#I choose to believe that fourteen gets his peaceful retirement | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kaileeandag · 4 years

Text

American Girl: Where Are They Now?

I wonder “What did the historical characters do when they grew up?” So,here’s what I think.

Kaya: becomes a famous warrior after inheriting the name Swan Circling. Contracts Yellow Fever in 1804 and passes away soon after, at the age of 50.

Felicity Merriman: becomes owner of her father’s shop when she was 20. Marries Benjamin Davidson at the age of 18, once the war is over. Passes away peacefully in her sleep in 1854, at the age of 89. Via adoption, her descendant is comedian Tommy Davidson.

Elizabeth Cole: becomes a schoolteacher. Is arrested in 1795 and executed for treason in 1796 at the age of 31.

Caroline Abbott: at the age of 25, becomes a ship captain. Passes away in childbirth five years later, leaving her daughter to be raised by her father.

Josefina Montoya: opens her own imports store in 1855 with the help of her nephews. Never has children and never marries, passing away in her sleep in 1900 at the age of 85.

Kirsten Larson: thanks to her teacher Miss Winston, chooses to become a teacher. Later becomes an advocate for better travel conditions for immigrants in honor of her friend Marta. Passes away at the age of 99 in 1943 surrounded by her family.

Cecile Rey: becomes a nurse along with Marie Grace. Passes away in 1930 at the age of 75 due to complications from Pneumonia.

Marie Grace Gardener: works as a nurse along with Cecile. Contracts Yellow Fever in 1872, but survives. Passes away in 1935 at the age of 90 due to Alzheimer’s Disease.

Addy Walker: becomes a schoolteacher. She never has children, but sees her nieces and nephews, as well as her students, as her children. Writes a book called Running In The Night, publishing it in 1917. Passes away in her sleep at the age of 93 in 1948.

Samantha Parkington: thanks to her aunt Cornelia’s influence, she becomes a suffragist. Votes for the first time in the 1924 Presidential election. Also becomes an advocate for open adoption sometime in the 1960s. Marries her rival Eddie Ryland in 1918, with whom she has two daughters, Deborah in 1931 and Sarah in 1941. Passes away at the age of 88 in 1983.

Nellie O’Malley: speaks out against child labor and advocates for safer work conditions after her adoptive parents Cornelia and Gardner approve of the idea. Is the only one of her siblings to make it to old age, after Jenny passes away in 1930 due to Breast Cancer and Bridget is killed in a car accident in 1920, although her niece survives the accident, and William passes away in 1945 after a sudden heart attack. Appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in 2000 to discuss her cousin/adoptive sister Samantha’s legacy. Passes away at the age of 105 on September 11, 2001, hours prior to the attacks on the World Trade Center. Nellie’s son Joshua passed away in 1977 at the age of 50 due to Lung Cancer, while her daughter Jennifer (born in 1930) is still living at the age of 90.

Rebecca Rubin: becomes a famous actress, making her speaking debut in the 1933 adaptation of King Kong. Her final on-screen appearance is in the 1997 Kirsten Dunst and Britney Murphy film The Devil’s Arithmetic, playing a Holocaust survivor. Marries classmate Otto Geller and has one child with him, son David in 1931. David becomes an actor himself in the early 1960s, his career spanning 55 years prior to his passing in 2015. Passes away in October 2002 at the age of 97. Considered one of the most prominent Jewish-American actresses of all time.

Kit Kittredge: becomes a reporter in the late 1940s, with her first major article being about Joseph McCarthy’s attempt to purge Communism from the country. She criticizes McCarthy in the article, feeling he is fear mongering. Marries Will Shepherd in 1945 when he returns from combat after the end of World War II. After struggling to have children for close to fourteen years, they adopt twin children Justin and Augusta in 1961. Will and Kit become grandparents when their daughter gives birth to a daughter named Amelia in 1990 and when Justin’s son Skylar and daughter Olivia are born in 1992. Retires from journalism in 2010, but comes out of retirement temporarily following the Ferguson Missouri protests in 2014. Passes away at the age of 94 in 2017.

Will Shepherd: manages to make enough money so that he can bring his family to Cincinnati. Is drafted into the Army following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He promises to marry a now adult Kit if he returns home safely, a promise he ends up keeping. Upon his return, he attends college, graduating with his degree in History in 1950. Works as a high school History teacher until his retirement in the early 1990s. When he becomes a grandfather, he dotes on his grandchildren, always taking them to the movies when he is able to do so. Passes away on January 4th, 2019, at the age of 103.

