#'he finally showed his true colors' cicero is that you

[aion-rsa]

Biggest Movie Traitors and Backstabbers in Cinema

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Last week, as part of the streaming service’s ongoing plan to bring Warner Brothers’ slate of theatrical releases to audiences at home HBO Max premiered Judas and the Black Messiah on the same day it opened in theaters. Directed by Shaka King, the incendiary historical drama centers on the rise of Fred Hampton, the charismatic Black Panther Party leader, and his tragic betrayal at the hands of FBI informant William O’Neal.  Daniel Kaluuya stars as Hampton, a scorched-earth performance that attempts to recreate the magnetism and magma-like intensity of the revolutionary figure, but Kaluuya is somehow not the star of the film.

The film’s true protagonist is O’Neal, played by LaKeith Stanfield. After getting himself into some hot water, O’Neal is propositioned by FBI agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons) to either infiltrate the Black Panther Party and report back on his findings or face jail time. At first O’Neal seems to luxuriate in the kickbacks he’s given by Mitchell for his intel but he quickly learns how dangerous it is to lead a double life. O’Neal also has to try to reconcile betraying the very movement he’s spent real time and energy trying to build.

Stanfield’s performance is filled with queasy anxiety and paranoia but also cockroach-like survival tics. It’s an all-time great turncoat performance, worthy of the biblical reference in the film’s title. To honor Stanfield’s turn as “Wild” Bill O’Neil, here’s a countdown of some of cinema’s greatest backstabbers.

Fredo Corleone – The Godfather Part II (1974)

Fredo Corleone, the least intelligent and most ineffectual of Don Vito’s children, has become something of a pejorative term used against anyone deemed to be the lesser sibling in a famous family. Played with a sense of melancholy and knowing pity by esteemed character actor John Cazale, Fredo’s betrayal of his brother Michael is due more to petty jealousy than it is to Machiavellian scheming or dreams of leading the Corelone Crime Family.

As the character pathetically rages, “‘Send Fredo off to do this. Send Fredo off to do that. Let Fredo take care of some Mickey Mouse night club somewhere’… I can handle things! I’m smart! Not like everybody says!” The worst part about Fredo’s actions against his family is that it’s unclear if Fredo actually knew what was being planned against his brother or whether he was just blindly jumping at the opportunity to be important and have something for himself.

Lando Calrissian – Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Perhaps the most lovable backstabber on the list, Lando at least shows some backbone and tries to make up for his nearly unforgivable alliance with the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader. While serving as Baron Administrator of Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back, Lando is visited by Vader and bounty hunter Boba Fett and told to help trap his old friend Han Solo and the Rebels seeking sanctuary in Cloud City in exchange for the safety of the city’s citizens.

After selling his friend out, Lando has a change of heart when he overhears Han being tortured and realizes that Vader and the Empire were already reneging on their promises. He helps Leia and Chewbacca escape, and is able to evacuate Cloud City before the Empire is able to retaliate. Later he participates in the near-incompressible plot to rescue Han Solo and serves as a key general in the Rebel Alliance. Still, even back when he’s on the wrong side of the fight, Billy Dee Williams is able to turn Lando an appealing character, making his eventual redemption that much sweeter.

Henry Hill – Goodfellas (1990)

Ray Liotta plays the ultimate rat. After a long and fruitful career as a capo for local boss Paulie Cicero, Henry Hill’s mafia lifestyle comes to a final, screeching halt after he’s arrested by narcotics agents while trying to facilitate unapproved drug deals with his Pittsburgh associates. Henry’s good friend Tommy jokingly posits that Henry would crack under questioning earlier in the film, but Henry’s damning testimony against his associates Jimmy Conway and Paulie is all about survival: Henry knows that if he doesn’t cover his own ass, Jimmy will have him and his wife killed.

Read more

Culture

The Real Goodfellas: Gangsters That Inspired the Martin Scorsese Film

By Tony Sokol

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The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone Proves a Little Less is Infinitely More

By Tony Sokol

Becoming the very thing that mafioso’s hate most of all, Henry turns on his friends and is forced into the witness protection program. All Henry ever wanted was to be a gangster, but in the protection program, he’s reduced to “an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.” It’s a fate that may be worse than death for him.

