy the tale of Theseus and spawns two withers. 

“Do you want to be a hero, Tommy? Then die like one!”

Wilbur respawns, wanders around the SMP, has a short moment at Eret’s museum and then returns to Manberg, at which point he gets attacked by a wither. He decides to end stream, and declares Tubbo the President of a crater.

In the aftermath of the final battle, everyone surveys the damage. Tubbo creates his new cabinet, Techno and Phil speak with one another as well. 

Tommy, Tubbo and Dream all agree to a moment of truce as they listen to a disc at the bench together, sitting side by side.

With that, Season One draws to a close.

It’s not the end.

Just a new beginning.

---

...And that’s about it for now! 

Season One of the Dream SMP was a half-year-long wild ride to experience, full of countless fond memories and all-around good times.

Here’s to what comes next!

I hope you enjoyed!

[sciencespies]

Our Ten Most Popular Stories of 2020

https://sciencespies.com/nature/our-ten-most-popular-stories-of-2020/

Our Ten Most Popular Stories of 2020

SMITHSONIANMAG.COM | Dec. 30, 2020, 7 a.m.

The year 2020 will go down in history as one of the most extraordinary in modern recollection. A devastating pandemic dominated conversations and our coverage, which detailed why the race for a coronavirus vaccine runs on horseshoe crab blood, explained how to avoid misinformation about Covid-19 and drew lessons from the past by examining diaries penned during the 1918 influenza pandemic. This summer, when a series of protests sparked an ongoing reckoning with systemic racism in the United States, we showed how myths about the past shape our present views on race and highlighted little-known stories about the lives and accomplishments of people of color. Toward the end of the year, amid one of the most bitterly divisive elections in recent history, we delved into the lengthy debate over mail-in voting and the origins of presidential concession speeches.

Despite the challenges posed by 2020, Americans still found reasons to celebrate: Ahead of the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage, we profiled such pioneering figures as Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman nominated as vice president by a major party, and Fannie Lou Hamer, who fought to secure black voting rights. In the cultural sphere, the discovery of dozens of intact Egyptian coffins thrilled and amazed, as did the reemergence of a long-lost Jacob Lawrence painting. From murder hornets to Venice’s new inflatable floodgates, Catherine the Great and the Smithsonian’s new open-access platform, these were Smithsonian magazine’s top ten stories of 2020.

Our most popular story of 2020 underscored the value of skillful art restoration, presenting a welcome counter to the many botched conservation attempts reported in recent years. As the National Museum of Scotland announced this December, experts used a carved porcupine quill—a tool “sharp enough to remove … dirt yet soft enough not to damage the metalwork,” according to a statement—to clean an Anglo-Saxon cross for the first time in more than a millennium. The painstaking process revealed the silver artifact’s gold leaf adornments, as well as its intricate depictions of the four Gospel writers: Saint Matthew as a human, Saint Mark as a lion, Saint Luke as a calf and Saint John as an eagle. Per writer Nora McGreevy, the cross is one of around 100 objects included in the Galloway Hoard, a trove of Viking-era artifacts found by amateur treasure hunters in 2014.

Curators used an improvised tool made of porcupine quill to gently clean the cross, which features engravings of the four Gospel writers.

(National Museums Scotland)

While most of England was on lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic, archaeologist Matt Champion unwittingly unearthed more than 2,000 artifacts beneath the attic floorboards of Tudor-era Oxburgh Hall. Highlights of the trove included a 600-year-old parchment fragment still adorned with gold leaf and blue lettering, scraps of Tudor and Georgian silks, and pages torn from a 1568 copy of Catholic martyr John Fisher’s The Kynge’s Psalmes. Detailing the find in an August article, McGreevy noted that British nobleman Sir Edmund Bedingfeld commissioned the manor’s construction in 1482; his devoutly Catholic descendants may have used the religious objects found in the attic during secret masses held at a time when such services were outlawed.

In March, when the world was just beginning to understand the novel coronavirus, researchers learned that the SARS-CoV-2 virus—the pathogen that causes Covid-19—survives for days on glass and stainless steel but dies in a matter of hours if it lands on copper. (In later months, scientists would find that airborne transmission of the virus carries the greatest risk of infection, rather than touching contaminated surfaces.) The metal’s antimicrobial powers of copper are nothing new: As Michael G. Schmidt, a microbiologist and immunologist at the Medical University of South Carolina, told writer Jim Morrison this spring, “Copper is truly a gift from Mother Nature in that the human race has been using it for over eight millennia.” Crucially, copper doesn’t simply dispatch unwanted pathogens at an incredibly fast rate. Its bacteria-combating abilities also endure for long stretches of time. When Bill Keevil and his University of Southampton microbiology research team tested old railings at New York City’s Grand Central Terminal several years ago, for instance, they found that the copper worked “just like it did the day it was put in over 100 years ago.”

The Asian giant hornet, the world’s largest hornet, was sighted in North America for the first time.

(Washington State Dept. of Agriculture)

Another unwelcome surprise of 2020 was the rise of the Asian giant hornet, more infamously known as the “murder hornet” due to its ability to massacre entire hives of bees within hours. The first confirmed sightings of the insects in North America occurred in late 2019, but as Floyd Shockley, entomology collections manager at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, pointed out in May, observers need not panic, as the hornets don’t realistically pose a threat to human health. Honey bees are more susceptible to the predators, but as Shockley said, “[I]s it going to be global devastation? No.” Still, it’s worth noting that officials in Washington state have since found and eradicated a nest thought to contain about 200 queens. Left unchecked, each of these hornets could have flown off and started a colony of its own. Efforts to contain the invasive species are ongoing.

In October, an engineering feat saved Venice from flooding not once, but twice. The barrier system of 78 giant, inflatable yellow floodgates—known as Mose—can currently be deployed to protect the Italian city from tides measuring up to three-and-a-half feet high. Upon its completion next year, Mose will be able to protect against tides of up to four feet. The floodgates’ installation follows the declaration of a state of emergency in Venice. Last year, the city experienced its worst floods in 50 years, sustaining more than $1 billion in damages and leaving parts of the metropolis under six feet of water. Built on muddy lagoons, Venice battles both a sinking foundation and rising sea levels. Despite the floodgates’ current success, some environmentalists argue that the barriers aren’t a sustainable solution, as they seal off the lagoon entirely, depleting the water’s oxygen and preventing pollution from flowing out.

While Hegra is being promoted to tourists for the first time, the story that still seems to get lost is that of the ancient empire responsible for its existence.

(Royal Commission for AlUla)

Desert-dwelling nomads turned master merchants, the Nabataeans controlled a broad swath of land between the Euphrates River and the Red Sea for some 500 years. But in the millennia following the civilization’s fall in the first century A.D., its culture was almost “lost entirely,” wrote Lauren Keith in November. Today, little written documentation of the Nabataeans survives; instead, archaeologists must draw on clues hidden within the empire’s ruins: namely, two monumental cities carved out of rock. One of these twin settlements—the “Rose City” of Petra in southern Jordan—attracts nearly one million visitors each year. But its sister city of Hegra remains relatively obscure—a fact that Saudi Arabia hopes to change as it shifts focus from oil to tourism. As several scholars told Keith, the Middle Eastern nation’s renewed marketing push represents a chance to learn more about the enigmatic culture. “[Visiting] should evoke in any good tourist with any kind of intellectual curiosity,” said David Graf, a Nabataean specialist, archeologist and professor at the University of Miami. “[W]ho produced these tombs? Who are the people who created Hegra? Where did they come from? How long were they here? To have the context of Hegra is very important.”

The May killing of George Floyd spurred nationwide protests against systemic injustice, acting as a call to action for the reformation of the U.S.’ treatment of black people. As Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch wrote in a short essay published in June, Floyd’s death in police custody forced the country to “confront the reality that, despite gains made in the past 50 years, we are still a nation riven by inequality and racial division.” To reflect this pivotal moment, Smithsonian magazine compiled a collection of resources “designed to foster an equal society, encourage commitment to unbiased choices and promote antiracism in all aspects of life,” according to assistant digital editor Meilan Solly. The resources are organized into six categories: historical context, systemic inequality, anti-black violence, protest, intersectionality, and allyship and education.

Human relationships can be difficult, but at least they don’t involve copulating until your inner organs fail. Yes, you read that correctly—death is the unfortunate fate for the male antechinus, a pint-sized marsupial that literally fornicates until it drops dead. Take similar comfort in the fact that humans don’t need to drink urine to start a relationship, as is the case with giraffes, nor inseminate each other via open wounds, as bed bugs do.

Today, stories of Catherine the Great’s salacious, equine love affairs dominate her legacy. But the reality of the Russian czarina’s life was far more nuanced. Ahead of the release of Hulu’s “The Great,” we explored Catherine’s 30-year reign, from her usurpation of power to her championing of Enlightenment ideals, early support of vaccination and myriad accomplishments in the cultural sphere. As Meilan Solly wrote in May, “Catherine was a woman of contradictions whose brazen exploits have long overshadowed the accomplishments that won her ‘the Great’ moniker in the first place.

For the first time in the 174-year history of the Smithsonian Institution, the organization released 2.8 million images from across all 19 museums, 9 research centers, libraries, archives and the National Zoo into the public domain. This initial release represents just two percent of the Smithsonian’s total collection, which boasts 155 million items and counting. It was part of an ongoing effort to digitize—and democratize—the Institution’s collections.

• An excerpt from Jennet Conant’s new book, The Great Secret: The Classified World War II Disaster That Launched the War on Cancer, in which she details how an investigation into a devastating Allied bombing of an Italian coastal town eventually led to an innovation in cancer treatment.

• A time-capsule story from the end of March about how and when we thought the pandemic might end. We were too optimistic about how long Americans would need to “flatten the curve,” and unmentioned in the story was how soon a vaccine would be developed.

• Another entry in our “True History of” series that looked at Tom Hanks’ World War II film from earlier this year, Greyhound

• An exploration of new research that rewrites the demise of Doggerland, a prehistoric land bridge between Britain and Europe

#Nature

[ninthfeather]

because your smile still remains

Also on AO3!

A/N: This fic is a commission for FabHawk, who wanted Haruka interacting with his father post-Summertime Record. Please note that I play pretty fast and loose with canon, which is to say that everything except the songs is basically “guidelines” to me, but this takes place in a timeline that’s basically “the music timeline except everyone lives at the end like in the anime because I like Ayano.” Haruka’s dad doesn’t have a canon name, so I gave him one for convenience.

Title is from Will Stetson’s English translyrics for “Remind Blue.” Thanks to FabHawk for beta-ing her own goshdarn commission because that’s just how awesome she is. 

Warnings in the end note!

because your smile still remains

Loving a terminally ill person was a balance of hope and realism. Hiroshi learned that with his wife and relearning it with his child was like having his heart ripped out all over again. At first, it was easy to believe that his child might beat the odds, might survive what his mother didn’t, but eventually, Hiroshi had to be realistic.

So, while he kept pressuring the doctor for more treatments and looked for other doctors with new ideas…he’d also had Haruka write up a will. Haruka had, of course, smiled through the whole thing, even while Hiroshi tried not to cry in front of a stranger.

He’d trusted Haruka with information about his own health all those years ago because he thought knowing might…help. He sometimes wondered if that was a mistake. It was so easy to overthink and second-guess, when your time with a person you loved was running out.

Then, on August 15th, Haruka went missing, and suddenly, everything turned inside out.

When your child was missing, Hiroshi learned, you never knew for sure if they were dead or alive. You always had an image of them out there, somewhere, unchanged from the last time you saw them, living a life without you. You also had an image of them dead by a roadside somewhere. You never knew which image was correct, and it kept you up at night.

Hiroshi knew that Haruka couldn’t have lasted more than a week without his medications. Some part of him still screamed that his child might be out there, somewhere, waiting for his dad to rescue him.

In the end, he waited a month to hold a funeral, but he did hold it. It was a small affair, mostly family and a few people from the hospital. None of Haruka’s friends came—one had gone missing along with him, and another had killed herself on the same day. The last one still alive had shut himself up in his house and was refusing calls. According to his sister, he wouldn’t even open the boxes of light novels and manga that Haruka had willed to him.

On one level, Hiroshi understood. On another, he was incredibly frustrated. Didn’t his incredible, selfless son deserve this much? One friend, at his funeral?

He tried not to be bitter. He tried to reach out to Kisaragi, but all he got were increasingly embarrassed responses from his younger sister. Eventually, he gave up.

He threw himself into his work, tried to move on, became the kind of distant, weird researcher Aoi and Haruka often accused him of being. He wrecked a good half of his friendships and didn’t talk to his co-workers outside of job-related matters for months. But he’d done this before, when Aoi died, and his oldest friends knew what was coming. They waited him out and were there for him when he finally broke.

After two years passed, he could honestly say that he was…not okay. Okay wasn’t the right word. He’d lost a spouse and a son and that was more than one person should have to bear in a lifetime. But he was moving forward again.

And then the world turned inside out on him once again.

It was two weeks after the anniversary of Haruka’s disappearance. This year was better than last—instead of spending the day working, he’d gone for a grave visit with old Mrs. Enomoto. They’d thought about inviting Dr. Tateyama, too, but Hiroshi was still a little angry that he hadn’t come to Haruka’s funeral, and anyhow Mrs. Enomoto’s calls to him never went through properly.

By now, the grief was more like an ache than an open wound. He could look at the reminders of how his home used to belong to three people instead of one and think “This place is really too big for me,” instead of just starting to cry.

He still wasn’t that much of a social butterfly, though, so he was surprised to hear d a knock on the door around 6:30 pm.

He always had regretted not having a peephole in the door. He’d wanted to install one, once, but both Aoi and Haruka had told him he wasn’t good enough at DIY, and he’d never bothered having a workman over to put one in. So, in the end, he had to open the door and hope that whoever was knocking wasn’t a murderer or a door-to-door salesperson.

It…was not.

Hiroshi blinked. Then tried, again, to make sense of what he was seeing.

There were two teenagers in the doorway, one seated in a hospital-issue wheelchair and one standing behind him. The one who was standing looked somewhat familiar, although Hiroshi couldn’t quite place him. But the one sitting in the wheelchair…

His hair was grey, and there was an odd pattern on his face that looked almost like a tattoo. He was thinner than Hiroshi remembered. But in every other way possible, this person looked exactly like Haruka.

“Hi, Dad,” he said, and it was Haruka’s voice, too.

Hiroshi didn’t understand.

This couldn’t be real. He’d had dreams like this, of course, but there was no way...even if Haruka had been kidnapped, even if the kidnappers had meant to keep him alive….

The doctors had given Haruka  a year to live a little under two years ago. 

“I don’t understand,” he said aloud. 

His voice was probably shaking. He wasn’t sure anymore.

“Yeah, join the club,” said the other teenager. Thin, dark-eyed, wearing a bright red jersey--it took Hiroshi a while to place him.

“Kisaragi?” he managed.

“Yeah,” Kisaragi said. “And this really is Haruka. Things have gotten...weird. Can we come in?”

Too stunned to do otherwise, Hiroshi stepped aside and motioned for them to come in.

“Why wouldn’t it be me?” Haruka asked, all innocent curiosity.

“We had a funeral, moron,” Kisaragi said. “And you were...sick.”

“Oh, yeah,” Haruka said. “I...kind of remember? It’s blurry.”

“That’s fine,” Kisaragi said. “You don’t have to remember everything.”

“You...what?” Hiroshi asked, shutting the door behind them as he scrambled to keep up.

Kisaragi slipped off his shoes at the genkan. “Haruka’s memory is a mess,” he said.

Haruka himself was also wearing shoes, which he took off and passed to Kisaragi. “Yeah, uh, it’s a long story.”

“What happened?” Hiroshi asked.

Kisaragi gave him a careful look. “Why don’t we sit down for this?”

They settled in the living room—Haruka still in his wheelchair, wedged awkwardly next to Kisaragi on the recliner, as Hiroshi took the couch.

“So, uh, how well did you know Tateyama Kenjirou?” Kisaragi asked.