Ruthie Smithens: becomes a nurse, being sent overseas to help injured Allied soldiers during the last year of World War II. Marries Stirling Howard prior to him being shipped off to war, having his daughter Heather in 1943 when he is away. Is diagnosed with Breast Cancer in 1978, but survives. Eventually, she passes away in 1995 at the age of 72 due to a lung fungus called Aspergillosis.

Nanea Mitchell: becomes an advocate for the rights of Japanese-Americans following the end of World War II. Marries her friend Lily Suda’s older brother Gene in 1952 and has twin children Thomas and Sarah with him in 1965. Later becomes a Hawaii state senator in 1980, despite her opponent’s efforts to discredit her because of a meeting she had with former Emperor Showa (Hirohito) to discuss peace between America and Japan. Becomes very popular in Japan due to her advocacy for the rights of Japanese-Americans, becoming an honorary citizen of Tokyo in the late 1980s. Meets with double atomic bomb survivor Tsutomu Yamaguchi in 2006. Passes away three days after her 88th birthday, on April 14th, 2020, due to natural causes.

Molly McIntire: becomes a lawyer in 1950. Becomes known in the Chicago area after being asked to defend John Wayne Gacy during his trial. Is shot into the national spotlight after Ron Goldman’s family hires her to work for them during the OJ Simpson trial. Marries Howie Munson in 1950, their marriage lasting for 16 years prior to their divorce in 1966. Molly and Howie move to England in 1963 and after the divorce, Howie moves back to the States, leaving Molly to raise their 2 year old son Austin. Becomes a grandmother when Austin’s wife gives birth to a daughter named Taylor in 1992 and son Richard in 1993. Molly moves back to Illinois in 1976 with a now 11 year old Austin, settling in Chicago. Becomes a United States Senator in 1996 and votes for senator Barack Obama in the 2008 and the 2012 presidential elections.

Emily Bennett: upon her finishing secondary school, attended college in order to become a teacher. Gives birth to a son named Albion on July 4th, 1964, the same day that Molly gives birth to her son Austin. Emily raises Albion as a single mother due to the father abandoning her shortly after her son’s birth. Moves to Chicago in 1983, reuniting with Molly after she moved back to the States. Publishes a series of children’s books about her friendship with Molly starting in 1988. Her grandson Alastair is born on September 14th, 1992. She publishes an autobiography in 2017, appearing on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah to promote it. Alastair drew the cover of the book, which depicts Molly and Emily as children sitting under an oak tree.

Maryellen Larkin: marries classmate Davy Fenstermacher in 1963 following her high school graduation. Her motive is believed to be that she doesn’t want Davy to fight in Vietnam, so she chose to marry him so he wouldn’t be drafted. Their son Thomas is born in 1965 and when Thomas is in 5th grade, Maryellen goes to college in order to get her degree. She becomes a special education teacher, working for 31 years prior to her retirement in 2011. Her choice to allow her students to take part in mainstream classes such as choir confuses her co-workers. However, this becomes the norm following the passing of the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990. Her granddaughter Vanessa is born in July 1992 and due to her being her only grandchild, she spoils her rotten.

Melody Ellison: attends medical school, earning her medical license in 1983 at the age of 29. Gives birth to her only child Donna Summer Ellison on January 15th, 1992, on what would have been Martin Luther King Jr.’s 63rd birthday. Her daughter was conceived via In-Vitro Fertilization. Adores her only child and her various nieces and nephews. Is going to retire as a doctor in 2022, at the age of 68.

Julie Albright: wants to become a basketball player, but she is unable to due to the WNBA not existing until 1996. Becomes a professional wrestler in 1987 at the age of 21. She marries classmate T.J. Jefferson in 1989, during the few months she had off. Retires temporarily in April 1992 following the birth of her twin children Rachel Tracy Joyce and Damien Thomas Daniel. Her daughter’s middle names come from her aunt Tracy and maternal grandmother Joyce Albright, while Damian’s middle names come from his father and maternal grandfather Daniel Albright. Returns to pro wrestling in 1995, working with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) until its closure in 2001, retiring permanently soon after. When she was away wrestling, her children would stay with her sister Tracy, Tracy’s husband Mike Stenger, and Julie’s nephew Jonah (born 1988) and niece Aubrey (born 1992.) Becomes an advocate for the rights of LGBT individuals after her son Damian comes out as gay in his Junior year of high school and her nephew Jonah comes out in 2006, during his Senior year of high school.