Mr. Orange – Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Arguably the villain of the story, depending on who’s side you’re on, Mr. Orange is actually L.A.P.D. undercover cop Freddy Newandyke. Looking to bring down crime boss Joe Cabot, Mr. Orange infiltrates his crew and takes part in diamond heist gone bad. In the ensuing chaos, Mr. Orange is shot and ends up killing an innocent civilian in retaliation. Played by Tim Roth, Mr. Orange screams and cries as he believes he’s fatally wounded, but it’s also possible that he’s airing out the guilt he feels in letting his undercover operation get so out of hand.

Without going into all of the bloodshed in the conclusion of Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, Mr. Orange’s double agent status is so sound that it eventually leads to the demise of almost all of Cabot’s colorful crew, and Orange then feels compelled to confess his deception, resulting in an ambiguous ending that most believe concludes with his death.

Dennis Nedry – Jurassic Park (1993)

Wayne Knight’s Dennis Nedry is probably the most cartoonish Benedict Arnold of the bunch, and if you think about it, the only human antagonist in the original Jurassic Park film, if you’re not counting short-sighted, megalomaniacal John Hammond. The slovenly Nedry is chief architect of the computer system at the fledgling Jurassic Park theme park, and he’s miffed by perceived low pay. So he decides to take an offer from Lewis Dodgson (“DODGSON, WE GOT DODGSON HERE!) of rival biotech company Biosyn to steal embryos of 15 dinosaur species in exchange for $61,500,000.

To make his grand escape with the embryos, Nedry shuts down the park’s security systems, including the electric fences surrounding the dinosaur paddocks. He also uploads a self-aggrandizing computer virus to prevent the systems from being quickly turned back on. However, a perfect combination of his own harebrained scheme and a nasty storm leaves Nedry stranded and at the mercy of a young Dilophosaurus. It does not end well.

Cypher – The Matrix (1999)

Cypher’s betrayal of the Nebuchadnezzar crew in The Matrix is pretty easy to see coming, and not just because the character is played by Joe Pantoliano, who’s portrayed many malcontents throughout his career. Cypher being a red pill dabbler and wishes he had taken the blue pill instead. He also outwardly makes his disapproval of Morpheus known throughout the movie. Using “ignorance is bliss” as his mantra, he strikes a deal with Agent Smith to return him to the Matrix and erase his memory of ever awakening from it in exchange for selling Morpheus out.

Read more

Movies

The Matrix 4 Already Happened: Revisiting The Matrix Online

By John Saavedra

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Jurassic World: Top Jurassic Park Deaths by Dinosaurs

By David Crow

After tipping Smith off to a meeting with the Oracle, Cypher goes full villain and unflinchingly kills Dozer, Apoc, and Switch before finally being stopped and killed. At least he’s free from the reality he hated so much.

“Mad Eye Moody” (aka Barty Crouch Jr.) – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)

What’s a bigger betrayal: Death Eater Barty Crouch Jr. revealing that he’s been impersonating Alator “Mad Eye” Moody for the entirety of Harry Potter’s fourth year at Hogwarts, or Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling revealing herself to be a transphobe, betraying many of the themes of her beloved book series? We’ll leave that one to you, dear reader.

However, Barty Crouch Jr. (David Tennant before he was the Doctor) memorably betrays Harry Potter and the Hogwarts community by using the Polyjuice Potion to impersonate the former Auror and ensure that Harry would get into the Triwizard Tournament and ascend to the Third Task, which was a trap to help Lord Voldemort return to a body of his own. At least the real Mad Eye didn’t actually turn his back on those that revered him (like Rowling).

Colin Sullivan – The Departed (2006)

The biggest rat in a film full of “gnawing, cheese-eating fucking rats,” Sgt. Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) is the criminal counterpoint to Leonardo DiCaprio’s undercover cop Billy Costigan, an undercover gangster who serves as the personal mole to Irish mob boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson).

Played with smarm and cowardice by Damon, Sullivan eventually double crosses the police and Costello when he discovers that Costello is an FBI informant—a rat leading rats. Scared but trying to retain his high-ranking job, Sullivan misguidedly tries to position himself as a hero and tie up all loose ends, resulting in a shocking, bloody finale that finds cocky Colin Sullivan miraculously as the last man standing. Or at least the last man standing for the moment, as a final, forgotten loose end returns to give the audience what they want; another dead rat.