“He never returned our calls,” Hiroshi said. “I don’t think I’ve seen him since, uh—” He blinked, realizing. “Haruka, Dr. Tateyama’s daughter—”

“She’s fine, too,” Kisaragi interrupted. “He faked her suicide.”

“He—what?”

“And kidnapped me,” Haruka added. “And Takane.”

Hiroshi was on his feet before he realized it. “No, seriously, what?”

Haruka blinked at him, wide-eyed.

“All this time—two years—you were right here—” Hiroshi probably sounded hysterical. He didn’t care.

Haruka held up his hands. “He had us in, uh—Shintarou, what’s the word—”

“Medically induced coma.”

“Yeah, that! He wasn’t hurting us!”

Something in Hiroshi’s chest loosened, even as he heard his voice rise in pitch. “He still let us think you were dead!”

“Yeah,” Haruka said, quiet. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Hiroshi said. “It wasn’t your fault, so don’t apologize.”

He crossed the room, then leaned down to wrap his arms around his son. To his surprise, Haruka stood, meeting him halfway and squeezing him tightly enough to ache.

After a few seconds, Hiroshi gently lowered him back toward the chair, then released the embrace.

“So, the wheelchair is until you finish up PT from the coma?” he asked.

“Actually, the doctors think I should keep using one,” Haruka said.

“The doctors don’t really know what Dr. Tateyama was doing, but whatever it was, Haruka’s heart is doing better,” Kisaragi put in. “They suggested that he avoid basically any strain and they wanted access to his full medical records, but they sounded a lot more optimistic about his, uh, outlook than they were before.”

“So, Tateyama stole my son for two years and fixed his heart problem?” Hiroshi asked numbly.

“Maybe?” Kisaragi said. “I think they wanted to run more tests.”

“Do you think whatever he did is also what changed your hair color?” Hiroshi asked.

Kisaragi and Haruka exchanged a look. Hiroshi was pretty sure that meant ‘it was actually hair dye but we don’t want Haruka’s dad mad at us.’

“So, do the police have Tateyama in custody?” Hiroshi asked.

“About that!” Haruka said. “He’s, uh—he’s—”

“He’s dead,” Kisaragi said. “He did something stupid, he died, and it wasn’t any of our faults, but we don’t have evidence of that, so we’d really like it if you didn’t get the police involved.”

“Who’s this ‘we’?” Hiroshi asked.

“Me, my sister, Haruka, Takane, Ayano, Ayano’s 12-year-old aunt, her newly-traumatized friend, Ayano’s siblings, and their friend who lives in the woods,” Kisaragi said. “I think that’s everyone. Haruka, is that everyone?”

“I have memory problems; you have a perfect memory,” Haruka said. “Why are you asking me?”

“Mean,” Kisaragi complained.

“Why were all of you involved?” Hiroshi asked.

“There were several more attempted kidnappings,” Kisaragi said. “Some attempted murder thrown in for flavor. It was a fun two days. If I think about them more, I’ll have to have a panic attack in your bathroom and I’d really rather not.”

Hiroshi glanced at Haruka, whose expression was completely serious. Not exaggerating, then.

“Okay, fine,” Hiroshi said. “I, uh, Haruka, your bedroom—”

“I know, you followed the will,” Haruka said. “And I doubt you’ve had time to clean it regularly. It’s fine. It’s been…rough, after everything. I miss you, but I also don’t wanna leave the others alone. So, I’ve been staying with Ayano and Shintarou and Takane at their house, for now.”

“You’re still welcome to come home if you want,” Hiroshi said. “Your room won’t be ready right away, but I can have it cleaned up pretty soon.”

“I’d like that,” Haruka said. “I want to stay over sometimes. But I’m 18, you know! And I have a lot to figure out, now.”

Yes, yes he did. A whole life ahead of him, even, if those doctors were correct in their assessments.

“Still, I’ve missed you,” Hiroshi said. “I want to see as much of you as I can.”

“You can always visit us, too,” Kisaragi said.

Both of them looked at him in surprise.

Kisaragi flushed. “Well, he can,” he said. “I’m sure the others won’t mind, if we ask.”

“Kano probably will,” Haruka said.

“Kano can kiss my—” Kisaragi broke off. “And Ayano can handle him, anyhow.”

Hiroshi smiled. “I’ll take you up on that, I think. But in the meantime, can you stay awhile tonight?”

“Yeah,” Haruka said. “The others won’t expect us back until later.”

“You haven’t had dinner yet, have you?” Hiroshi asked, already knowing how his son would answer.

“What does it matter?” Haruka asked. “You know I’m always hungry. What are you making?”

Hiroshi got up to look through the fridge and revelled in the opportunity to cook for his son again. There was still a tiny part of him that thought this might be a dream, and he still had so many questions. But he could savor this, without letting himself doubt or worry, just for now.

A/N: Warnings for discussion of terminal illness, end-of-life preparations, child death, kidnapping, and comas, as well as mentions of suicide and murder. Also, the narrator briefly believes himself to be hallucinating.

Yes, I know there’s some debate about how old Haruka is. In my fics, he’s 18, because I decided he was. Similarly, my characterization of Haruka’s dad does not necessarily cleave perfectly to the LN, because I don’t do well with discussion of terminal illness (yes I realize the irony, I can handle writing it but it’s a pretty hard squick for me in media) so I didn’t reread the relevant LN portions and mostly used the wiki.

For anyone curious, Hiroshi’s name is written (天 ) and means “sky” or “heavens.” I chose it to fit Haruka’s association with sky motifs and to be alliterative with his name.

Finally, yes, Haruka uses a wheelchair, yes, he can stand; ambulatory wheelchair users exist and given Haruka’s canon health situation it’s my headcanon that he can stand and walk short distances.

If you, too, would like to commission a thing, 8 slots have been filled, so there’s still time! The post is here!

Thank you for reading!

[thecomicsnexus]

NEW TEEN TITANS #21-22 JULY - AUGUST 1982 BY MARV WOLFMAN, GEORGE PEREZ, ROMEO TANGHAL AND ADRIENNE ROY

SYNOPSIS (FROM DC DATABASE)

Raven and Starfire team up to save a baseball stadium crowd from terrorists, unaware that they are being monitored from the satellite base of the criminals' secret backer. 

Meanwhile, Cyborg's ex-girlfriend, Marcy Reynolds, is murdered when she tries to escape the confines of the Church of Brother Blood, a pseudo-religious commune she had joined. Infiltrating the cult to seek information on Cyborg's behalf, Robin, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, and Raven (in their civilian identities) are horrified at Brother Blood's methods of dealing with any acolyte who tries to leave his group. Their true identities discovered, the four battle Blood and his followers, but are easily defeated, and Raven's soul-self escapes to warn the other Titans.

The captive Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, and Raven are consigned to a pit inhabitated by a monstrous spider-like creature, as is Robin, after the latter having been tortured by Brother Blood's sadistic "Confessor" for information. 

When the remaining Titans attack the Church of Brother Blood to rescue their teammates, the cult leader, with the aid of Bethany Snow, a newscaster who is secretly a member of his group, turns public sentiment against the Titans by making it appear that their attack is unprovoked. Cyborg causes the crash of Blood's escaping airship, and though the villain survives, the Titans are accused of his attempted murder.

REVIEW

If there were any doubts that New Teen Titans has always lived in the Modern Age, they should be gone by issue 22. The risk taken with these new menaces is impressive. The Titans do not win at the end, they just manage to stay alive, they have at least two other new threats coming their way and one of them is still mourning the death of an ex.

There are many first appearances in these issues... Brother Blood, Bethany Snow, and... the Monitor.

Sure, the Monitor’s motivations are very unclear here, and at simple gaze it seems like he is some kind of evil mercenary. I think the actual plot of Crisis on Infinite Earth was layed out a year in advance. This being 1982, Wolfman only knew so much about what the series was going to be about. But the idea was already in motion. DC hired a researcher to index all their comic books (figuring out what was canon, what wasn’t, what was an imaginary story and what belonged to which earth). This caused the maxi-series to be postponed two years in a row and was finally scheduled to celebrate DC’s 50th anniversary.

In the meantime, we only had the mysterious Monitor. And to be honest, the segment of the issue involving him, feels disconnected from the rest of the story.

But the rest is amazing, Brother Blood is a real villain that puts our heroes to a challenge. And Robin finally got his spotlight.

I give this story a score of 9

[go2harsha-blog]

Krishna on the Beach

Harsha Prabhu wanders on a beach in Goa and stumbles upon the God of Love

Arambol, Goa, August 2019

The Photoshoot

It was the weekend of the global protest against the destruction and burning of the forests in the Amazon basin, aided and abetted by the Brazilian government.

A few of us decided to hold a pop up demonstration at Arambol beach against this act of environmental vandalism that threatened the livelihood of the indigenous people of Brazil - and 20% of the world’s oxygen supply. The demo would be in the form of a photo shoot, with people holding placards that spelt: SOS Amazon! We needed a quorum of 12 people to hold the placards. Seemed easy enough.

But it wasn’t. It took us a full hour of hustling on the beach to get the magic 12. Many we asked begged off for one reason or another: they did not understand what I said (Russian tourists); they were waiting for someone; they had to be somewhere else; they had to discuss it with their group before agreeing to participate. Some of these procrastinators were clearly entitled, middle class Indian tourists from major metros, visiting Goa as part of a package tour, sporting t-shirts with the tour logo. Somehow, we managed to find 12 souls willing and able to be a part of the the visual petition against the Amazon destruction.

After the photoshoot I wandered along the beach. Then I heard the sound of bells. Turning, I saw a group of men striding down the beach. One of them was carrying something on his head; the others were playing zills and chanting “Radhe Krishna ki jai!” (Hail Radha and Krishna).

The man who was carrying an idol of Krishna - Bal Krishna, Krishna as a child - placed it on the beach. His companions dug holes in the sand and placed incense sticks, to light which they borrowed my lighter. Slowly, people gathered around the idol; bits of camphor were burnt as offerings; prayers offered.

There was a large group of young boys who were playing in the sand nearby. Ever the opportunist for a photo grab, I went up to them and, addressing the biggest boy, asked: “Have you heard of the burning of the forests in the Amazon in Brazil?” “Yes” , he replied “ I saw it on the news.” “Would you like to help us stop it?” I asked him. “How?” he asked. “Simple. Just join with your friends in holding these placards,” I replied, “ I’ll take a photo and send it to the Brazilian government.”

“Yes, yes,” he shouted and turned to explain to the rest of his friends what was proposed. Before I could say ‘Krishna’ I had 12 eager and willing young participants in the photoshoot. In an attempt to get them all in the frame I almost stumbled onto the Bal Krishna image on the sand.

Krishna Lila

It was only then that I realised the young boys where part of a group that had come to participate in the Krishna ritual on the beach. In my mind’s eye, I saw them as the gopas (cow-herders) of Vrindavan, Krishna’s accomplices in his childish pranks, which, to the devotee, is an expression of the God’s ‘Lila,’, life as play.

And play they did, that evening on the beach, first the young boys, then the older youth and some men joining in. Games of tag, of skill and strength and guile. Then they attempted to smash the ‘Dahi Hundi’, the pot of yogurt - an object of mischievous fascination for Bal Krishna, called ‘Maakhan chor’, the butter-thief - held tantalizingly out of reach by a man wielding a rope and pully. Both groups of young boys and older youth managed to smash the Hundi, splattering themselves and those nearby with yogurt.

Where were the gopis (milk-maids) in all this play? Some stood by watching, like the ladies from Rajasthan, looking, with their aquiline features, nose rings and veils, like they had stepped out of a Kishangarh miniature, the 18th-century school of painting from Rājasthan, celebrating Krishna as a lover. Other gopis, possibly tourists from interstate or overseas, cavorted in the sea, holding hands in the water, playing their water games, framed by the setting sun.

Then it was time for more prayers and - as the sun set and the horizon turned maroon - time for the ‘Visarjan,’ the ritual immersion of the Krishna idols - the Bal Krishna being joined by a Krishna playing the flute - in the sea.

Who is Krishna?

Yesterday was Gokulashtami , the birthday of Krishna. Today is Visarjan. Who is Krishna, this God who was born yesterday and is committed to the waters the very next day?

Who is Krishna? This question bedevilled Arjun, the hero of the Mahabharata war, contemplating the field of battle. Is he my charioteer? My devoted friend and wise councillor? Or is he a God whose true face I dare not see?

There are many Krishnas; you can pick and choose.

There’s the culture hero of the Ahir, a tribe of pastoralists found in north and western India. The Ahirs are mentioned in the Mahabharata and some Ahir claim descent from the Yadava clan of Krishna.

There’s Bal Krishna, the baby Krishna, whose exploits form the material of songs mother’s sing to their children, whose devotion parallels the cult of baby Jesus.

There’s Krishna the lover, flirting shamelessly with the gopis of Vrindavan, all the while knowing his heart is with Radha, another man’s wife, in an erotic wheel-within-wheel of transgression, celebrated in much Indian song, dance and art.

There’s the Krishna of the Bhagvad Gita, Arjun’s initiator into the terrifying mysteries of cosmic time, including the need to do one’s caste-defined, destiny-propelled duty, regardless of the consequences (nishkamakarma).

This was the Krishna that troubled M K Gandhi, possibly the greatest Vaishnav (Krishna devotee) of them all in recent times. The arguments in the Geeta rationalising violence, no doubt the work of Brahmins versed in the arts of sophistry in defence of the status quo, stuck in Gandhi’s throat. Gandhi would have agreed with D D Kosambi, polymath and Marxist historian, who said: ‘This slippery opportunism characterizes the whole book. Naturally, it is not surprising to find so many Gita lovers imbued therewith. Once it is admitted that material reality is gross illusion, the rest follows quite simply; the world of "doublethink" is the only one that matters.’

Bhakti

There’s the Krishna of the Bhakti saints, the social movement that was anti-caste, that talked up love for one’s fellow human as the highest goal.

The Bhakti saints came from all castes. Nammalvar was a peasant. Namdev was a tailor. Gora was a potter. Cokha Mela was Dalit. So was Ravidas, guru of Mirabai and contemporary of Guru Nanak. Jyaneshwar, who introduced the Gita to Marathi-speakers, committed ritual suicide. Tukaram, the greatest Marathi Bhakti poet of them all, was a peasant, who ran afoul of Brahmins,  and is supposed to have drowned himself in the river Tungabhadra. There’s more than a hint that he was murdered by caste Hindus. Luckily, his abhangas (poems) survived…

What made Bhakti so radical?

Here is Chandidas, the 15th century Bengali poet:

"Shobar upor manush shotto tahar upore nai,” (“Above all is humanity, none else”).

Or Kabir, possibly the greatest of India’s many poet-saints, also from the 15th century, and a Muslim to boot, though not a practicing one by the looks of it. He wrote in the vernacular and, even to this day, his poems explode in the face, like existential firecrackers.

Saints I see the world is mad.


If I tell the truth they rush to beat me,


if I lie they trust me. — Kabir, Shabad  4, Translated by Linda Hess and Shukdeo Singh

Or this:

Saints I've seen both ways.


Hindus and Muslims don't want discipline, they want tasty food.


The Hindu keeps the eleventh-day fast, eating chestnuts and milk.


He curbs his grain but not his brain, and breaks his fast with meat.


The Turk [Muslim] prays daily, fasts once a year, and crows "God!, God!" like a cock.


What heaven is reserved for people who kill chickens in the dark?…


— Kabir, Śabda 10, Translated by Linda Hess and Shukdeo Singh

Or this one:

If God be within the mosque, then to whom does this world belong?


If Ram be within the image which you find upon your pilgrimage,
then who is there to know what happens without?…


— Kabir, III.2, Translated by Rabindranath Tagore and Evelyn Underhill

Interestingly, Kabir ran afoul of both Muslims and Hindus during his lifetime. It is said that, upon his death, both sets of believers fought over his corpse. When they lifted his shroud, all they found were flowers.