Ivy Ling: works as a special education teacher until 2003, when she becomes a stand up comedian. She says that her primary influence for pursuing a career in stand up was Margaret Cho. Her daughter Julie was born in November 1991 and was named after her best friend Julie. Her daughter even inherited the nickname ‘Alley Oop’ from her honorary aunt.

Let me know what you guys think! This is just what I think happened.

79 notes · View notes

timeless-hollywood-classics · 4 years

Text

Irene Dunne DHS (born Irene Marie Dunn; December 20, 1898 – September 4, 1990) was an American actress and singer who appeared in films during the Golden Age of Hollywood. She is best known for her comedic roles, despite being in films of varied genres.

After her father died when she was fourteen, Dunne's family relocated from Kentucky to Indiana and she became determined to become an opera singer, but when she was rejected by The Met, she performed in musicals on Broadway until she was scouted by RKO and made her Hollywood film debut in the 1930 musical Leathernecking. She starred in 42 movies and made guest appearances on radio and in popular anthology television until 1962; she was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress – for her performances in Cimarron (1931), Theodora Goes Wild (1936), The Awful Truth (1937), Love Affair (1939), and I Remember Mama (1948) – and was one of the top 25 highest-paid actors of her time.

In the present, Dunne is considered one of the greatest actresses who never won an Academy Award. Some critics theorize that her performances have been underappreciated and largely forgotten, overshadowed by movie remakes and her better-known co-stars. Dunne once fled across the Atlantic Ocean to avoid starring in a comedy, but she has been praised by many during her career, and after her death, as one of the best comedic actresses in the screwball genre. She was nicknamed "The First Lady of Hollywood" for her regal manner despite being proud of her Irish-American, country girl roots.

Dunne devoted her retirement to philanthropy and was chosen by President Dwight D. Eisenhower as a delegate for the United States to the United Nations, in which she advocated for world peace and highlighted refugee-relief programs. She also used the time to be with her family – her husband, dentist Dr. Francis Griffin, and their daughter Mary Frances, whom they adopted in 1938. She received numerous awards for her philanthropy, including honorary doctorates, a Laetare Medal and a Sepulchre damehood, and was given a Kennedy Center Honor for her services to the arts.

Irene Marie Dunn was born on December 20, 1898, at 507 East Gray Street in Louisville, Kentucky,

Following her father's death, Dunne's family moved to her mother's hometown of Madison, Indiana, living at 916 W. Second St., in the same neighborhood as Dunne's grandparents' home. Dunne's mother taught her to play the piano as a very small girl — according to Dunne, "Music was as natural as breathing in our house," — but unfortunately for her, music lessons frequently prevented her from playing with the neighborhood kids. Her first school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream began her interest in drama, so she took singing lessons as well, and sang in local churches and high school plays before her graduation in 1916. Her first ambition was to become a music teacher and studied at the Indianapolis Conservatory of Music and Webster College, earning a diploma in 1918, but saw an audition advertizement for the Chicago Musical College when she visited friends during a journey to Gary, and won the College scholarship, officially graduating in 1926. She hoped to become a soprano opera singer, relocating to New York after finishing her second year in 1920, but did not pass the audition with the Metropolitan Opera Company due to her inexperience and her "slight" voice.

Dunne took more singing lessons and then dancing lessons to prepare for a possible career in musical theater. On a New York vacation to visit family friends, she was recommended to audition for a stage musical, eventually starring as the leading role in the popular play Irene, which toured major cities as a roadshow throughout 1921. "Back in New York," Dunne reflected, "I thought that with my experience on the road and musical education it would be easy to win a role. It wasn't." Her Broadway debut was December 25, the following year as Tessie in Zelda Sears's The Clinging Vine, and she took leading role when the original actress took a leave of absence in 1924. Supporting roles in musical theater productions followed in the shows The City Chap (1925), Yours Truly (1927) and She's My Baby (1928). Her first top-billing, leading role Luckee Girl (1928) was not as successful as her previous projects. She would later call her career beginnings "not great furor." At this time, Dunne added the extra "e" to her surname, which had ironically been misspelled as "Dunne" at times throughout her life until this point; until her death, "Dunne" would then occasionally be misspelled as "Dunn." Starring as Magnolia Hawks in a road company adaptation of Show Boat was the result of a chance meeting with its director Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. in an elevator the day she returned from her honeymoon, when he mistook her for his next potential client, eventually sending his secretary to chase after her. A talent scout for RKO Pictures attended a performance, and Dunne signed the studio's contract, appearing in her first movie, Leathernecking (1930), a film version of the musical Present Arms. Already in her 30s when she made her first film, she would be in competition with younger actresses for roles, and found it advantageous to evade questions that would reveal her age, so publicists encouraged the belief that she was born in 1901 or 1904; the former is the date engraved on her tombstone.