Robert Ford – The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

Well, it’s all right there in the title, innit? Played with a jealous, insecure bent by a creepy (in multiple ways) Casey Affleck, Robert Ford starts off as a Jesse James fanboy, desperate to join the outlaw’s gang with his brother Charlie (Sam Rockwell). When he finally gets close to the mythical criminal (a shadowy Brad Pitt), Bob begins to resent the man, eventually brokering a deal with the Governor of Missouri to either capture or kill Jesse James in exchange for a substantial bounty and full pardon.

Read more

Movies

Hamilton: The Real History of the Burr-Hamilton Duel

By David Crow

Movies

News of the World Review: Tom Hanks Western Has Rugged Warmth

By David Crow

Bob Ford cozies up to Jesse James even further, eventually earning the man’s complete trust, before cowardly shooting the man in the back—although in the film both carry an air of expectation that it needs to happen. Ford then lives out the rest of his days known as the coward punk that betrayed Jesse James until his eventual murder.

Aaron Burr – Hamilton (2020)

Close knit allies but ideological opposites, Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton both fought in the Continental Army for independence from the British. However, when it came time to actual govern the new country that they fought to begin, the men drifted apart.

It’s unfair to call Burr the only backstabber in this relationship, because both men betray their former friend. Burr (Leslie Odom Jr.) becomes jealous that Hamilton (Lin-Manuel Miranda) constantly has George Washington’s ear, and switches political parties to defeat Hamilton’s father-in-law in an election, ending their mutual admiration.

Burr also inadvertently pressures Hamilton to publicly reveal an affair, which strains the rivals’ relationships even further. However, when Hamilton endorses Thomas Jefferson (Daveed Diggs) in the third presidential election, a man that he doesn’t even like, to block Burr’s political malleability from the presidency, it becomes the final straw for Burr, who challenges Hamilton to a duel. In the ensuing gunfight, Hamilton throws away his shot, and Burr seals his fate to be remembered as the villain who killed Alexander Hamilton.

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[burclay]

Time, Space, and Texting: Chapter 2

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: THIS IS A SPACESHIP

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: WE’RE FOUR DAYS’ TRAVEL FROM THE TARDIS 😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: On the other hand, General Eve Cicero is here 😍😍😍 what a legend!

AO3 Chapter 1

RyanS: GUYS I’M SO BORED

RyanS: WERE STUCK IN THIS WEIRD HOSPITAL AND THE DOCTORS NOT AWAKE

yaz01: is now really the time ryan

RyanS: YES

bad-wolf-girl: is the doctor okay?

yaz01: the medics say she’ll be fine. we got hit with some sort of weird space bomb but these people are taking care of us.

Graham O’Brien: Are we really texting right now?

yaz01: that’s what i said.

The Captain: When you say weird space bomb…

Graham O’Brien: I think one of the medics said “sonic mine.”

RyanS: theyre trying to find our medtags now. taking bets on how long it takes them to realize we havent got any

The Captain: A sonic mine? You know how lucky you are to be alive, right?

RyanS: picking up on it yeah

yaz01: hold on a sec, dr’s awake

DoctorJones: In the meantime, I’ve finally convinced Mickey to check his phone.

mickeyrick: hey, it’s been a while. heard there’s a new doctor. or however that works.

RyanS: might want to read up a bit

yaz01: ryan! get off your phone!

RyanS: you’re on your phone!

yaz01: only to get your attention! come on!

bad-wolf-girl: so we’ll just assume they’re busy, then

bad-wolf-girl: anyone meet any cool aliens lately?

cyberbill: heather and i went to a planet that was nothing but ocean. pretty cool.

oswin: you two are made of water or something, right?

oswin: suppose you were right at home there

cyberbill: yeah pretty much.

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: THIS IS A SPACESHIP

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: WE’RE FOUR DAYS’ TRAVEL FROM THE TARDIS 😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: On the other hand, General Eve Cicero is here 😍😍😍 what a legend!

The Captain: Whoa, really?

The Captain: *The* Eve Cicero? Named in the Book of Celebrants?

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: The very one!

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: Anyway, got to go, I’m walking.

yaz01: while she’s doing that. cyberbill, did you say you’re made of water?

cyberbill: just bill. and long story, but yeah

RyanS: i give up making sense of you lot

yaz01: sometime i’d like to hear the long story!

cyberbill: well, sounds like you all are going to have time to read, at least. four days away from the tardis and all that.