Knowing the pain of others

Here is Narsi Mehta, the 15th century Gujarat poet-saint, with a song that was a favourite of M K Gandhi:

Vaishnav jan to tene kahiye je/ Peed paraayi jaane re /Par-dukhkhe upkaar kare toye /Man abhimaan na aane re

Only he is a true Vaishnav Who knows the pain of others Does good to others without letting pride enter his mind.

Indian PM Modi also claims to love ‘Vaishnava jan to.’ He launched a version of the song in October 2018, sung by artists from 40 different countries, as the start of the year-long celebration of the 150th birth anniversary of Gandhi.

Does Modi know the pain of others?

This was his reply to a Reuters journalist in 2013, when asked what he felt about the communal carnage in Gujarat that lead to over a thousand deaths, mainly, but not only, Muslims, and the displacement of many more while he was CM in 2002: “If someone else is driving a car and we’re sitting behind, even then if a puppy comes under the wheel, will it be painful or not? Of course it is.”

Does Modi know the pain his policies, including demonetisation and high GST rates, have caused his people?  The pain of all those who have lost their jobs due to an economy in shambles, largely due to the wreaking-ball of his government’s own policies? Does he know the pain of the farmers who commit suicide due to failing crops, drought and the inability to pay back loans? Or the pain of all the human rights defenders and tribals who languish in jail on trumped up charges? And what about the pain of the Kashmiri people?

What about the pain of Gandhians? The fact is that M K Gandhi himself was assassinated by a Hindu ring wing terrorist, a member of the Hindu Mahasabha, an off-shoot of the RSS, the very organisation that Modi belongs to.

What about the pain of all those people - mostly Muslim, Dalit or Christians - who have been lynched in India by mobs yelling “Jai Shree Ram”?

In July this year, eminent writers, filmmakers and intellectuals wrote an open letter to PM Modi, beseeching him to act, saying: "It is shocking that so much violence should be perpetrated in the name of religion! These are not the Middle Ages! The name of Ram is sacred to many in the majority community of India. As the highest Executive of this country, you must put a stop to the name of Ram being defiled in this manner.”

Modi has yet to respond to the letter.

Clearly, when it comes to knowing the pain of others, Modi has a lot of catching up to do.

Krishna the Redeemer

The Krishna story should make all tyrants everywhere worried.

For Krishna is also the redeemer. He comes to deliver the people of Dwarka from the rule of the evil tyrant Kamsa. Indeed, all tyrants dream of everlasting rule, but Kamsa himself hears a voice that tells him his end is near. This sets into play the whole Krishna myth, of the child abandoned by the palace, like Moses was among the bullrushes, a foundling fostered by another family, who grows up to avenge wrongs and claim his rightful throne.

According to Joseph Campbell: ‘The work of the incarnation is to refute by his presence the pretentious of the tyrant ogre.’

Further, Krishna, as the God of Love, refuses to allow himself to be weaponised by the armies of the Hindu Right, as opposed to the fate of poor Ram, where “Jai Shree Ram” has become a rallying cry of the lynch mobs.

Ironically, the actual form of greeting in parts of North India is “Jai Sia-Ram”; ‘Sia’ being a short form for ‘Sita’. But there’s no use for Sita, the Goddess of the Earth and Ram’s wife, in the hyper masculine world of Hindutva politics. The Goddess - and women - are the first casualties in Hindutva’s Raas Lila (sacred dance, dedicated to Radha-Krishna), where rape is a political tool to terrorise and subjugate people, sanctioned by V D Savarkar, the father of Hindutva ideology.

For Krishna devotees, Krishna is nothing without Radha; therefore it’s always “Jai Radhe-Krishna.” Behind Krishna stands the Mother Goddess. Vrindavan, the scene of the Krishna idyll, is the sacred grove (vana) of the Goddess Vrinda, another name for the Tulasi (holy basil) tree. To this day, the marriage of Krishna to Tulasi is celebrated every year in Vrindavan as Tulasi Vivaha. And even in Goa, for my landlord, Pritesh, was married to three Tulasi trees before he got a wife. Thus does the Great Mother break through Hinduism’s patriarchal bonds.

And it’s not just Hindus who worship Krishna.

According to literary critic Kuldeep Kumar, writing in The Hindu: ‘Many Muslim poets, the most notable among them being Raskhan, wrote devotional poetry to celebrate the Krishna legend and to rejoice in his bhakti. Abdur Rahim Khan-e-Khana, who is known in Hindi literature simply as Rahim, wrote many Barwais, Dohas and Sorthas in praise of Krishna. For example, this couplet is worth reading.

Jihi Rahim man aapno keenho chandra chakor Nisi baasar laago rahai Krishna chandra kee or (The way chakor always looks at the moon, similarly my face is always towards Krishna’s face that is as beautiful as the moon is). ‘ Chakor is a kind of partridge.

Passion Play

The passion play I witnessed on the beach was part of an ancient story, of the birth and sacrifice of a God. Like the Greek hero, Achilles, Krishna dies when an arrow pierces his heel, betraying his tribal, pagan origins. The culture hero dies, but the energies of an archetype never die, but live on, forever green in the hearts of men and women.

Surely Krishna - the hero with a hundred faces - will come to the aide of his people, wherever they may be, on a beach, in a temple, in the factories, on the land, in the forest, the vana, his favourite playground - or at the next political or environmental protest.

In a time of human-induced climate chaos and species extinction, driven by corporate fascism’s dystopian republic of greed, ruled by the global police state, the Radha- Krishna myth - of the world as a garden of plenty, as a playground for the divine erotic impulse to manifest, of love as the highest form of worship - is a very compelling counter-image.

Another world is possible. Krishna tells us it is.

While lovers of radical equality and seekers of bliss rejoice, tyrants everywhere better beware. Even as we speak, Krishna is on his way to Dwarka…

Pics: Harsha Prabhu

A note on the photoshoot:

Amazon photoshoot, Arambol, Sat 24 Aug 2019

SOS AMAZON! SOS CLIMATE EMERGENCY! Arambol, Goa, India Sat 24 August 2019

Members of Extinction Rebellion Goa staged a pop up demonstration at Arambol beach in solidarity with the native people of Brazil’s Amazon basin, whose forests are being burnt by the Brazilian government to facilitate development projects, including roads and big dams, in an ecologically sensitive bio region.

The burning forests of the Amazon are also a matter of grave concern as they supply 20% of the world’s oxygen. These forests are characterised as the lungs of the planet, taking in carbon dioxide and breathing out oxygen.

In addition, this wanton destruction feeds into the cycle of human-induced climate change. With the accelerated melting of the Greenland ice field via global warming predicted to raise sea levels by a frightening 25 feet, coastal communities like Goa are at special risk of being inundated by such irresponsible actions.

Activists also pointed out that India’s environmental record too was a scandal, with the continued destruction of forests, especially in the Western Ghats, leading to flooding in several states, including Goa, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala. In Mumbai, the Aarey Forest in the centre of the city, also earmarked for development, and coastal mangrove destruction, are causing environmental stress on one of the world’s mega cities, also subject to periodic flooding.

India ranks among the bottom five countries on the Environmental Performance Index for 2018, according to a biennial report by Yale and Columbia Universities and the World Economic Forum. India also has the dubious distinction of overtaking China and Russia as the world’s top sulpha dioxide polluter, according to a Greenpeace report released on 19 August 2019. Sulpha dioxide is a by-product of coal-based electricity generation. Fossil fuels are also the key culprits in the global warming feedback loop and the proliferation of plastic pollution world-wide, including on Goa’s beaches.

With extreme weather events - like drought followed by floods in India - the norm, activists worldwide are calling upon governments to address the climate emergency, stop the reliance on fossil fuels and rapidly move towards adopting sustainable solutions to meet world energy needs.

The Brazil solidarity action - which included Arambol youth and local and international visitors - was part of a global weekend of similar demonstrations to put pressure on world governments to act now before it’s too late!

Pic: Harsha Prabhu, Design:Camelia Oberoi

#SOSAmazonia #SaveOurForests #ClimateEmergency #extinctionrebellion #extinctionrebellionindia #extinctionrebelliongoa #arambol #goa #DeclareClimateEmergency #SaveAareyForest #SaveWesternGhats

[thestruggleisrealink]

25 + Years Ago: Philadelphia Police Bombs MOVE Headquarters Killing 11, Destroying 65 Homes

Today marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of a massive police operation in Philadelphia that culminated in the helicopter bombing of the headquarters of a radical group known as MOVE. The fire from the attack killed six adults and five children and destroyed sixty-five homes. Despite two grand jury investigations and a commission finding that top officials were grossly negligent, no one from city government was criminally charged. MOVE was a Philadelphia-based radical movement that was dedicated to black liberation and a back-to-nature lifestyle. It was founded by John Africa, and all its members took on the surname Africa. We hear from Mumia Abu-Jamal and speak with Ramona Africa, the only adult survivor of the bombing. [includes rush transcript]

JUAN GONZALEZ: Today marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of a massive police operation in Philadelphia that culminated in the helicopter bombing of the headquarters of a radical group known as MOVE. The fire from the attack killed six adults and five children and destroyed sixty-five homes, an entire neighborhood. Despite the two grand jury investigations and a commission finding that top officials were grossly negligent, no one from city government was criminally charged.

MOVE was a Philadelphia-based radical movement that was dedicated to black liberation and a back-to-nature lifestyle. It was founded by John Africa, and all its members took on the surname Africa.

We’ll be joined in a moment from Philadelphia by Ramona Africa. At the time of the bombing, she was the sole adult survivor in the house. She escaped with major burns by crawling through a basement window with a thirteen-year-old boy then known as Birdie Africa. Ramona went on to serve seven years in prison on a riot charge.

But first, here’s a clip from Mumia Abu-Jamal’s latest commentary from death row.

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: May 13th at twenty-five. May 13th, 1985 is more than a day of infamy, when a city waged war on its own alleged citizens, but also when the city committed massacre and did so with perfect impunity, when babies were shot and burned alive with their mothers and fathers, and the killers rewarded with honors and pensions, while politicians talked and the media mediated mass murder. On that day, the city, armed and assisted by the US government, dropped a bomb on a house and called it law. The fire department watched buildings ignite like matches in the desert and cut off water. The courts of the land turned a blind eye, daubed mud in their socket, and prosecuted Ramona Africa for having the nerve to survive an urban holocaust, jailing her for the crime of not burning to death. Eleven men, women and children died, and not one killer was even charged with a misdemeanor.

But on that day, more than MOVE members died. The city died, too. Its politicians died, its media died, its courts died, and its churches and houses of worship died, for they ceased to function, and they served power and money. In a very real sense, the city massacred itself, for one’s faith in such institutions died. They became empty, hollow and dead, but for the shell. May 13th, 1985 is a day that shall live in infamy, but for far more reasons than the obvious. It was the death knell of a system committing suicide. It proved that a man called John Africa spoke powerful truths when he spoke about the nature of the system as corrupt, as flawed, as poisoned. Every day past that date has only proved it even more.

From death row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.

AMY GOODMAN: Mumia Abu-Jamal also a former Philadelphia reporter, that commentary courtesy of the Prison Radio Project.

Ramona Africa joins us now from Philadelphia on this twenty-fifth anniversary of the MOVE bombing.

Ramona, welcome to Democracy Now! Go back twenty-five years ago. You were the sole adult survivor of the police bombing, May 13th, 1985. Describe what happened as the bomb was falling on your house.

RAMONA AFRICA: OK, the first thing I want people to understand is that that bombing did not happen because of some complaints from neighbors. This government had never cared about black folks complaining about their neighbors or any other people complaining about their neighbors. They bombed us because of our unrelenting fight for our family members, known as the MOVE 9, who have been in prison unjustly going on thirty-two years now, as a result of the August 8th, 1978 police attack on MOVE. I just wanted to make that clear.

In terms of the bombing, after being attacked the way we were, first with four deluge hoses by the fire department and then tons of tear gas, and then being shot at — the police admit to shooting over 10,000 rounds of bullets at us in the first ninety minutes — there was a lull. You know, it was quiet for a little bit. And then, without any warning at all, two members of the Philadelphia Police Department’s bomb squad got in a Pennsylvania state police helicopter and flew over our home and dropped a satchel containing C4, a powerful military explosive that no municipal police department has. They had to get it from the federal government, from the FBI. And without any announcement or warning or anything, they dropped that bomb on the roof of our home.

Now, at that point, we didn’t know exactly what they had done. We heard the loud explosion. The house kind of shook. But it never entered my mind that they dropped a bomb on us. But the bomb did in fact ignite a fire. And not long after that, it got very, very hot in the house, and the smoke was getting thicker. At first we thought it was tear gas. But as it got thicker, it became clear that this wasn’t tear gas, that this was something else. And then we could hear the trees outside of our house crackling and realized that our home was on fire. And we immediately tried to get our children, our animals, our dogs and cats, and ourselves out of that blazing inferno.

The adults were hollering out that we’re coming out, we’re bringing the children out. The children were hollering that they were coming out, that we were bringing them out. And we know that the police heard us. But the instant, the very instant, that we were visible to them, you know, trying to come out, they immediately opened fire. We were met with a barrage of police gunfire. And you could see it hitting all around us, all around the house. And it forced us back in to that blazing inferno, several times. And finally, you know, you’re in a position where either you choke to death and burn alive or you possibly are shot to death.

So we continued to try to get out of that house. And I got out. I got Birdie out. You could hear the shots hitting all around us. A cop grabbed Birdie, took him into custody, grabbed me, they threw me down on the ground and handcuffed, you know, me behind me, in the back of me. And I just knew that everybody else had gotten out. They were right behind me. And I didn’t find out until police took me to the homicide unit of the police administration building that there were no other survivors.

AMY GOODMAN: Ramona Africa, the sole adult survivor. Six adults, five children killed that day. Juan, you were a reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: You were there on the corner when this happened.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Yeah. Well, Ramona, as you recalled, it was a — it was May 13th, but it was a Sunday that year, and it was Mother’s Day. And I’ll never forget, because the confrontation started early in the day and went for most of the day, and I remember precisely when that helicopter dropped the C4, because I was about a block away with my fellow Philadelphia Daily News reporter and longtime friend Linn Washington. And we saw the helicopter hovering overhead, and we said, "What’s that helicopter doing?" But we didn’t understand what it was up to at that point. We turned around, when all of a sudden the explosion goes off.

But the aspect that many people are not aware of, that as that fire raged, we remember the fire trucks, as you mention, that had been hosing down the building beforehand, suddenly the firefighters were just ordered to stand down, and they allowed the fire to rage, I would estimate, for — it must have been about an hour. And of course, eventually, the flames not only destroyed your house, but then destroyed sixty-five other houses, all in the entire neighborhood. But the firemen just stood there, under orders not to douse the fire, because they were trying to basically force you out.

The other aspect of the story, I think, and as you mentioned, was what happened in the rear as they attempted to shoot the MOVE members as they went out, because the stories the next day, in my newspaper then, in the Philadelphia Inquirer, were, because basically they came from police sources, that the MOVE members had tried to shoot their way out, when it was actually a — it later clearly — your story was backed up by the commission, that basically the police ended up shooting you down —-

RAMONA AFRICA: And by Birdie Africa.

JUAN GONZALEZ: —- as you attempted to come out. And — but the —-

RAMONA AFRICA: You know -—

JUAN GONZALEZ: Go ahead.