The "Hollywood musical" era had fizzled out so Dunne moved to dramatic roles during the Pre-Code era, leading a successful campaign for the role of Sabra in Cimarron (1931) with her soon-to-be co-star Richard Dix, receiving her first Best Actress nomination. Her role as the determined but ladylike mother figure of Sabra reflected her later persona and the films she starred in afterwards, such as the melodramas Back Street (1932) and Magnificent Obsession (1935). The latter had the best critical acclaim and the melodrama she reportedly did the most preparation for, studying Braille and working on posture with blind consultant Ruby Fruth. This was after she and Dix reunited for Stingaree (1934), where overall consensus was that Dunne had usurped Dix's star power. The 1934 Sweet Adeline remake and Roberta (1935) were Dunne's first two musicals since Leathernecking; Roberta also starred dancing partners Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and she sang the musical's breakaway pop hit "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes." In 1936, she starred as Magnolia Hawks in Show Boat (1936), directed by James Whale. Dunne had concerns about Whale's directing decisions, but she later admitted that her favorite scene to film was "Make Believe" with Allan Jones because it reminded her of Romeo and Juliet. It was during this year that Dunne's RKO contract had expired and she had decided to become a freelance actor, with the power to choose studios and directors. Dunne was apprehensive about attempting her first comedy role as the title character in Theodora Goes Wild (1936), but discovered that she enjoyed it, and received her second Best Actress Oscar nomination for the performance.

Later years of Dunne's film career became diverse. She starred in three films each with Charles Boyer and Cary Grant in screwball comedies (The Awful Truth (1937), My Favorite Wife (1940)), romantic dramas (Love Affair (1939), When Tomorrow Comes (1939)), drama (Penny Serenade (1941)) and comedy (Together Again (1944)). She starred in fictionalized dramas Anna and the King of Siam (1946) and later The Mudlark (1950) as Anna Leonowens and Queen Victoria, respectively, was in the comedies Unfinished Business (1941), Lady in a Jam (1942) and Over 21 (1945), and the war movies A Guy Named Joe (1943) and The White Cliffs of Dover (1944). She also starred as mothers Lavinia Day in Life with Father (1947), and Marta Hanson in I Remember Mama (1948). Marta required her to wear aging makeup and body padding, and she wore prosthetics to portray Queen Victoria.

Dunne's last three films were box-office failures. The Mudlark was a success in the UK, despite initial critical concern over the only foreigner in a British film starring as a well-known British monarch, but her American fans disapproved of the prosthetic decisions. The comedy It Grows on Trees (1952) became Dunne's last movie performance, although she remained on the lookout for suitable film scripts for years afterwards. On the radio, she and Fred MacMurray respectively played a feuding editor and reporter of a struggling newspaper in the 52-episode comedy-drama Bright Star, which aired in syndication between 1952 and 1953 by the Ziv Company. She also starred in and hosted episodes of television anthologies, such as Ford Theatre, General Electric Theater, and the Schlitz Playhouse of Stars. Faye Emerson wrote in 1954 that "I hope we see much more of Miss Dunne on TV," and Nick Adams called Dunne's performance in Saints and Sinners worthy of an Emmy nomination. Dunne's last acting credit was in 1962, but she was once rumored to star in a movie named Heaven Train, and rejected an offer to cameo in Airport '77.

Dunne appeared at 1953's March of Dimes showcase in New York City to introduce two little girls nicknamed the Poster Children, who performed a dramatization about polio research. She was later present at Disneyland's "Dedication Day" in 1955 to christen the Mark Twain Riverboat with a bottle containing water from several major rivers across the United States. Years before, Dunne had also christened the SS Carole Lombard.