RyanS: yeah n now the doctor’s gone off who knows where so we dont even have her whole crisis to deal with

cyberbill: i don’t even know where to start. to be honest, i’m not sure i even understand it all. but my crush got taken by this sort of water thing, and then i was a cyberman for a bit, and next thing i knew i was water.

cyberbill: heather says it’s all just atoms. she’s better with all this than i am

cyberbill: someday i’ll add her in here. don’t know if she’d say much.

The Captain: We’re all dying to meet her.

cyberbill: or *you’re* dying to meet her

oswin: oi, i’m already dying. don’t add this into it!

yaz01: you’re dying?

oswin: long story

yaz01: you all keep saying that

oswin: fair enough. basically i’m frozen in the moment right before i died. but i can still move around. so i’ve stolen a tardis and i’m running around in it now

RyanS: im beginning to understand how the doctor picks her friends

RyanS: ur all completely mad

oswin: not sure what that says about you, then

RyanS: oh i’ll accept me being mad too, that’s fine

johnsmith42: nothing wrong with a bit of madness!

bad-wolf-girl: says the man who reconfigured our entire television to not use the color green

johnsmith42: I don’t like green! what’s wrong with that?

bad-wolf-girl: everything shows in shades of red and blue now

bad-wolf-girl: good thing i figured out how to encase my laptop in dalekanium

bad-wolf-girl: for all their faults, Daleks are pretty good at indestructible metal

johnsmith42: for the record, I would NEVER mess with your laptop

yaz01: daleks?

oswin: oh boy

johnsmith42: VERY dangerous aliens. do NOT approach.

bad-wolf-girl: i’m sure you’ll meet one someday. they tend to pop up around the doctor.

yaz01: why?

bad-wolf-girl: that’s really her story to tell, sorry

yaz01: fair enough, i guess.

RyanS: glad ur computers safe

bad-wolf-girl: yeah me too

mickeyrick: so i finished reading up. sounds like you’re having a bit of a time.

mickeyrick: when the doctor gets back tell her i like her jacket

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: I’m back! 👋

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: Oh, hello, Mickey! Thanks! 🤗

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: Anyway, there’s something *very bad* going on. 👎😱👾😲

Graham O’Brien: And you’re spending time picking out emojis?

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: Doesn’t take that long! 😡😡😡

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: ANYWAY. Something’s on board and it’s killed Astos. Ryan, Graham, Yaz, be careful.

RyanS: wed better go find her hadnt we

yaz01: yep

DoctorJones: Be safe!

bad-wolf-girl: good luck!

mickeyrick: i’m remembering why i never come in this chat

mickeyrick: my life might be dangerous but at least it makes sense

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: Anyone know anything about something called a “Pting?”

bad-wolf-girl: you have a pting on your ship?

bad-wolf-girl: we came across one of those a few years back

bad-wolf-girl: didn’t exactly go very well

bad-wolf-girl: i’m sure you’ll be fine though

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: That’s not encouraging!!! 😱

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: We’re looking it up in the ship’s systems 😬

bad-wolf-girl: all you need to know is it eats *everything*

bad-wolf-girl: and its skin is toxic

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: 😱😱😱

The Captain: oh, boy

The Captain: Doctor, I’m going to need you to check in with us frequently until this one’s over

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: Will do.

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: Got to think. What do we do???

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: THE SHIP’S GOT A BOMB IN IT 😱

johnsmith42: what???

The Captain: well, that’s a check-in, I suppose

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: It’s a Tsuranga ship, there’s a self-destruct in case anything happens that makes the ship a danger to the planet on which it lands.

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: But we are NOT going to be a danger!

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: We are going to SOLVE THIS.

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: So the bomb is really unfair!

bad-wolf-girl: too bad life isn’t fair i guess

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: Oi!!! You shut up!!!

bad-wolf-girl: 😘

Amy: hey everybody! what’s up!

bad-wolf-girl: doctor’s in danger, the rest of us are laughing at her to hide our worry

Amy: must be Tuesday

bad-wolf-girl: pretty much

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: AMY! Hi Amy!

Amy: hey, doctor!

Amy: oh, never mind. looks like you have bigger things to do than talk in this groupchat

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: I’m procrastinating 😔😓 can’t think of a plan!!! 😬😬😬 Don’t worry, I’ll get there!

yaz01: doctor, we’re on our way back

yaz01: have you been talking to your friends this *whole time*?

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: Don’t worry! I almost have a plan!

yaz01: i can’t believe i trust you with my life!