RAMONA AFRICA: Why MOVE people talk about how this system intended to kill MOVE, that this was not an attempt to arrest. They came out there to literally wipe MOVE out, exterminate MOVE. People want to poo-poo us and act like, "Oh, you’re just taking it out." But the fact that they deliberately shot at us as we tried to exit the building and the fact that you just brought up of how, you know, firefighters stood there and allowed that fire to burn, I defy people to tell me, you know, when William Richmond or really any other fire commissioner or firefighters had made a decision to let a fire burn in a building, a row house, where there are men, women, babies and animals inside. I mean, firefighters are known for running into burning buildings to save people. Now, William Richmond tried to excuse or explain away, you know, their actions by saying he wasn’t going to have his firefighters, you know, in danger or come under fire from MOVE. But for hours, when there was no fire, they put — they had four deluge hoses, each of which pump out 10,000 pounds of water pressure, according to them. They aimed those water hoses at our home for hours in the morning of May 13. Now, why wasn’t it a danger then? It’s only a danger when in fact there is a fire? I mean, it is very clear to any fairminded person looking at this situation that their intent was to kill. Wilson Goode said he wanted a permanent end to MOVE. That’s what he said.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And, of course, this was the second confrontation between the police and MOVE, following the 1978 shootout that occurred, where Police Officer Ramp was killed and where Delbert Africa was beaten senseless in front of all the television cameras as he attempted to surrender after that standoff. Could you talk about the impact —-

RAMONA AFRICA: Yes.

JUAN GONZALEZ: —- that that had on how you regarded, as you were in that house, what could happen to you?

RAMONA AFRICA: Oh, absolutely, it had an impact on, you know, our realization of May 13th, 1985. We know that in 1978 they came out to kill MOVE then, too. I mean, you had cops testifying during the later trial that it was dark in the basement of MOVE headquarters in '78, so they couldn't really see, but they emptied their guns, reloaded, and emptied them again in corners where they heard babies crying. Now, that’s not an attempt to kill? What crime had the babies committed, you know?

It is obvious that MOVE did not kill Officer James Ramp, by their own, you know, admissions. James Ramp was shot with the bullet traveling on a downward angle. That’s what the system’s medical examiner determined and stands by. How could anybody in a basement shoot somebody standing on street level above them on a downward angle? It’s physically impossible. Second of all, why would the city send a demolition team out within hours after arresting MOVE people and completely demolish the scene of the crime? Vital evidence in a murder case where a cop is killed. They would have preserved every bit of evidence they could get their hands on if they really believed that MOVE killed a cop, you know?

So we know what their intent was, and knowing that they were coming after us again, we knew that they were going to try to come stronger than they did in '78, because they were upset, they were angry, they were pissed off, that they had not killed MOVE in 1978. So, coming out there to Osage, you know, after MOVE again, we knew their intent was to really get the job done this time. It wasn't about an arrest. Both situations, they keep using this word "eviction," that they were coming out to evict MOVE. Since when are evictions held, you know, carried out, by hundreds of cops armed for war? In ’85, they had —-

AMY GOODMAN: Ramona, we have five seconds.

RAMONA AFRICA: —- nine-millimeter Uzis, .50-caliber machine guns. OK, well, they came out there with the weaponry of war. War. Their intent was to kill.

AMY GOODMAN: Ramona Africa, sole adult survivor of the May 13th, 1985 police MOVE bombing that killed eleven people, five of them children. #hoodreform #thestruggleisrealink

[expatimes]

Wadi-e-Hussain: A graveyard for Pakistan’s Shia victims | Civil Rights News

Karachi, Pakistan – Miles from the hustle and bustle of the metropolis of Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, lies the Wadi-e-Hussain graveyard with its hundreds of graves. Each is a window into a life that ended all too abruptly.

Protected from the city by large iron gates and tall walls, there is an uneasy calm within its walls where many of the city’s Shia Muslims have been laid to rest.

Pakistan is home to 220 million people, almost all of whom are Muslim. It is also home to one of the largest Shia populations in the world, as an estimated 20 percent of Muslims there are Shia.

At Wadi-e-Hussain red flags are planted by the graves of observant Shia Muslims who have died in targeted killings, gun or bomb attacks.

Since 2001, more than 2,600 Shia Muslims have been killed in violent attacks in the South Asian country, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal research organisation. This year has seen an uptick in targeted killings against Shia accused of blasphemy.

In September, tens of thousands attended a demonstration in Karachi organised by the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), a Sunni hardline group that is banned under Pakistani law for its ties to the armed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) group, which has carried out many of the largest bombings and attacks on the community since 1996.

At Wadi-e-Hussain, people paying their respects come and go, as the caretaker customarily sprinkles water on the graves.

“Some bring flowers, some light candles on every Thursday, sometimes a brother or a mother comes with the book of prayer, spends time on the grave,” says the caretaker Laal Mohammad.

As the scent of rose petals and incense wafts across the graves this history of violence is writ large across the tombstones. A group of five graves marks a family killed in the Abbas town blast of 2013. A mother’s grave sits by her four-year-old’s son’s, killed in the same blast; the inscription says the woman dropped dead when she saw her young child’s lifeless body.

There are more than 300 graves belonging to the those dubbed as “martyrs” in Wadi-e-Hussain. These are their stories.

‘My brother did not come back’

A woman sits near a grave, reading verses from a prayer book, crying as she does so.

Tehseen Abidi’s younger brother was also killed in the 2013 bombing in Abbas Town, a popular majority-Shia Muslim neighbourhood in Karachi. Kashif Abbas Abidi was at the site of the blast when it went off. Police never found his body.

For 40-year-old Tehseen, Kashif was her whole world. Sitting by his grave, she tells the story of the day she lost her brother in the attack, a sequence of bomb blasts which killed at least 45 people.

There are more than 300 graves belonging to the those dubbed as “martyrs” in Wadi-e-Hussain

“He died in the first blast, he was present at the site of the blast, he promised me that he would come to see me in the evening, my brother did not come back” she says.

Abidi owned a general store in the neighbourhood and was at work when the bombs went off.

“It was March 3 and a Sunday,” said Tehseen. She only got a few sentences in before she broke down in tears, remembering her “little one”.

The government offered financial compensation to the families whose relatives had died that day and in other attacks. But the relatives say the money is of little comfort.

“The government gave 1.5 million rupees to his wife, but our loss is so big that nothing can compensate for this loss,” said Tehseen.

“Even if our whole life we cry it’s not enough. Maybe if we all die crying in this anguish, maybe only then it will be compensated.”

‘Something died inside me that day’

On June 6, 1963 while preparing for a local ceremony, Ishtiaq Hussain and his fellow mourners heard the news of an attack on the procession in Thehri town, 14 kilometres (8.6 miles) out of Khairpur city in Sindh province. Hussain, now aged 80, is still haunted by his memories of that day.

It was a few days after Ashura, the 10th day of Muharram, the first month in the Islamic calendar. Ashura marks the anniversary of the Karbala mass killing and is commemorated by Shia Muslims in sombre rituals and processions.

“We were around 200 people who ran to save the congregation of Thehri that day,” he says. “We didn’t know that the news was a trap, and there were thousands of waiting for us with axes and swords in their hands, to chop us all into pieces.”

Hussain made it out alive but he has no idea how.

“I was among the survivors, but I can’t recall how I survived. There were around 10 people who attacked me with the axes, they injured me badly, my neck and shoulder were bleeding, they kicked me in my stomach to the point that I started spitting blood,” he says.

“I still survived, but something died inside me that day.”

The attack at Thehri was one of the first significant sectarian attacks since Pakistan gained independence from the British in 1947.

More than 118 people were killed on that day. They were to be the first of thousands killed for being Shia.

Silencing the outcry

In August 2020, in the month of Muharram, a fresh wave of sectarian tension rippled across Karachi and the rest of the country. Shia scholars were accused of blasphemy after they gave sermons critical of Islam’s early caliphs. Thousands rallied in Karachi under the banner of the ASWJ, calling Pakistan’s Shia leaders infidels.

After the protests ended, many Pakistanis denounced the ASWJ supporters’ hate speech and said the government had not taken the demonstrators to task.

Journalist Bilal Farooqi was one of the few who spoke out publicly.

A Sunni, Farooqi was arrested in October 2020 on charges of having spread “religious hatred” and “anti-state sentiment”. He had tweeted criticisms of the ASWJ march and questioned the authorities over their allowing an organisation that had been designated as “terrorist” to organise the march.

“Most of my posts, on the basis of which was filed against me, were about the ASWJ’s involvement in anti-Shia activities,” said Farooqi. Later released from police custody, he is still facing the same court charges.

He has called on Sunni Muslim activists to speak up against police inaction towards groups involved in Shia Muslim attacks.

Running parallel with the ASWJ’s continuing anti-Shia campaign has been the rise of a new far-right religious group in Pakistan, the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), which has made the so-called issue of blasphemy a rallying point.

Since 2017, the TLP and its leading scholars have seen a sharp rise in support for the issue and have pressured the government to penalise those accused of blasphemy.

The movement and its leader Khadim Hussain Rizvi were behind days of protests in 2018 over one of Pakistan’s most high-profile blasphemy cases. It involved the acquittal of a Christian woman, Asia Bibi on blasphemy charges. The TLP also blocked the main highway leading to the capital Islamabad for weeks in 2017 over a change in an electoral oath. It was deemed by them as blasphemous because it eased some restrictions on members of the Ahmadi sect, an offshoot of Sunni Islam that believes in a subordinate prophet and has been declared non-Muslim under Pakistani law.

Farooqi says the TLP has also recently hit out at Shia Muslims for what they say is blasphemy against some of Prophet Muhammad’s companions. 

Regional politics, local violence

Following the Islamic revolution in 1979 in Shia-majority Iran, which shares a border with Pakistan, there was an influx of Iranian and Shia Muslim influence into Pakistan, says  Hasan Zafar Naqvi, a popular Pakistani Shia leader.

The real problem, he argues, emerged after the United States and Saudi Arabia – which is Sunni-majority and has long viewed Iran as its regional rival – began to look at Iran’s perceived influence in Pakistan as a threat to the region.

Pakistan’s ruler at the time, General Zia ul-Haq, had seized power in a military coup in 1977 and was in the process of establishing a more theocratic state. During Haq’s time in power until 1988, the role of religion in government affairs grew. It also became the basis for US-backed armed action by the ‘mujahideen’ in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Backed by Saudi Arabia, Sunni hardline groups began to counter the perceived threat of Shia in the region. To that purpose, a group called Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP, later to become the ASWJ) was formed in 1985 in central Pakistan.

Founded by Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, the party was against the mainly Shia Muslim landlords of the area and sought to exploit sectarian differences. It called for Shia Muslims to be declared non-Muslim under Pakistani law and organised frequent protests to highlight the issue. The rise of the SSP, and its allied LeJ in the 1990s, saw a sharp rise in incidents of violence against Shia Muslims across the country in the decades to follow, says Naqvi, the scholar.

Repeated attacks

In 2009, Syed Liaquat Hussain Zaidi, an influential Shia activist and leader in Karachi was gunned down by LeJ.

Zaidi’s murderer was arrested two years later and confessed to police that he was working for the LeJ and had been given a hit-list of influential Shia Muslims in the city to kill, according to Zaidi’s family.

Zaidi was actively involved in charity and welfare work and was the president of Pasban-e-Aza, a Shia welfare organisation, said his sister Rehana Zaidi.

On a winter morning in November, Zaidi took his young son to school but never returned, says Rehana.

Two motorcyclists shot him three times in the head as he stopped at a traffic signal in the city. His niece first reached the scene and found her uncle in a pool of blood, the car surrounded by onlookers. No one attempted to help him, she says.

A year after the murder, Zaidi’s killers returned – this time shooting Zaidi’s nephew, Rameez Hussain, mere blocks away from the family home.

Miraculously, the nephew survived. The murderer, in his confession, told police he had fled the scene having assumed Hussain had been killed. “God saved him,” says Rehana.

#humanrights Read full article: https://expatimes.com/?p=16462&feed_id=27009 #asia #civilrights #conflict #features #humanrights #pakistan #religion

[woodsens]

Where to Find Guest Blogging Opportunities on fireinsidemusic.com

Correction Appended

On an album of bittersweet childrens tracks that she wrote greater than ten years in the past, the lady who arrived for being acknowledged only as being the piano Trainer offered what, in hindsight, seems like an eerie glimpse of her possess foreseeable future.

Im shifting away right now to a place so far-off, where by nobody is aware my identify, she wrote while in the lyrics of a tune known as Relocating.

When she wrote that music, she was young and vivacious, a piano teacher and freelance songs writer who beloved Beethoven and jazz, sunsets and river Seems, extended walks and every little thing about New York.

On a type of beloved walks, by means of Central Park in the bright sun of a June working day in 1996, a homeless drifter beat her and tried to rape her, leaving her clinging to everyday living. Once the assault, the terms to her track came legitimate. She moved away, away from New York City, away from her previous lifestyle, and all but her closest mates didn't know her identify. To the remainder of the planet, she was — much like the additional famous jogger attacked in Central Park 7 many years before — an nameless symbol of the urban nightmare. She was the piano Trainer.

Now, over the 10th anniversary of your assault, she is celebrating what appears to be her entire recovery from brain trauma. She's 42, married, with a small child. She's Kyle Kevorkian McCann, the piano teacher, and she or he wants to notify her story, her way.

Her health care provider informed her it will choose 10 years to Recuperate, and Sunday was that talismanic anniversary. I experience my life is redefined by Central Park, she claimed many days in the past, her voice comfortable and hopeful. Just before park; immediately after park. Will there at any time be described as a time After i dont think, Oh, This can be the tenth anniversary, the eleventh anniversary?

She spoke in her modest ranch home in a very wooded subdivision within a Ny suburb. She sat in a eating home strewn with toys, surrounded by photos of her cherubic, darkish-haired two-year-outdated daughter. A Steinway grand stuffed fifty percent the space, and at one particular point she sat down and played. Her enjoying was forceful, but she seemed embarrassed to Participate in quite a lot of bars, and shrugged, as an alternative to answering, when questioned the title from the piece. She asked that her daughter and her town not be named.

She calls that working day, June four, 1996, the working day Once i was harm.

Hers was the first in a very string of assaults by a similar man on four Women of all ages around 8 days. The final victim, Evelyn Alvarez, 65, was crushed to Dying as she opened her Park Avenue dry-cleansing store, and ultimately, the assailant, John J. Royster, was convicted of murder and sentenced to everyday living in jail.

But the attack over the piano Instructor may be the just one persons look to recollect quite possibly the most. A part of the fascination should do with echoes of your 1989 attack around the Central Park jogger. But In addition it frightened individuals in a means the attack to the jogger did not mainly because its situation had been so mundane.

It didn't happen inside of a distant Portion of the park late at nighttime, but near a favorite playground at three during the afternoon. It might have took place to any one. The tension was heightened with the mystery with the piano lecturers identification.

For 3 times, as police and Physicians attempted to discover who she was, she lay in a coma in her clinic bed, nameless. Her mothers and fathers were on getaway and her boyfriend, also a musician, was in Europe, on tour. Last but not least, one among her learners regarded a law enforcement sketch and was ready to identify her from the healthcare facility by her fingers, since her deal with was swollen further than recognition. The police didn't launch her name.

The very last thing she remembers about June 4, 1996, is supplying a lesson in her studio condominium on West 57th Street, then putting her extended hair in a very ponytail and heading out for the stroll. She doesn't keep in mind the assault, although she has read the accounts with the police and prosecutors.

To me its like a reality I realized and memorized, she claimed. As though I were being a pupil at school researching historical past.

She will not consider the man who did it. I might need been angry for any minute, although not much longer than that, she stated. How could I be indignant at John Royster? He was declared not crazy, but I guess by our standards he was.

Dr. Jamshid Ghajar, her medical doctor at New York Clinic-Cornell Professional medical Heart, as it was identified in 1996, explained to reporters that she had a ten % potential for survival. Medical professionals had to get rid of her forehead bone, which was later changed, to produce space for her swelling Mind. When her mother made a community attract pray for my daughter, thousands did.

Immediately after eight days, she arrived away from a coma, first within a vegetative state, then within a childlike condition. As she recovered, she slept small and talked continually, at times in gibberish. I was receiving mad at people after they didnt respond to these terms, she mentioned.

Like an Alzheimers individual, she experienced minor brief-term memory and would fail to remember readers the moment they left the place.

More than many months, she needed to relearn tips on how to wander, dress, read and compose. Her boyfriend, Tony Scherr, frequented every single day to Participate in guitar for her. He encouraged her to play the piano, from the advice of her Actual physical therapists, who believed she could be disappointed by her incapacity to Participate in just how she once had. Mr. Scherr performed Beatles duets along with her, enjoying the left-hand element though she played the right.

That was my finest therapy, she said.

In August, she moved back again property to New Jersey, together with her father, an engineer, and mother, a schoolteacher. She visited aged haunts and called good friends, hoping to restore her shattered memory. I was incredibly obsessive about remembering, she reported. Any memory reduction was to me a sign of abnormality or deficit.

Her therapists considered her development was fantastic, but her two sisters protested that she wasn't the deep thinker she had been.

What bothered her most was that she experienced dropped the ability to cry, just as if a faucet within her brain had been turned off. One particular evening, 9 months following she was harm, she stayed up late to observe the John Grisham Motion picture A Time to Eliminate. Just immediately after her father had long gone to mattress, she watched a courtroom scene of Samuel Jacksons character on trial for killing two Adult males who experienced raped his young daughter.

The faucet opened, along with the tears trickled down her cheeks. I thought about my mom and dad, my father, and the things they went by means of, she mentioned. Minimal by very little, my experience returned, my depth of mind returned.

Urged by her sisters, she went back to high school and acquired a masters diploma in new music education.

Not everything went effectively. She and Mr. Scherr break up up 5 years after the attack, though they remain good friends. She dated other Adult males, but she often informed them concerning the attack immediately — she could not support it, she explained — they usually under no circumstances called for a second date.

We've got to search out you anyone, her Good friend David Phelps, a guitar participant, said four many years ago, ahead of introducing her to Liam McCann, a computer technician and newbie drummer. For as soon as, she didn't say just about anything concerning the attack right up until she bought to learn Mr. McCann, after which you can when she did, he admired her energy.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who had usually frequented her at her bedside when she was during the healthcare facility, married them in his Situations Square Business. She wore a blue dress and pearls. Whilst she was pregnant, inside a burst of creativeness, she and her pals recorded Even though Have been Youthful, an album of childrens tracks that she had created prior to the attack, including the song Transferring. Her ex-boyfriend, Mr. Scherr, developed the CD. On it, her spouse performs drums and he or she plays electrical piano.

Is her existence as it absolutely was? Not precisely, however she's reluctant to attribute the differences to her injuries. Her final two piano students remaining her, without contacting to explain why, she explained. She has resumed taking part in classical new music, but basic pieces, because her daughter won't give her the perfect time to apply. As for jazz, I dont even check out, she stated.

She wish to push much more, sensation stranded within the suburbs, but she is easily rattled. She tries to be information with keeping dwelling and caring for her daughter.

Dr. Ghajar, a clinical professor of neurological surgical treatment at exactly what is now termed Ny-Presbyterian Medical center/Weill Cornell Health-related Centre, who operated on Ms. Kevorkian McCann after the assault, reported previous week that her level of recovery was scarce. Shes essentially typical, he said.

Other industry experts, that are not Individually knowledgeable about Ms. Kevorkian McCanns case, are more careful.

Regaining a chance to Participate in the piano may perhaps require an Virtually mechanical procedure, a semiautomatic remember of what the fingers have to do, said Dr. Yehuda Ben-Yishay, a professor of scientific rehabilitation drugs at Big apple College College of Drugs. As soon as brain-hurt, you are often brain-injured, For the remainder of your life, Dr. Ben-Yishay reported. There isn't a get rid of, There is certainly only intense payment.

The greater telling Element of a Restoration, in his look at, is psychological, and on that score he counts Ms. Kevorkian McCanns relationship and youngster as a major victory.

For her aspect, the piano Instructor knows she has adjusted, but she has produced her peace with it. I had been type of a hyper —— I dont know if I used to be a kind A, but I used to be formidable, she states. Why was I so ambitious? I had been a piano Trainer. I dont know what the ambition was about. I actually did return to the person Im designed to be.

[redkiteradio]

12 Stats About best beginner keyboard piano

Correction Appended

On an album of bittersweet childrens tunes that she wrote in excess of ten years back, the woman who came for being recognized only because the piano teacher available what, in hindsight, looks as if an eerie glimpse of her possess long run.

Im going away today to a spot so far away, in which nobody is familiar with my title, she wrote inside the lyrics of the music named Going.

When she wrote that tune, she was youthful and vivacious, a piano Trainer and freelance audio writer who beloved Beethoven and jazz, sunsets and river sounds, lengthy walks and every little thing about New York.

On a kind of beloved walks, by way of Central Park in the brilliant Solar of the June day in 1996, a homeless drifter beat her and attempted to rape her, leaving her clinging to lifetime. After the assault, the words to her music came real. She moved absent, from New York City, out of her outdated life, and all but her closest buddies didn't know her title. To the remainder of the planet, she was — much like the a lot more renowned jogger attacked in Central Park seven several years before — an anonymous symbol of the urban nightmare. She was the piano Instructor.

Now, within the 10th anniversary from the attack, she's celebrating what seems to be her total recovery from brain trauma. She is forty two, married, with a little boy or girl. She is Kyle Kevorkian McCann, the piano Trainer, and she or he would like to tell her story, her way.

Her health care provider informed her it could consider ten years to Get better, and Sunday was that talismanic anniversary. I experience my lifetime has become redefined by Central Park, she reported several times in the past, her voice soft and hopeful. Before park; immediately after park. Will there ever be a time when I dont Feel, Oh, this is the 10th anniversary, the 11th anniversary?

She spoke in her modest ranch property inside a wooded subdivision in a The big apple suburb. She sat in the eating home strewn with toys, surrounded by photos of her cherubic, dark-haired 2-year-outdated daughter. A Steinway grand filled 50 percent the home, and at one particular level she sat down and performed. Her taking part in was forceful, but she appeared embarrassed to Perform more than a few bars, and shrugged, rather than answering, when questioned the identify in the piece. She requested that her daughter and her city not be named.

She calls that working day, June 4, 1996, the working day After i was hurt.

Hers was the main in the string of attacks by the identical person on 4 women about 8 days. The final victim, Evelyn Alvarez, 65, was crushed to Loss of life as she opened her Park Avenue dry-cleansing store, and finally, the assailant, John J. Royster, was convicted of murder and sentenced to daily life in prison.

But the attack over the piano Trainer could be the 1 folks feel to keep in mind essentially the most. Part of the fascination has got to do with echoes of the 1989 attack over the Central Park jogger. But In addition it frightened individuals in a way the attack on the jogger did not since its conditions ended up so mundane.

It did not happen inside a remote Portion of the park late in the evening, but in close proximity to a well known playground at three during the afternoon. It might have transpired to any individual. The stress was heightened with the thriller from the piano lecturers identity.

For three days, as law enforcement and doctors tried using to learn who she was, she lay within a coma in her medical center mattress, anonymous. Her dad and mom were on holiday vacation and her boyfriend, also a musician, was in Europe, on tour. Last but not least, among her pupils recognized a police sketch and was capable of recognize her in the medical center by her fingers, mainly because her face was swollen past recognition. The law enforcement did not release her identify.

The very last thing she remembers about June four, 1996, is supplying a lesson in her studio condominium on West 57th Road, then putting her lengthy hair in the ponytail and heading out to get a wander. She would not remember the attack, While she has listened to the accounts with the law enforcement and prosecutors.

To me its just like a reality I figured out and memorized, she mentioned. Like I were being a university student at school finding out historical past.

She isn't going to contemplate the man who did it. I may need been angry for the moment, although not for much longer than that, she stated. How could I be indignant at John Royster? He was declared not insane, but I guess by our standards he was.

Dr. Jamshid Ghajar, her medical professional at Big apple Medical center-Cornell Health-related Center, as it had been known in 1996, instructed reporters that she had a ten per cent chance of survival. Physicians had to remove her forehead bone, which was later changed, to generate area for her swelling Mind. When her mom designed a public appeal to pray for my daughter, hundreds did.

Right after 8 days, she arrived away from a coma, very first in a vegetative state, then in the childlike point out. As she recovered, she slept very little and talked continuously, at times in gibberish. I had been getting mad at men and women every time they didnt respond to these words and phrases, she claimed.

Like an Alzheimers patient, she had little quick-expression memory and would neglect readers when they still left the room.

Around various months, she had to relearn the way to stroll, gown, browse and generate. Her boyfriend, Tony Scherr, frequented every day to Engage in guitar for her. He inspired her to Enjoy the piano, towards the recommendation of her Actual physical therapists, who imagined she can be discouraged by her inability to play the best way she when experienced. Mr. Scherr performed Beatles duets with her, participating in the still left-hand part whilst she performed the correct.

Which was my very best therapy, she reported.

In August, she moved again dwelling to New Jersey, along with her father, an engineer, and mother, a schoolteacher. She frequented outdated haunts and termed pals, making an attempt to restore her shattered memory. I was quite obsessive about remembering, she reported. Any memory decline was to me an indication of abnormality or deficit.

Her therapists believed her progress was terrific, but her two sisters protested that she was not the deep thinker she had been.

What bothered her most was that she had dropped a chance to cry, as though a faucet within her brain were turned off. One particular evening, nine months after she was harm, she stayed up late to look at the John Grisham Film A The perfect time to Eliminate. Just after her father experienced absent to bed, she watched a courtroom scene of Samuel Jacksons character on demo for killing two Guys who had raped his younger daughter.

The faucet opened, and also the tears trickled down her cheeks. I thought of my mother and father, my father, and the things they went through, she stated. Very little by small, my experience returned, my depth of brain returned.

Urged by her sisters, she went back again to highschool and bought a masters diploma in songs education.

Not all the things went perfectly. She and Mr. Scherr split up five years after the attack, although they continue to be friends. She dated other Males, but she usually advised them with regard to the attack instantly — she could not support it, she reported — and so they never ever referred to as for just a 2nd day.

We've got to find you anyone, her friend David Phelps, a guitar player, claimed four years in the past, right before introducing her to Liam McCann, a computer technician and amateur drummer. For once, she did not say something about the attack until finally she acquired to grasp Mr. McCann, after which you can when she did, he admired her power.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who had frequently frequented her at her bedside while she was inside the healthcare facility, married them in his Moments Sq. Office environment. She wore a blue costume and pearls. Although she was pregnant, inside of a burst of creativity, she and her pals recorded While Had been Younger, an album of childrens songs that she had written before the attack, such as the song Shifting. Her ex-boyfriend, Mr. Scherr, generated the CD. On it, her husband plays drums and she or he performs electrical piano.

Is her everyday living as it was? Not accurately, however she is hesitant to attribute the variations to her injuries. Her previous two piano pupils left her, without contacting to elucidate why, she stated. She has resumed playing classical tunes, but straightforward pieces, for the reason that her daughter would not give her the perfect time to practice. As for jazz, I dont even attempt, she reported.

She want to drive more, feeling stranded inside the suburbs, but she is definitely rattled. She attempts to be material with being residence and caring for her daughter.

Dr. Ghajar, a scientific professor of neurological surgical procedure at what on earth is now termed New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Clinical Heart, who operated on Ms. Kevorkian McCann after the assault, said past week that her level of Restoration was unusual. Shes in essence ordinary, he explained.

Other authorities, who are not Individually aware of Ms. Kevorkian McCanns scenario, tend to be more cautious.

Regaining the ability to play the piano may include an Virtually mechanical course of action, a semiautomatic remember of what the fingers ought to do, reported Dr. Yehuda Ben-Yishay, a professor of clinical rehabilitation medication at New York College School of Medicine. At the time brain-wounded, you happen to be generally brain-hurt, For the remainder of your daily life, Dr. Ben-Yishay reported. There isn't a remedy, There is certainly only intense compensation.

The more telling A part of a Restoration, in his perspective, is psychological, and on that rating he counts Ms. Kevorkian McCanns relationship and child as a major victory.

For her element, the piano teacher knows she has modified, but she has built her peace with it. I used to be kind of a hyper —— I dont know if I had been a sort A, but I used to be bold, she says. Why was I so formidable? I had been a piano teacher. I dont determine what the ambition was about. I really did return to the person Im purported to be.

[emilyl-b]

10 Great fire inside music Public Speakers

Correction Appended

On an album of bittersweet childrens tracks that she wrote a lot more than ten years ago, the woman who came to get regarded only because the piano teacher offered what, in hindsight, looks like an eerie glimpse of her possess potential.

Im transferring absent these days to a spot so distant, exactly where no person knows my name, she wrote in the lyrics of a tune identified as Relocating.

When she wrote that music, she was young and vivacious, a piano Instructor and freelance audio author who loved Beethoven and jazz, sunsets and river sounds, lengthy walks and every thing about Big apple.

On a kind of beloved walks, by way of Central Park in the intense Sunlight of the June working day in 1996, a homeless drifter beat her and attempted to rape her, leaving her clinging to daily life. Once the assault, the text to her track came accurate. She moved absent, out of New York City, from her outdated everyday living, and all but her closest good friends didn't know her identify. To the remainder of the globe, she was — much like the additional well known jogger attacked in Central Park 7 a long time previously — an nameless symbol of the city nightmare. She was the piano Trainer.

Now, around the 10th anniversary on the attack, she's celebrating what is apparently her comprehensive Restoration from Mind trauma. She is 42, married, with a small boy or girl. She's Kyle Kevorkian McCann, the piano Instructor, and she or he really wants to convey to her story, her way.

Her health care provider instructed her it will just take 10 years to Recuperate, and Sunday was that talismanic anniversary. I sense my life has become redefined by Central Park, she mentioned a number of days in the past, her voice delicate and hopeful. Before park; just after park. Will there ever be described as a time Once i dont Believe, Oh, Here is the tenth anniversary, the 11th anniversary?

She spoke in her modest ranch house inside of a wooded subdivision in a The big apple suburb. She sat inside of a eating place strewn with toys, surrounded by pictures of her cherubic, dim-haired 2-12 months-aged daughter. A Steinway grand filled 50 % the place, and at one particular place she sat down and performed. Her actively playing was forceful, but she seemed ashamed to Enjoy various bars, and shrugged, rather then answering, when questioned the identify of your piece. She requested that her daughter and her town not be named.

She calls that working day, June 4, 1996, the day Once i was harm.

Hers was the 1st in a string of assaults by the exact same guy on 4 Women of all ages above 8 times. The last victim, Evelyn Alvarez, 65, was crushed to death as she opened her Park Avenue dry-cleansing shop, and in the end, the assailant, John J. Royster, was convicted of murder and sentenced to daily life in jail.

However the assault on the piano Trainer will be the just one individuals seem to recall by far the most. Section of the fascination should do with echoes on the 1989 attack over the Central Park jogger. But Furthermore, it frightened people today in a way the attack around the jogger did not simply because its circumstances were so mundane.

It did not occur in a very distant A part of the park late during the night, but close to a favorite playground at three from the afternoon. It could have transpired to any one. The strain was heightened with the thriller on the piano academics identification.

For three days, as law enforcement and Medical doctors tried using to see who she was, she lay in the coma in her healthcare facility bed, nameless. Her mothers and fathers had been on vacation and her boyfriend, also a musician, was in Europe, on tour. Eventually, amongst her pupils identified a police sketch and was capable of establish her while in the clinic by her fingers, mainly because her face was swollen further than recognition. The police did not launch her identify.

The very last thing she remembers about June four, 1996, is offering a lesson in her studio apartment on West 57th Avenue, then Placing her very long hair in the ponytail and going out for just a walk. She won't keep in mind the attack, While she has heard the accounts in the police and prosecutors.

To me its like a fact I discovered and memorized, she said. Like I were a student in school finding out heritage.

She isn't going to take into consideration The person who did it. I may have been offended for a minute, but not for much longer than that, she reported. How could I be indignant at John Royster? He was declared not crazy, but I guess by our standards he was.

Dr. Jamshid Ghajar, her physician at New York Clinic-Cornell Medical Middle, as it had been recognised in 1996, explained to reporters that she experienced a ten percent probability of survival. Health professionals had to remove her forehead bone, which was later on replaced, to generate space for her swelling brain. When her mom built a public attract pray for my daughter, hundreds did.