Amy: but you do…

Amy: it’s a trap we all fall into

Amy: side note, but is this version of the Doctor somehow more of a mess than the last two?

johnsmith42: *definitely* more of a mess than me.

bad-wolf-girl: keep telling yourself that 😘

johnsmith42: I will, thanks.

RyanS: ABOUT TO HELP DELIVER A MANS BABY WISH US LUCK

Amy: ???????

The Captain: Good luck!

bad-wolf-girl: good luck!

Amy: what happened to the alien?

cyberbill: something tells me they might be a little too busy to talk right now

oswin: good luck!

oswin: oops i’m too late

yaz01: THERE’S NO INTERNET TUTORIAL FOR STAZING A PTING

oswin: are those real words?

oswin: you’ve got to be careful. i swear the doctor likes to just make up words.

bad-wolf-girl: i second that.

bad-wolf-girl: i still make up words for everything i don’t understand and i blame him...

bad-wolf-girl: marrying his clone can’t have helped.

johnsmith42: oh, you love me

bad-wolf-girl: 😘😘😘

oswin: careful… use that many emojis at once and you’ll get confused for the doctor

bad-wolf-girl: lol

DoctorJones: Hold on… is everyone all right?

oswin: seems like the jury’s out

oswin: i’m fine tho

DoctorJones: Ryan, do you need help? I’m an *actual* doctor on Earth.

yaz01: not sure human medicine is entirely applicable

yaz01: but there’s a medic doing the heavy lifting, don’t worry

yaz01: ryan and graham are being doulas

yaz01: OH SHLJKKDSA

DoctorJones: Yaz?

bad-wolf-girl: everything all right?

oswin: what happened?

Amy: yaz???

yaz01: sorry yeah everything’s fine

yaz01: just drop kicked a pting nothing to see here

yaz01: dropped my phone mid-message

yaz01: sorry about that

DoctorJones: Glad you’re all right.

yaz01: yeah me too

yaz01: but no time to talk drs here

oswin: good luck

oswin: side note i just found a planet with six-headed lizards

cyberbill: what, you mean like the hydra?

oswin: yeah!

oswin: think they came to earth and inspired the ancient greeks?

Amy: doubt it

Amy: anyone can think up a many-headed dragon

oswin: true enough. anyway i’m going to go explore. ttyl

Amy: have fun!

mickeyrick: anyone else *really worried* about this whole alien-spaceship situation?

Amy: they’ll get out of it

DoctorJones: The Doctor does have a knack for getting out of these sorts of things. I’m sure they’ll be fine.

bad-wolf-girl: doesn’t always end well though

Amy: she’s had time to come up with a plan now

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: Hi everybody I’m brilliant!

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: Pting ate the bomb and now all we have to do is get the ship to Resus One, and then we can go right on back to the TARDIS.

Amy: told you!

bad-wolf-girl: nice!!!

RyanS: this babys so cute i might cry

Graham O’Brien: Not because of the heartwarming conversation you just had or anything.

RyanS: no its just really cute

RyanS: im serious its so little

RyanS: did you know they make people that little

RyanS: its fingers

RyanS: are tiny

yaz01: ryan have you ever seen a baby before

RyanS: leave me alone yaz!!!

DoctorJones: Is the dad doing all right?

RyanS: yeah hes fine

RyanS: hes gonna be such a good dad

RyanS: but thats not why i might cry i swear

RyanS: (grahams looking at me funny :-( )

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: Bad news. General Cicero is dead.

Graham O’Brien: Oh, goodness.

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: We’re going to be holding a funeral in the engine room. Ryan, Graham, do you think Yoss will want to come?

RyanS: ill ask

RyanS: he says yes

Graham O’Brien: Be there in a moment, Doc.

The Captain: Quite a loss.

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: I know. 😢

DoctorJones: May she rest in peace.

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: She lived a good life.

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: Died saving us.

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: She had pilot’s heart. Knew she had pilot’s heart. Took over control of the ship anyway.

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: All the emojis in my name are seeming really inappropriate right about now. 😢😢😢

bad-wolf-girl: i’m sorry doctor

Amy: I’ll add her to the list.

Amy: General Eve Cicero?

yaz01: the list?

bad-wolf-girl: when people die we add them to a list

bad-wolf-girl: we make a point of remembering them every so often

bad-wolf-girl: roughly once a year in the timeline of whoever’s holding the list

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: General Eve Cicero is right.