Following eight times, she arrived from a coma, initially in a vegetative point out, then in a childlike point out. As she recovered, she slept tiny and talked frequently, sometimes in gibberish. I had been obtaining mad at persons if they didnt reply to these words and phrases, she explained.

Like an Alzheimers individual, she had small shorter-term memory and would fail to remember people when they remaining the room.

More than various months, she needed to relearn how you can walk, dress, study and write. Her boyfriend, Tony Scherr, visited each day to Participate in guitar for her. He inspired her to Enjoy the piano, in opposition to the recommendation of her Actual physical therapists, who believed she could well be frustrated by her lack of ability to Perform the way she after experienced. Mr. Scherr played Beatles duets along with her, playing the still left-hand aspect though she played the best.

That was my most effective therapy, she explained.

In August, she moved again home to New Jersey, along with her father, an engineer, and mom, a schoolteacher. She visited previous haunts and named good friends, making an attempt to revive her shattered memory. I had been quite obsessive about remembering, she stated. Any memory loss was to me a sign of abnormality or deficit.

Her therapists considered her development was great, but her two sisters protested that she wasn't the deep thinker she had been.

What bothered her most was that she had shed a chance to cry, as if a faucet inside her Mind had been turned off. 1 night, nine months soon after she was harm, she stayed up late to view the John Grisham movie A Time and energy to Destroy. Just right after her father had gone to mattress, she watched a courtroom scene of Samuel Jacksons character on trial for killing two men who experienced raped his young daughter.

The faucet opened, as well as the tears trickled down her cheeks. I considered my mother and father, my father, and the things they went by means of, she reported. Minor by little, my sensation returned, my depth of brain returned.

Urged by her sisters, she went back to school and acquired a masters diploma in tunes training.

Not every little thing went nicely. She and Mr. Scherr split up five years once the assault, though they continue to be friends. She dated other Guys, but she constantly informed them concerning the assault immediately — she couldn't assist it, she claimed — plus they by no means termed for your next date.

Now we have to seek out you an individual, her Good friend David Phelps, a guitar player, stated 4 years in the past, prior to introducing her to Liam McCann, a pc technician and beginner drummer. For after, she did not say anything at all with regards to the attack until eventually she acquired to grasp Mr. McCann, after which when she did, he admired her strength.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who experienced typically visited her at her bedside whilst she was from the medical center, married them in his Occasions Square Place of work. She wore a blue costume and pearls. Even though she was pregnant, within a burst of creativeness, she and her friends recorded Even though Had been Youthful, an album of childrens tracks that she experienced written before the assault, including the tune Moving. Her ex-boyfriend, Mr. Scherr, made the CD. On it, her partner performs drums and she plays electric powered piano.

Is her everyday living as it absolutely was? Not accurately, nevertheless she is reluctant to attribute the distinctions to her injuries. Her very last two piano learners remaining her, without calling to clarify why, she claimed. She has resumed playing classical tunes, but uncomplicated items, mainly because her daughter will not give her the perfect time to apply. As for jazz, I dont even consider, she explained.

She would want to drive far more, feeling stranded inside the suburbs, but she is definitely rattled. She tries to be articles with keeping house and caring for her daughter.

Dr. Ghajar, a medical professor of neurological surgical treatment at what is now known as New York-Presbyterian Clinic/Weill Cornell Healthcare Heart, who operated on Ms. Kevorkian McCann after the attack, claimed last 7 days that her degree of recovery was uncommon. Shes essentially standard, he mentioned.

Other professionals, who will be not personally acquainted with Ms. Kevorkian McCanns situation, are more cautious.

Regaining a chance to Participate in the piano could include an Practically mechanical method, a semiautomatic remember of what the fingers have to do, explained Dr. Yehuda Ben-Yishay, a professor of medical rehabilitation medication at Ny University School of Medicine. Once Mind-wounded, you will be always brain-wounded, for the rest of your life, Dr. Ben-Yishay explained. There is no remedy, There's only intensive compensation.

The greater telling Element of a recovery, in his check out, is psychological, and on that score he counts Ms. Kevorkian McCanns marriage and baby as a major victory.

For her element, the piano Instructor is aware she has changed, but she has designed her peace with it. I had been form of a hyper —— I dont know if I was a Type A, but I was bold, she states. Why was I so bold? I used to be a piano Trainer. I dont know very well what the ambition was about. I really did come back to the person Im supposed to be.

[homestuckcanonconfirmer]

15 Tips About best beginner piano

Correction Appended

On an album of bittersweet childrens tunes that she wrote in excess of a decade back, the woman who came to generally be known only given that the piano Instructor offered what, in hindsight, looks like an eerie glimpse of her have long run.

Im going away currently to an area so distant, in which no person appreciates my title, she wrote within the lyrics of the music referred to as Going.

When she wrote that track, she was young and vivacious, a piano Instructor and freelance tunes writer who beloved Beethoven and jazz, sunsets and river Seems, long walks and anything about The big apple.

On a kind of beloved walks, through Central Park in the intense Sunshine of a June day in 1996, a homeless drifter conquer her and attempted to rape her, leaving her clinging to everyday living. Once the assault, the phrases to her track arrived real. She moved absent, outside of New York City, from her aged life, and all but her closest buddies didn't know her identify. To the remainder of the earth, she was -- such as a lot more well-known jogger attacked in Central Park seven many years before -- an nameless symbol of the urban nightmare. She was the piano Trainer.

Now, around the tenth anniversary from the assault, she is celebrating what is apparently her total recovery from brain trauma. She is forty two, married, with a small youngster. She's Kyle Kevorkian McCann, the piano teacher, and she or he hopes to explain to her Tale, her way.

Her medical doctor advised her it would consider 10 years to recover, and Sunday was that talismanic anniversary. I feel my lifetime has actually been redefined by Central Park, she explained many times ago, her voice gentle and hopeful. In advance of park; immediately after park. Will there at any time be a time when I dont Imagine, Oh, This is actually the 10th anniversary, the eleventh anniversary?

She spoke in her modest ranch home inside a wooded subdivision inside a Ny suburb. She sat inside of a dining space strewn with toys, surrounded by photographs of her cherubic, dim-haired two-year-aged daughter. A Steinway grand filled half the area, and at one stage she sat down and played. Her playing was forceful, but she appeared humiliated to Enjoy various bars, and shrugged, as opposed to answering, when questioned the identify of the piece. She requested that her daughter and her city not be named.

She phone calls that working day, June 4, 1996, the day After i was damage.

Hers was the first in a string of assaults by exactly the same guy on four Females around 8 days. The last target, Evelyn Alvarez, 65, was beaten to death as she opened her Park Avenue dry-cleansing store, and in the end, the assailant, John J. Royster, was convicted of murder and sentenced to existence in jail.

Nevertheless the attack over the piano Instructor will be the a single people today seem to be to remember quite possibly the most. Component of the fascination should do with echoes from the 1989 attack within the Central Park jogger. But In addition it frightened men and women in a method the assault around the jogger did not mainly because its circumstances had been so mundane.

It didn't take place in the remote Section of the park late in the evening, but in the vicinity of a popular playground at three in the afternoon. It could have transpired to anybody. The tension was heightened by the mystery on the piano academics id.

For 3 days, as law enforcement and Medical doctors tried to see who she was, she lay in a coma in her clinic mattress, nameless. Her mothers and fathers have been on holiday vacation and her boyfriend, also a musician, was in Europe, on tour. Lastly, one among her students recognized a law enforcement sketch and was in the position to detect her inside the hospital by her fingers, mainly because her facial area was swollen beyond recognition. The police didn't launch her title.

The very last thing she remembers about June four, 1996, is offering a lesson in her studio condominium on West 57th Avenue, then putting her extensive hair in a ponytail and heading out for the stroll. She isn't going to remember the assault, Despite the fact that she has listened to the accounts on the police and prosecutors.

To me its just like a simple fact I learned and memorized, she reported. As if I were being a university student in school researching historical past.

She isn't going to take into consideration The person who did it. I might have been angry for a moment, although not for much longer than that, she reported. How could I be offended at John Royster? He was declared not crazy, but I assume by our standards he was.

Dr. Jamshid Ghajar, her medical doctor at Ny Hospital-Cornell Health-related Middle, as it was recognized in 1996, advised reporters that she had a ten percent possibility of survival. Physicians experienced to get rid of her forehead bone, which was afterwards changed, for making area for her swelling brain. When her mother produced a general public appeal to pray for my daughter, 1000's did.

After 8 times, she arrived away from a coma, very first in the vegetative point out, then in a childlike condition. As she recovered, she slept minimal and talked regularly, at times in gibberish. I had been finding mad at folks when they didnt respond to these text, she said.

Like an Alzheimers affected individual, she experienced minor quick-time period memory and would neglect visitors when they still left the place.

More than many months, she needed to relearn ways to walk, dress, read through and publish. Her boyfriend, Tony Scherr, frequented daily to Perform guitar for her. He encouraged her to Perform the piano, against the advice of her physical therapists, who believed she might be disappointed by her incapacity to Perform the way in which she the moment had. Mr. Scherr performed Beatles duets with her, taking part in the left-hand part even though she played the right.

That was my greatest therapy, she mentioned.

In August, she moved back again dwelling to New Jersey, together with her father, an engineer, and mom, a schoolteacher. She visited aged haunts and named pals, striving to revive her shattered memory. I used to be quite obsessed with remembering, she reported. Any memory decline was to me an indication of abnormality or deficit.

Her therapists imagined her development was great, but her two sisters protested that she was not the deep thinker she were.

What bothered her most was that she experienced misplaced the chance to cry, as if a faucet inside her brain had been turned off. One night, nine months after she was damage, she stayed up late to view the John Grisham movie A Time to Get rid of. Just after her father had gone to mattress, she viewed a courtroom scene of Samuel Jacksons character on trial for killing two Gentlemen who had raped his youthful daughter.

The faucet opened, as well as tears trickled down her cheeks. I thought about my mother and father, my father, and the things they went as a result of, she stated. Minimal by little, my sensation returned, my depth of brain returned.

Urged by her sisters, she went back again to school and acquired a masters degree in audio education.

Not every thing went effectively. She and Mr. Scherr split up five years following the assault, nevertheless they continue to be friends. She dated other Males, but she generally informed them in regards to the assault instantly -- she couldn't aid it, she mentioned -- and they hardly ever called for any second date.

We have to search out you a person, her Good friend David Phelps, a guitar participant, claimed 4 yrs in the past, ahead of introducing her to Liam McCann, a pc technician and newbie drummer. For as soon as, she didn't say anything concerning the attack until eventually she acquired to find out Mr. McCann, then when she did, he admired her energy.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who experienced usually frequented her at her bedside when she was from the hospital, married them in his Times Sq. office. She wore a blue costume and pearls. Although she was pregnant, within a burst of creative imagination, she and her friends recorded When Had been Young, an album of childrens tunes that she experienced penned ahead of the assault, including the music Relocating. Her ex-boyfriend, Mr. Scherr, generated the CD. On it, her husband performs drums and he or she plays electric powered piano.

Is her existence as it had been? Not specifically, although she's hesitant to attribute the discrepancies to her injuries. Her final two piano pupils left her, without having contacting to clarify why, she claimed. She has resumed taking part in classical songs, but simple pieces, mainly because her daughter doesn't give her the perfect time to exercise. As for jazz, I dont even check out, she explained.

She would like to drive much more, emotion stranded during the suburbs, but she is easily rattled. She attempts to be written content with being dwelling and caring for her daughter.

Dr. Ghajar, a scientific professor of neurological surgical procedures at precisely what is now known as NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare facility/Weill Cornell Healthcare Middle, who operated on Ms. Kevorkian McCann following the attack, claimed previous week that her degree of Restoration was unusual. Shes basically usual, he explained.

Other professionals, that are not Individually informed about Ms. Kevorkian McCanns scenario, tend to be more careful.

Regaining the chance to Engage in the piano may entail an Virtually mechanical process, a semiautomatic remember of what the fingers ought to do, reported Dr. Yehuda Ben-Yishay, a professor of clinical rehabilitation drugs at Big apple University University of Drugs. As soon as brain-injured, you're generally Mind-hurt, for the rest of your daily life, Dr. Ben-Yishay mentioned. There's no heal, there is only intensive payment.

The more telling Element of a recovery, in his look at, is psychological, and on that rating he counts Ms. Kevorkian McCanns marriage and child as an important victory.

For her aspect, the piano Trainer understands she has adjusted, but she has built her peace with it. I was kind of a hyper ---- I dont know if I had been a kind A, but I had been bold, she states. Why was I so formidable? I used to be a piano Instructor. I dont know what the ambition was about. I really did return to the individual Im designed to be.

Correction: June thirteen, 2006, Tuesday An short article on Thursday about Kyle Kevorkian McCann, a piano teacher who was beaten and sexually assaulted ten years back in Central Park, misstated the title of her album of childrens music. It can be Even though Have been Youthful, not When Have been Young.

[newyorktheater]

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is going online. (Check out the thirty below.)  Now, officially; the oldest and largest fringe festival has been canceled because of the pandemic. But the festival wants to “Keep the Fringe spirit alive” by encouraging theater companies to put their shows online. This offers New York theatergoers a chance to get a Fringe fix in August for the first time since 2016, when the International Fringe Festival celebrated its 20th anniversary, then shut down for a year — and then announced it was moving to Octobe

Edinburgh’s Fringe is not New York’s  Fringe. It’s unjuried, and it’s���.overwhelming. In 2018, there were reportedly 3,548 different shows performed in 317 venues; in 2019, more than three million people attended, which was more than six times the entire population of this city in Scotland.  The New York Fringe never had more than 75,000 theatergoers attending some (juried) 200 shows in 16 venues.

There was never a way to offer an adequate preview of the Edinburgh Fringe (the way I did every year of the New York Fringe), and it’s not much easier now when Edinburgh is coming to your living room — or, in at least one case, your bathroom.

“Play In Your Bathtub,” an audio play that I reviewed when it debuted in April is going to Edinburgh. It’s one of eighty shows “all written and produced in lockdown” that are being presented for free over the next three weeks at The Space UK, which this year is a virtual space. This is just one venue at Virtual Edinburgh, but even 80 is too much. So below are the 30 that are going online starting this Saturday, August 8th at TheSpaceUK  website. A new batch of roughly the same number will go online every Saturday for the rest of August. Click on each poster to read the descriptions.

For what it’s worth, the ones that most intrigue me include two from the Edinburgh-based Anomaly Theatre Company: “Interrodated, “He thinks he’s interrogating a suspect. She thinks she’s on a blind date. This is not going to end well.” “Glitch” A driverless car runs over a woman, and has to learn grief. and “Bookshelf Ballad,” in which the books we always see behind the TV pundits are given voice to say what THEY are thinking.

after/before Out of Kilter Theatre Struggling with feelings of loss and detachment Alicia, waking from a vivid dream, is disorientated; is she really awake? Then an unlikely companion offers an opportunity to find an answer … and perhaps a chance for the contact she craves. @outofkiltermcr

After the Turn: The Mystery of Bly Manor Nine Knocks Theatre Five years after the tragedy of Bly Manor, the world wants answers. Now researchers begin to uncover the sinister truth. Based on Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, Nine Knocks presents a modernised tale of the ghosts within ourselves. @Nine_Knocks

At the Ghostlight Blue Fire Theatre Co. An Elizabethan Superstar and a heroine of Music Hall meet at the theatre ghostlight and have a “water cooler moment”. Whilst they muse over their life choices, the stars of their rivals, Will Shakespeare and Marie Lloyd shine ever brighter. @bluefire_tc

Awakening The Nottingham New Theatre ‘AWAKENING’ explores the dangers of forced ignorance and deception when it comes to the lives of young people; a group of schoolchildren trying to navigate the unknowns of adolescence leads to disastrous consequences. @thenewtheatre

Being Posy Four in a Bed Theatre Company A reflective look at coming of age, coming out and coming some conclusions. Written during lockdown uncertainty, Posy explores sexuality, friendships and standing out whilst fitting in this light hearted and heart warming show.

Bookshelf Ballad Anne Rabbitt What are the books saying behind the TV pundits? Using only titles found on her own shelves, Anne gives them voice in a poignant poem that is both tender and funny. You’ll never arrange your books alphabetically again. @RabbittAnne

Boom Room Our Star Theatre Company Adrian bravely attempts to enter the Boom Room for a school reunion. However, technological and personal challenges along the way lead to an experience that will probably resound with many people right now, as he struggles to be digitally woke! @ourstartheatre

Bubble Show with Dr Bubble and Milkshake Bubble Laboratory Ecological Bubble Show presents different ways we can save the planet through bubbles. Physical comedy with environmental awareness and bubbles, it contains square and smoke-filled bubbles, rainbows, spinning carousels, vortexes, juggle bubbles, bubble snakes, floating bubbles and a grand finale.

Coronavirus Underwood’s New Taskforce Grubby Gnome Productions Goodly folks the country over volunteer to help the aged and infirm during lockdown. Except in Underwood, where the people who volunteer have ulterior motives more to do with helping themselves rather than others. Apart from Felicity of course.

Defying GraviTT The Fabulous TT With 2020 hindsight (magnified by her new designer reading glasses) The Fabulous TT aka Tish Tindall asks where the year has gone, why she will never be painted green, and what on earth happened to her under-there-webcam-wear? @FabMusicals

Detachment Blueberry Goose Theatre Group A 10-minute drama, set in COVID-19 lockdown and inspired by real events, about lust, betrayal, revenge and tins of pain(t). @goose_group

Glitch Anomaly Theatre Company First we taught Artificial Intelligence to drive. Then we taught it to feel. But when a driverless car runs over Neil’s girlfriend, both Neil and the A.I. are having to learn grief. Is emotion just a glitch in our programming? @AnomalyTheatre

Haunted Three Chairs and a Hat Do you believe in ghosts? When there’s no-one else in the house, it can be difficult to decide. Three Chairs and a Hat present HAUNTED, a study of isolation and obsession, written and performed by Nia Williams. @ChairsHat

Hyper-Nice: Passive Aggresive Co-vid Poetry David Watson Comedy Poetry born in lockdown . The new hell of the Friday night zoom cocktail hour and the schadenfreude behind the Thursday Clap provide the subject matter for poetry @hypernice2

Interrodated Anomaly Theatre Company He thinks he’s interrogating a suspect. She thinks she’s on a blind date. This is not going to end well. @AnomalyTheatre

Lockdown Drag-out Batty Hatsters At first, Audrey revels in the unexpected gift of time at home, but outside influences force changes that could destroy her and all she has worked so hard to achieve.

Love , Loss and Quarantine The Swells A brief story with three songs, rejoicing in new-found love during lockdown after the pain of personal bereavement. A 15-minute show that was put together two metres apart without breathing!

Play in Your Bathtub Flying Solo! and This Is Not A Theatre Company This Immersive Audio Spa for Physical Distancing is a site-specific immersive experience taking place in your own bathtub (or a foot bath or bucket of water). Join us for poetry, singing, and Dances for Small Appendages. Soundtrack at thisisnotatheatrecompany@gmail.com @notatheatreco

Rehearsal Etiquette Swell Theatre This short play captures one small theatre company’s attempt to rehearse for their new musical during lockdown, an online rehearsal spirals into chaos as they discover that rehearsing online is easier said than done. @swelltheatre

The Silly and Unnecessary Variety Show Lori Hamilton Live from New York, it’s comedian Lori Hamilton’s one-woman variety show. Featuring Opera Product Placement • Lori’s Cats Tell Kid’s Jokes • Winning at Work During Covid • A Tipsy Midwest Mom • Audience Questions!! What more could you ask for? Cats @TheLoriHamilton

Spring The Nottingham New Theatre ‘SPRING’ tells the story of a group of teenagers, as they rebel against their controlling parents, struggle to navigate love, and deal with tragedies around them; they begin to discover their individuality, their sexuality, and ultimately their freedom of choice. @thenewtheatre

The Murder(ed) Musketeers Highly Suspect Join acclaimed ‘Mystery maestros’ Highly Suspect for a hilarious interactive online murder mystery which you, the audience, must solve! There’s a fiendish plot, evidence to examine, and cryptic clues to crack, but can you catch the killer and deduce whodunnit

The Plague Thing Putney Theatre Company Enid’s enjoyment of her twilight years has been overshadowed by government guidelines produced for care homes in response to a global pandemic. In this moving monologue, Enid invites you into her world in the age of lockdown. @PutneyTheatreCo

The Van Raised Voices Life is hard just now, for everyone. For those who’s life was hard before though, well you can imagine. Watch a snapshot into the lives of some who struggled with everyday life in normal times, you might just be surprised.

The Writings on the Wallpaper Paper Dolls Theatre A light-hearted comedy following the clueless Tim and Samantha, as they sit down to interview hopeful applicants for their brand new tech firm. Get your CV ready as we beg the question… ‘on the scale of 1 to 10’ @paperdolls2020

Those Girls JAM Productions Those Girls shines a light on the important issues riddling our youth today: sexual abuse, discrimination and mental health. Award winner, Abigail Cook’s poem, “How We Survive (Girlhood)” is reinvented and reimagined in this striking, hopeful piece of digital theatre.

Too bored to stay in, too scared to go out! Nigel Osner Cabaret songs and monologues reflecting the varying implications of Covid-19 for male and female characters. ‘Tremendously talented and very entertaining’ and Fringe Review said ’a performer with finesse and charm’ (Scotsman) @nigelosner

Under Heaven’s Eyes Christopher Tajah A new 45 minute solo-play which asks; Did George Floyd’s killing mark a turning point for real change or another false dawn? While exploring how systemic and systematic societal racism squeezes’ BAME communities to the margins. @ctajahofficial

Until the Ad Break Maverick Charles Productions Until the Ad Break is an absurd comedy sketch set just before the end of the world. Follow plucky daytime TV hosts Francine, Dale, and their weather reporter Gabriel as they come to terms with impending apocalypse live on air. @MCharlesProd

When Judas Met John – songs of Dylan and Lennon Brothers Broke Irish duo Brothers Broke compare, adapt and perform selected songs by both artists, and consider their compositions and influences on each other.Presented in an acoustic bluesy style with tight sibling harmonies.

Edinburgh Fringe in Your Home! The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is going online. (Check out the thirty below.)  Now, officially; the oldest and largest fringe festival has been canceled because of the pandemic.

[serialslaughters]

Axeman of New Orleans

Serial Killer Files, 8

In what could only be described as both an oddly alluring and unusually thrilling case, the notorious Axeman of New Orleans left his mark on history via blood stained foootprints.  In the early 1900s, the killer left behind a trail of gruesomely murdered bodies throughout the colorful and historical town of New Orleans, Louisiana, striking terror into the hearts of every resident. Swinging his axe and writing cryptic letters with blood stained hands, the disturbing murderer was never identified and he may perhaps never be. This week, we cover the case of the Axeman of New Orleans.

For roughly 18 months, the city of New Orleans was terrorized by the lurking presence of the self-proclaimed “Axeman”, a killer who was the literal manifestation of the devil. His bloody axe would be the result of twelve attacks and six murders between 1918 and 1919. Frighteningly, the Axeman would only strike during the night and would almost always exclusively murder his victims in their sleep. Furthermore, the terrifying killer never used his own weapons in his attacks. Instead, he would utilize only what he could find in the victims’ households, usually an axe. 

Having successfully established the scene, we will now discuss the series of murders that occurred at the hands of the Axeman.

May 23, 1918 - On one fateful night in Magnolia street, New Orleans, Catherine and Joseph Maggio were brutally murdered with an axe in their own home. They were found on the blood drenched sheets of their bed with their throats slit by a razor. Catherine was almost entirely decapitated and Joseph was severely injured. The bodies were found by Joseph’s brothers, who also resided in the house. Nothing was discovered at the scene except for a bloody axe and shattered glass from a panel that had been knocked out from the bottom of the kitchen door. At the time, fingerprinting had been invented, but was not a standard procedure.

June 28, 1918 - Just a little over a month later, another attack occurred on the corner of Dorgenois and Leharpe streets. Severely injured, Louis Besumer and Anna Lowe were discovered by a baker named John Zanka who had been doing his morning deliveries. While both victims fortunately survived the attack, Anna would die almost two months later. She recalled to the police that a large white male with a hatchet had attacked them. Again, the only evidence found at the scene was a missing bottom panel of their bedroom door and a bloody axe.

August 5, 1918 - Once again, the Axeman only waited a month before striking again. Mrs. Ed Schneider’s body was found by her husband in the afternoon at their home. Mrs. Schneider was still alive when her husband returned and she was rushed to the hospital where she was treated. The Schneiders’ axe was missing from the shed and was not found in their home. However, to shed light on a dark event, Mrs. Schneider was not only able to survive the whole ordeal but she also was able to give birth to a healthy baby who also survived just one week later.

August 10, 1918 - Just five days later, near Tonti and Gravier street, 80 year old Joseph Romano was found by his nieces Mary and Pauline after they heard him struggling. His head was horrendously slammed in and he was covered in blood. Again, an axe was thought to have been utilized in the attack. The two girls allegedly saw the man and described him to be “dark, tall, heavy-set, wearing a dark suit, and a black slouch hat.” Joseph Romano would die two days later.

According to local newspapers at the time, police were working overtime and were heavily armed as they patrolled the streets of New Orleans. This extra work must have produced results because the next attack did not occur until almost eight months later, in March of the following year.

March 10, 1919 - One one dark March night, the Cortimiglia family was attacked. Rose Cortimiglia awoke to her husband, Charles Cortimiglia, attempting to fight off the Axeman -  a fight that was ultimately lost. Rose and her two year old daughter were also attacked, and while Rose and Charles survived, Mary unfortunately did not. The axe that was used in this murder belonged to the Cortimiglias.

March 15, 1919 - Five days later, a New Orleans newspaper called The Times Picayune received a letter from the supposed Axeman. The letter would trigger extreme fear in the residents of New Orleans, especially a certain clause that would undoubtedly make history. The letter read:

 “Hell, March 13, 1919. Esteemed mortal, they have never caught me, and they never will. They have never seen me or I am invisible, even as the ether, which surrounds your Earth. I am not a human being, but a spirit and a fell demon from the hottest hell. I am what you Orleanians and your foolish police call The Axeman.  They have been so utterly stupid so as to amuse not only me, but his satanic majesty...but tell them to beware. Let them not try to discover what I am, for it were better that they never were born than for them to incur the wrath of the Axeman. Undoubtedly you Orleanians think of me as a most horrible murderer, which I am, but I could be much worse if I wanted to...at will I could slay thousands of your best citizens, for I am in close relationship with the angel of death. Now, to be exact, at 12:15 o’clock (earthly time) on next Tuesday night, I am going to pass over New Orleans. In my infinite mercy, I’m going to make a little proposition to the people. I am very fond of Jazz music and I swear by all the devils in the nether regions, that every person shall be spared in whose house a jazz band is in full swing at the time I have just mentioned. If everyone has a jazz band going, well then, so much the better for the people. One thing is certain and that is some of those persons who do not jazz it on Tuesday, if any, will get the axe.”

March 19, 1919 - On the Tuesday mentioned in the letter, jazz was loud in every corner of New Orleans. Every family in every house blasted jazz music and those who did not own a record player flooded local jazz houses. It is said that the city was truly alive that night (ironically). No one was killed on March 19, 1919.

August 10, 1919 - Steve Boca awoke one night to a man standing at the foot of his bed who severely injured him with an axe. Boca managed to survive the attack by staggering to a friend’s house with a bloody and gashed in head. Boca was unable to retain any memories of the attack due to the injuries on his head.

September 1919 - Early the next month, on 2128 Second Street, nineteen year old Sarah Laumann was attacked by a man who entered through a lower window in her bedroom. When Laumann regained consciousness, she was unable to recall the attack. 

October 27, 1919 - Two months later, at the corner of South Scott and Ulloa Street, the Axeman attacked Esther and Mike Pepitone, a young married couple. Esther awoke at one in the morning to the sound of her husband’s screams, and ran to his bedroom where she found his bloody, injured body. Mike had been hit in the head eighteen times and passed away two hours later. Esther saw two men at the scene, but was unable to identify them or recognize any specific details. A heavy bolt meant to hold down circus tents was one of the weapons used at the scene. 

This attack finalizes the timeline of the Axeman’s murders, bringing us to the list of theories regarding the Axeman’s reign of terror.

Theory #1 - The Axeman didn’t murder all his alleged victims. Many believe that Mike Pepitone’s murder was the work of the mafia and not of the Axeman, due to Mike’s father’s past. The attack on Louis Besumer and Anna Lowe has also been analyzed as an attack that was not done at the hands of the Axeman. In this specific attack, Anna Lowe did not survive, but Louis Besumer did. Bizarrely, Louis was charged with Anna’s murder due to strange letters found in his home that were written in Yiddish and Russian. It was decided that the letters were written to a German Spy ring that Louis Besumer worked for and he was thrown into jail. However, Louis Besumer was eventually let out due to a complete lack of evidence that supported the theory that he was a German spy murderer. It wouldn’t make sense for him to severly injure himself with an axe. Furthermore, Anna lived for two months and never mentioned her husband as the killer. While many believe that the Axeman didn’t commit all the murders, it isn’t widely believed and doesn’t have much evidence to support it.

Theory # 2 - The Axeman was a supernatural phantom. Some believe that, given the context of his letters, the Axeman isn’t a human being at all. This might explain why he could very silently and easily slip through small entrances and why he was never found. However, eyewitness testimonies do not support this theory and neither does anything else.

Theory #3 - Joseph Mumfre was the Axeman. This theory suggests an actual suspect. For this theory, lets return to the Pepitone murder. In that murder, Esther survived the attack but Mike did not. Unable to bare the sorrow, Esther moved to Los Angeles where she married Angelo Albano. Eerily, on the second anniversary of Mike Pepitone’s death, Esther’s second husband, Angelo, vanished into thin air and was never seen again. 

Esther recalled that before her marriage to Mike Pepitone, Mike had closed a deal with a man who went by man names. One of them being Joseph Mumfre. On December 5, 1921, Mumfre visited Esther’s home in Los Angeles. He demanded that Esther give him $500 and all her jewelry or he would “kill her the same way he had killed her husband”. However, Esther killed him with a revolver before he could hurt or rob her. When Esther was taken to the LAPD for Mumfre’s death, she claimed that Mumfre was the Axeman of New Orleans. The LAPD had noted that Mumfre being the Axeman made sense. The police found that Mumfre lead a blackmailing gang in New Orleans that targeted Italians and almost all the Axeman’s victims were Italians.  In the end, however, all the evidence that linked Mumfre to the Axeman was circumstantial. 

While there are many interesting theories surrounding this case, there are no clues or suspects to go off of. It seems that, for now, the Axeman of New Orleans’ identity may forever be hidden and this case may consequently remain unsolved.

[woodsens]

best portable keyboard

Correction Appended

On an album of bittersweet childrens tunes that she wrote greater than a decade back, the girl who came to get recognized only since the piano teacher offered what, in hindsight, seems like an eerie glimpse of her possess long term.

Im relocating away today to an area so far away, wherever no one is familiar with my title, she wrote inside the lyrics of a track referred to as Transferring.

When she wrote that music, she was youthful and vivacious, a piano Trainer and freelance music writer who cherished Beethoven and jazz, sunsets and river Appears, extended walks and every thing about Big apple.

On a type of beloved walks, as a result of Central Park in the bright sun of a June working day in 1996, a homeless drifter beat her and made an effort to rape her, leaving her clinging to daily life. Following the assault, the words and phrases to her track came true. She moved absent, from Ny city, outside of her aged lifetime, and all but her closest buddies did not know her identify. To the remainder of the earth, she was — such as the extra well known jogger attacked in Central Park seven several years earlier — an nameless symbol of an urban nightmare. She was the piano Trainer.