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: Also add Astos.

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: He was the medic who died.

Amy: got it

<document: the list>

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: Thanks, Amy. 💙

Amy: no problem

yaz01: wait, how often do people die??? this is a *long* list

bad-wolf-girl: this is over the course of maybe a thousand years in the doctor’s timeline

bad-wolf-girl: it’s a dangerous life, yaz

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: I’m sorry. I did warn you.

yaz01: yeah i know

yaz01: took me by surprise i guess

The Captain: General Cicero is 116th century, right?

The Captain: from Keeba?

The Captain: I know those funeral rites

The Captain: they’re beautiful

The Captain: I hope they carry her well

bad-wolf-girl: what’re they like?

The Captain: Keeba’s a solar system full of voyagers

The Captain: there wasn’t any life there until it got developed

The Captain: so their rituals and ceremonies assume every religion is real and has value.

The Captain: it depends on which planet she’s from and where her family’s from

The Captain: but they tend to involve everyone standing in a circle and speaking together.

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: That’s exactly right. We had her android consort lead.

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: She’s been laid to proper rest now. Among the stars. 🌠

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: And we’re almost to Resus One, which’ll teleport us back to the TARDIS.

The Doctor ☄️👋😂🌌🌈: Not sure my ectospleen’ll ever be the same, though.

RyanS: not sure your ectospleens our biggest concern

yaz01: i think she just fell asleep

johnsmith42: well, she’s clearly had a long day.

Graham O’Brien: I’ll say. I’m about to fall asleep myself.

RyanS: you do that

RyanS: im gonna go see if yoss will let me hold his baby brb

[redsteroo]

35. The Photograph

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of all virtues, but the parent of all others.” --- Cicero (106-43 BCE)

Four months after my departure from the hospital, my birth family sister Kathy finally got around to sending me a photo of my birth sister Betsy.  I was up in our bedroom, where my odyssey all began, when I opened the oversized envelope and pulled out a framed glossy color photo of the sister I had never known.  She was standing, I would later find out, near the docking pier of the Balboa Island Ferry near her home in Southern California, a beautiful West Coast sunset in the background.  She had long brown hair and deep blue eyes, and her smile, radiating love and kindness, seemed to go right through me, making my heart both swell and ache at the same time.

Kathy had affixed a poem over the photo.  It was written by David M. Romano in 1993, and was called “When Tomorrow Starts Without Me.”

*******

When tomorrow starts without me, and I’m not there to see, If the sun should rise and find your eyes All filled with tears for me; I wish so much you wouldn’t cry The way you did today, While thinking of the many things, We didn’t get to say. I know how much you love me, As much as I love you, And each time you think of me, I know you’ll miss me too; But when tomorrow starts without me, Please try to understand, That an angel came and called my name, And took me by the hand, And said my place was ready, In heaven far above And that I’d have to leave behind All those I dearly love. But as I turned to walk away, A tear fell from my eye For all my life, I’d always thought, I didn’t want to die. I had so much to live for, So much left yet to do, It seemed almost impossible, That I was leaving you.

I thought of all the yesterdays, The good ones and the bad, The thought of all the love we shared, And all the fun we had. If I could relive yesterday Just even for a while, I’d say good-bye and kiss you And maybe see you smile. But then I fully realized That this could never be, For emptiness and memories, Would take the place of me. And when I thought of worldly things I might miss come tomorrow, I thought of you, and when I did My heart was filled with sorrow. But when I walked through heaven’s gates I felt so much at home When God looked down and smiled at me, From His great golden throne, He said, “This is eternity, And all I’ve promised you. Today your life on earth is past But here it starts anew. I promise no tomorrow, But today will always last, And since each day’s the same way, There’s no longing for the past. You have been so faithful, So trusting and so true. Though there were times You did some things You knew you shouldn’t do. But you have been forgiven And now at last you’re free. So won’t you come and take my hand And share my life with me?” So when tomorrow starts without me, Don’t think we’re far apart, For every time you think of me, I’m right here, in your heart.

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

My eyes were misting as I put the picture carefully up on the dresser and continued to stare at it.  She looked so strangely, hauntingly familiar.  But of course, she would look that way.  We were blood relations and had shared more DNA than any other people on the planet with the exception of my other two biological siblings.  Whether we’d ever met or not, Betsy and I were deeply connected.