Now, about the tenth anniversary with the attack, she is celebrating what seems to be her comprehensive recovery from brain trauma. She is 42, married, with a small little one. She is Kyle Kevorkian McCann, the piano Trainer, and he or she wishes to tell her story, her way.

Her health practitioner informed her it might just take 10 years to recover, and Sunday was that talismanic anniversary. I really feel my existence has long been redefined by Central Park, she explained various days ago, her voice smooth and hopeful. Prior to park; immediately after park. Will there ever be a time Once i dont Consider, Oh, this is the 10th anniversary, the eleventh anniversary?

She spoke in her modest ranch residence within a wooded subdivision inside of a Big apple suburb. She sat inside a eating area strewn with toys, surrounded by images of her cherubic, darkish-haired 2-calendar year-previous daughter. A Steinway grand stuffed half the home, and at a single stage she sat down and performed. Her actively playing was forceful, but she appeared ashamed to Engage in various bars, and shrugged, instead of answering, when asked the title on the piece. She questioned that her daughter and her town not be named.

She phone calls that working day, June 4, 1996, the working day Once i was hurt.

Hers was the first within a string of attacks by a similar gentleman on four Gals more than eight days. The last sufferer, Evelyn Alvarez, sixty five, was beaten to Demise as she opened her Park Avenue dry-cleaning store, and eventually, the assailant, John J. Royster, was convicted of murder and sentenced to lifestyle in prison.

Nonetheless the assault to the piano Trainer is definitely the a single persons appear to keep in mind one of the most. Component of the fascination has got to do with echoes of the 1989 attack over the Central Park jogger. But it also frightened people in a method the attack about the jogger didn't simply because its instances ended up so mundane.

It didn't happen inside of a distant Element of the park late in the evening, but near a well-liked playground at 3 in the afternoon. It could have took place to any individual. The stress was heightened by the mystery on the piano instructors id.

For three times, as law enforcement and Health professionals experimented with to discover who she was, she lay in the coma in her hospital mattress, anonymous. Her dad and mom ended up on getaway and her boyfriend, also a musician, was in Europe, on tour. Last but not least, amongst her students acknowledged a police sketch and was in a position to recognize her from the medical center by her fingers, for the reason that her experience was swollen further than recognition. The law enforcement did not release her identify.

The very last thing she remembers about June 4, 1996, is giving a lesson in her studio apartment on West 57th Road, then Placing her long hair inside a ponytail and likely out for any walk. She doesn't bear in mind the attack, Though she has read the accounts in the law enforcement and prosecutors.

To me its similar to a actuality I realized and memorized, she reported. Like I had been a pupil at school researching heritage.

She does not contemplate The person who did it. I might need been angry for the minute, but not for much longer than that, she explained. How could I be angry at John Royster? He was declared not insane, but I assume by our criteria he was.

Dr. Jamshid Ghajar, her medical doctor at Big apple Healthcare facility-Cornell Medical Middle, as it was acknowledged in 1996, instructed reporters that she experienced a 10 % potential for survival. Physicians had to get rid of her forehead bone, which was afterwards changed, for making place for her swelling brain. When her mother made a general public appeal to pray for my daughter, hundreds did.

Just after 8 days, she came outside of a coma, very first inside of a vegetative point out, then in the childlike condition. As she recovered, she slept minor and talked continuously, sometimes in gibberish. I used to be finding mad at people once they didnt respond to these phrases, she mentioned.

Like an Alzheimers individual, she had very little shorter-expression memory and would forget about site visitors the moment they still left the place.

More than a number of months, she needed to relearn how to stroll, gown, read through and publish. Her boyfriend, Tony Scherr, frequented everyday to Engage in guitar for her. He inspired her to Enjoy the piano, in opposition to the recommendation of her Bodily therapists, who considered she could be frustrated by her inability to Participate in just how she after experienced. Mr. Scherr played Beatles duets together with her, participating in the left-hand aspect while she played the best.

That was my most effective therapy, she stated.

In August, she moved back again household to New Jersey, along with her father, an engineer, and mom, a schoolteacher. She visited outdated haunts and identified as pals, making an attempt to revive her shattered memory. I used to be really obsessed with remembering, she said. Any memory decline was to me a sign of abnormality or deficit.

Her therapists thought her progress was fantastic, but her two sisters protested that she wasn't the deep thinker she had been.

What bothered her most was that she experienced dropped the opportunity to cry, just as if a faucet within her brain were turned off. Just one night time, 9 months soon after she was damage, she stayed up late to look at the John Grisham movie A The perfect time to Eliminate. Just following her father experienced absent to bed, she viewed a courtroom scene of Samuel Jacksons character on trial for killing two men who experienced raped his young daughter.

The faucet opened, plus the tears trickled down her cheeks. I thought of my moms and dads, my father, and whatever they went through, she mentioned. Minimal by little, my emotion returned, my depth of intellect returned.

Urged by her sisters, she went back to school and got a masters diploma in music instruction.

Not anything went very well. She and Mr. Scherr split up five years following the assault, while they remain buddies. She dated other Adult males, but she often explained to them in regards to the assault instantly — she couldn't assistance it, she claimed — plus they in no way called for your 2nd date.

We now have to search out you a person, her Good friend David Phelps, a guitar participant, mentioned four decades in the past, prior to introducing her to Liam McCann, a pc technician and novice drummer. For at the time, she didn't say everything with regard to the attack right up until she obtained to understand Mr. McCann, after which you can when she did, he admired her strength.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who had frequently visited her at her bedside when she was inside the clinic, married them in his Occasions Sq. Office environment. She wore a blue dress and pearls. While she was Expecting, within a burst of creative imagination, she and her pals recorded Whilst Have been Youthful, an album of childrens tracks that she had composed prior to the assault, including the track Moving. Her ex-boyfriend, Mr. Scherr, produced the CD. On it, her spouse plays drums and he or she plays electrical piano.

Is her existence as it had been? Not precisely, although she is unwilling to attribute the differences to her accidents. Her very last two piano pupils still left her, devoid of calling to explain why, she stated. She has resumed participating in classical tunes, but uncomplicated pieces, mainly because her daughter isn't going to give her time and energy to exercise. As for jazz, I dont even try, she stated.

She would want to drive much more, sensation stranded while in the suburbs, but she is definitely rattled. She tries to be content with keeping house and caring for her daughter.

Dr. Ghajar, a scientific professor of neurological surgical treatment at what's now termed Ny-Presbyterian Healthcare facility/Weill Cornell Professional medical Heart, who operated on Ms. Kevorkian McCann once the attack, said last week that her volume of recovery was rare. Shes fundamentally regular, he stated.

Other industry experts, who will be not Individually acquainted with Ms. Kevorkian McCanns circumstance, are more careful.

Regaining a chance to Engage in the piano might include an almost mechanical course of action, a semiautomatic remember of just what the fingers must do, mentioned Dr. Yehuda Ben-Yishay, a professor of medical rehabilitation drugs at Big apple College University of Drugs. At the time Mind-injured, you will be generally brain-injured, For the remainder of your daily life, Dr. Ben-Yishay stated. There isn't a get rid of, There's only intensive compensation.

The more telling Section of a Restoration, in his perspective, is psychological, and on that score he counts Ms. Kevorkian McCanns marriage and youngster as a significant victory.

For her element, the piano Instructor is aware she has modified, but she has designed her peace with it. I used to be type of a hyper —— I dont know if I used to be a Type A, but I was ambitious, she suggests. Why was I so ambitious? I had been a piano Trainer. I dont understand what the ambition was about. I actually did come back to the individual Im purported to be.

[woodsens]

The Most Influential People in the fire inside music Industry and Their Celebrity Dopplegangers

Correction Appended

On an album of bittersweet childrens music that she wrote greater than a decade ago, the woman who came to get recognised only as being the piano Instructor provided what, in hindsight, seems like an eerie glimpse of her have long term.

Im going absent today to an area so distant, the place nobody understands my identify, she wrote while in the lyrics of a track identified as Relocating.

When she wrote that song, she was younger and vivacious, a piano Trainer and freelance audio writer who liked Beethoven and jazz, sunsets and river Appears, extended walks and almost everything about Big apple.

On one of those beloved walks, by way of Central Park in the bright Sunshine of the June day in 1996, a homeless drifter conquer her and attempted to rape her, leaving her clinging to everyday living. Following the attack, the phrases to her track came real. She moved away, out of Ny city, from her previous life, and all but her closest close friends didn't know her name. To the remainder of the planet, she was — similar to the additional well known jogger attacked in Central Park seven many years previously — an anonymous symbol of the city nightmare. She was the piano Instructor.

Now, about the 10th anniversary on the assault, she's celebrating what appears to be her complete recovery from Mind trauma. She's forty two, married, with a small boy or girl. She's Kyle Kevorkian McCann, the piano teacher, and she or he wants to convey to her Tale, her way.

Her doctor told her it could just take ten years to recover, and Sunday was that talismanic anniversary. I sense my everyday living continues to be redefined by Central Park, she said a number of times in the past, her voice smooth and hopeful. In advance of park; immediately after park. Will there ever certainly be a time Once i dont Feel, Oh, Here is the 10th anniversary, the 11th anniversary?

She spoke in her modest ranch house in the wooded subdivision in a The big apple suburb. She sat in a very eating room strewn with toys, surrounded by pictures of her cherubic, dim-haired 2-calendar year-outdated daughter. A Steinway grand stuffed 50 percent the place, and at one place she sat down and performed. Her actively playing was forceful, but she appeared humiliated to Engage in more than a few bars, and shrugged, rather then answering, when requested the name of your piece. She questioned that her daughter and her town not be named.

She phone calls that working day, June four, 1996, the working day when I was damage.

Hers was the main within a string of attacks by the same guy on four Gals above eight times. The final target, Evelyn Alvarez, sixty five, was crushed to Dying as she opened her Park Avenue dry-cleansing shop, and in the end, the assailant, John J. Royster, was convicted of murder and sentenced to existence in prison.

Nevertheless the attack around the piano teacher would be the just one individuals appear to recollect one of the most. Part of the fascination has got to do with echoes in the 1989 attack to the Central Park jogger. But Furthermore, it frightened folks in a method the attack to the jogger did not because its instances were so mundane.

It did not occur inside of a remote A part of the park late in the evening, but near a preferred playground at 3 during the afternoon. It could have took place to anybody. The tension was heightened with the secret of the piano lecturers identity.

For 3 times, as law enforcement and Medical practitioners tried using to see who she was, she lay inside a coma in her medical center mattress, nameless. Her dad and mom were being on getaway and her boyfriend, also a musician, was in Europe, on tour. Lastly, one of her learners regarded a law enforcement sketch and was ready to identify her from the clinic by her fingers, due to the fact her experience was swollen over and above recognition. The law enforcement did not release her name.

The last thing she remembers about June four, 1996, is offering a lesson in her studio condominium on West 57th Avenue, then putting her prolonged hair within a ponytail and likely out for just a stroll. She would not remember the attack, Despite the fact that she has read the accounts of the police and prosecutors.

To me its just like a reality I discovered and memorized, she claimed. Just as if I were a pupil in school learning history.

She will not think of The person who did it. I may have been offended to get a second, but not a lot longer than that, she said. How could I be indignant at John Royster? He was declared not insane, but I suppose by our specifications he was.

Dr. Jamshid Ghajar, her health care provider at Big apple Medical center-Cornell Medical Heart, as it absolutely was recognised in 1996, instructed reporters that she had a 10 per cent possibility of survival. Doctors experienced to eliminate her forehead bone, which was later on replaced, to generate home for her swelling Mind. When her mother produced a public attract pray for my daughter, thousands did.

Immediately after eight days, she arrived out of a coma, to start with inside a vegetative point out, then in a very childlike point out. As she recovered, she slept little and talked consistently, occasionally in gibberish. I used to be obtaining mad at people whenever they didnt respond to these terms, she said.

Like an Alzheimers individual, she had very little quick-phrase memory and would fail to remember readers as soon as they remaining the space.

About various months, she needed to relearn ways to wander, costume, go through and produce. Her boyfriend, Tony Scherr, visited every single day to Perform guitar for her. He inspired her to Perform the piano, from the recommendation of her physical therapists, who believed she could well be disappointed by her lack of ability to Engage in the way she after experienced. Mr. Scherr performed Beatles duets together with her, taking part in the left-hand portion although she performed the right.

Which was my ideal therapy, she said.

In August, she moved back household to New Jersey, with her father, an engineer, and mom, a schoolteacher. She visited outdated haunts and identified as friends, seeking to revive her shattered memory. I was pretty obsessed with remembering, she claimed. Any memory loss was to me a sign of abnormality or deficit.

Her therapists assumed her development was great, but her two sisters protested that she wasn't the deep thinker she were.

What bothered her most was that she had misplaced the chance to cry, as though a faucet within her brain had been turned off. Just one evening, nine months immediately after she was damage, she stayed up late to observe the John Grisham Film A Time for you to Get rid of. Just following her father had long gone to mattress, she watched a courtroom scene of Samuel Jacksons character on demo for killing two Adult males who experienced raped his youthful daughter.

The faucet opened, and also the tears trickled down her cheeks. I considered my mother and father, my father, and what they went as a result of, she explained. Small by very little, my experience returned, my depth of mind returned.

Urged by her sisters, she went back again to highschool and acquired a masters diploma in music education and learning.

Not every thing went nicely. She and Mr. Scherr break up up five years after the assault, although they continue to be pals. She dated other Adult men, but she usually instructed them with regard to the assault instantly — she could not enable it, she explained — and so they never identified as for the next day.

We've got to uncover you someone, her Pal David Phelps, a guitar participant, reported 4 a long time back, before introducing her to Liam McCann, a pc technician and novice drummer. For when, she did not say anything at all with regards to the attack right up until she obtained to understand Mr. McCann, after which when she did, he admired her energy.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who experienced normally visited her at her bedside while she was within the healthcare facility, married them in his Moments Square Business. She wore a blue costume and pearls. Even though she was Expecting, inside of a burst of creativeness, she and her pals recorded Though Were being Younger, an album of childrens music that she experienced penned ahead of the assault, including the song Relocating. Her ex-boyfriend, Mr. Scherr, produced the CD. On it, her spouse plays drums and she performs electrical piano.

Is her lifestyle as it absolutely was? Not exactly, although she's unwilling to attribute the discrepancies to her accidents. Her very last two piano pupils left her, without contacting to clarify why, she mentioned. She has resumed playing classical songs, but simple parts, simply because her daughter doesn't give her time for you to follow. As for jazz, I dont even try, she reported.

She want to drive additional, emotion stranded in the suburbs, but she is well rattled. She attempts to be written content with staying household and caring for her daughter.

Dr. Ghajar, a scientific professor of neurological surgical procedure at what's now called Big apple-Presbyterian Medical center/Weill Cornell Healthcare Middle, who operated on Ms. Kevorkian McCann following the assault, reported final 7 days that her level of Restoration was rare. Shes mainly typical, he explained.

Other specialists, who will be not personally familiar with Ms. Kevorkian McCanns situation, tend to be more careful.

Regaining a chance to Participate in the piano may possibly require an Virtually mechanical process, a semiautomatic remember of just what the fingers must do, claimed Dr. Yehuda Ben-Yishay, a professor of clinical rehabilitation medicine at The big apple College School of Medicine. As soon as brain-injured, you are often Mind-wounded, for the rest of your life, Dr. Ben-Yishay mentioned. There isn't any overcome, You can find only intense compensation.

The greater telling Portion of a recovery, in his watch, is psychological, and on that score he counts Ms. Kevorkian McCanns relationship and little one as a significant victory.

For her aspect, the piano Instructor appreciates she has transformed, but she has made her peace with it. I was form of a hyper —— I dont know if I used to be a sort A, but I was bold, she says. Why was I so formidable? I was a piano Instructor. I dont understand what the ambition was about. I really did come back to the individual Im designed to be.