The next morning, I was in our bedroom reading more of the Elisabeth Kugler-Ross book “On Life After Death” when I came to a story about a twelve year old girl who underwent an NDE and at first didn’t tell her parents about it.  Finally, however, she could no longer keep it to herself and confided in her father.  She told him about traveling to an incredible landscape full of love and beauty, and how she met and was comforted by her brother.

“The only problem,” the girl older her father, “is that I don’t have a brother.”

Tears filled her father’s eyes.  He told the girl about the brother she did indeed have, but how had died just three months before she was born.

I stopped reading.  For a moment I went into a strange, dazed space, not really thinking or not thinking, just......absorbing something.  Some thought that was right on the edge of my consciousness but hadn't quite broken through.

Then my eyes traveled over to the bureau, and the photo that Kathy had sent me.  The photo of the sister I had never known.  Whom I knew only through the stories that my birth family had related of what a hugely kind, wonderfully caring person she had been.  A person, they had often said, who was so kind she was practically an angel.

Without the powder blue and indigo dress, without the heavenly light of the Gateway around her as she sat on the beautiful butterfly wing, she wasn’t easy to recognize at first.  But that was only natural.  I had seen her heavenly self---the one that lived above and beyond this earthly early, with all its tragedies and cares.

But now there was no mistaking her, no mistaking the loving smile, the confident and infinitely comforting look, the sparkling blue eyes.

It was she.

For an instant, the worlds met.  My world here on earth, where I was a doctor and father and a husband.  And that world out there--a world so vast that as you journeyed in it you could lose your very sense of your earthly self and become a pure part of the cosmos, the God-soaked and love-filled darkness.

In that one moment, in the bedroom of our house, on a rainy Tuesday morning, the higher and the lower worlds met.  Seeing that photo made me feel a little like the boy in the fairy tale who travels to the other world and then returns, only to find that it was all a dream--until he looks in his pocket and finds a scintillating handful of magical earth from the realms beyond.

As much as I’d tried to deny it, for weeks now a fight had been going on inside of me.  A fight between the part of my mind that had been out there beyond the body, and the doctor---the healer who had pledged himself to science.  I looked into the face of my sister, my angel, and I knew--knew completely--that the two people I had been in the last few months, since coming back, were indeed one. I needed to completely embrace my role as a doctor, as a scientist and healer, and as the subject of a very unlikely, very real important journey into the Divine itself.  It was important not because of me, but because of the fantastically, deal-breakingly convincing details behind it.  My NDE had healed my fragmented soul.  It had let me know that I had always been loved, and it also showed me that absolutely everyone else in the universe is loved, too.  And it had done so while placing my physical body into a state that, by medical science’s current terms, should have made it impossible for me to have experienced ANYTHING.

I know there will be people who will seek to invalidate my experience anyhow, and many who will discount it out of court, because of a refusal to believe that what I underwent could possibly be “scientific”---could possibly be anything more than a crazy, feverish dream.

But I know better.  And both for the sake of those here on earth and those I met beyond this realm, I see it as my duty--both as a scientist and hence a seeker of truth, and as a doctor devoted to helping people---to make it known to as many people as I can that what I underwent is true, and real, and of stunning importance.  Not just to me, but to all of us.

Not only was my journey about love, but it was also about who we are and how connected we all are---the very meaning of all existence.  I learned who I was up there, and when I came back, I realized that the last broken strands of who I am down here were sewn up.

YOU ARE LOVED.  Those words are what I needed to hear as an orphan, as a child who’d been given away.  But it’s also what every one of us in this materialistic age needs to hear as well, because in terms of who we really are, where we really came from, and where we’re really going, we all feel (wrongly) like orphans.

Without recovering that memory of our larger connectedness, and of the unconditional love of our Creator, we will always feel lost here on earth.

So here I am.  I’m still a scientist, I’m still a doctor, and as such I have two essential duties: to honor truth and to help heal.  That means telling my story.  A story that as time passes I feel certain happened for a reason.  Not because I’m anyone special.  It’s just that with me, two events occurred in unison and concurrence, and together they break the back of the last efforts of reductive science to tell the world that the material realm is all that exists, and that consciousness, or spirit---yours and mine---is not the great and central mystery of the universe.

I’m living proof.

*******From Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife by Even Alexander, M.D.*******   Visit him at www.lifebeyonddeath.net