In her retirement, she devoted herself primarily to humanitarianism. Some of the organizations she worked with include the American Cancer Society, the Los Angeles Orphanage, and the American Red Cross. She was also president of St. John's Hospital Clinic and became a board member of Technicolor in 1965, the first woman ever elected to the board of directors. She established an African American school for Los Angeles, negotiated donations to St. John's through box office results, and served as chairwoman in 1949 for the American Heart Association's women's committee, and Hebrew University Rebuilding Fun's sponsors committee. She appeared in 1955's celebrity-rostered television special Benefit Show for Retarded Children with Jack Benny as host. Dunne also donated to refurbishments in Madison, Indiana, funding the manufacture of Camp Louis Ernst Boy Scout's gate in 1939 and the Broadway Fountain's 1976 restoration.

Dunne reflected: "If I began living in Hollywood today I would certainly one thing that I did when I arrived, and that is to be active in charity. If one is going to take something out of a community — any community — one must put something in, too." She also hoped that charity would encourage submissive women to find independence: "I wish women would be more direct. ...I was amazed when some quiet little mouse of a woman was given a job which seemed to be out of all proportion to her capabilities. Then I saw the drive with which she undertook that job and put it through to a great finish. It was both inspiring and surprising. I want women to be individuals. They should not lean on their husbands' opinions and be merely echoes of the men of the family.

In 1957, President Eisenhower appointed Dunne one of five alternative U.S. delegates to the United Nations in recognition of her interest in international affairs and Roman Catholic and Republican causes. Dunne admired the U.N.'s dedication to creating world peace, and was inspired by colleagues' beliefs that Hollywood influenced the world. She held delegacy for two years and addressed the General Assembly twice. She gave her delegacy its own anthem: "Getting to Know You" because "it's so simple, and yet so fundamental in international relations today." Dunne later described her Assembly request for $21 million to help Palestinian refugees as her "biggest thrill," and called her delegacy career the "highlight of my life." She also concluded, "I came away greatly impressed with the work the U.N. does in its limited field — and it does have certain limits. I think we averted a serious situation in Syria, which might have been much more worse without a forum to hear it... And I'm much impressed with the work the U.N. agencies do. I'm especially interested in UNICEF's work with children[,] and the health organization[.]"

Dunne was a lifelong Republican and participated in 1948's Republican convention. She accepted the U.N. delegacy offer because she viewed the U.N. as apolitical. She later explained: "I'm a Nixon Republican, not a Goldwater one. I don't like extremism in any case. The extreme rights do as much harm as the extreme lefts." Her large input in politics created an assumption that she was a member of the "Hollywood right-wing fringe," which Dunne denied, calling herself "foolish" for being involved years before other celebrities did.

Dunne's father frequently told Dunne about his memories of traveling on bayous and lazy rivers. Dunne's favorite family vacations were riverboat rides and parades, later recalling a voyage from St. Louis to New Orleans, and watching boats on the Ohio River from the hillside. She admitted, "No triumph of either my stage or screen career has ever rivaled the excitement of trips down the Mississippi on the riverboats with my father."

Dunne was an avid golf player and had played since high school graduation; she and her husband often played against each other and she made a hole in one in two different games. She was good friends with Loretta Young, Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope, Ronald Reagan, Carole Lombard, and George Stevens Jr., and became godmother to Young's son, Peter. Dunne also bonded with Leo McCarey over numerous similar interests, such as their Irish ancestry, music, religious backgrounds, and humor. School friends nicknamed her "Dunnie" and she was referred to as this in Madison High School's 1916 yearbook, along with the description "divinely tall and most divinely fair."

One of Dunne's later public appearances was in April 1985, when she attended the dedication of a bronze bust in her honor at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California, for which her foundation, The Irene Dunne Guild, had raised more than $20 million. The Irene Dunne Guild remains "instrumental in raising funds to support programs and services at St. John's" hospital in Santa Monica. The artwork, commissioned by the hospital from artist Artis Lane, has a plaque reading "IRENE DUNNE First Lady Of Saint John's Hospital and Health Center Foundation."

Between 1919 and 1922, Dunne was close to Fritz Ernst, a businessman based in Chicago who was 20 years older than her and a member of one of the richest families in Madison, Indiana. They frequently corresponded over letters while Dunne was training for musical theater but when Fritz proposed, Dunne rejected, due to pressure from her mother and wanting to focus on acting. They remained friends and continued writing letters until Ernst died in 1959.

At a New York, Biltmore Hotel supper party in 1924, Dunne met Northampton-born dentist Francis Griffin. According to Dunne, he preferred being a bachelor, yet tried everything he could to meet her. To her frustration, he did not telephone her until over a month later, but the relationship had strengthened and they married in Manhattan on July 13, 1927. They had constantly argued about the state of their careers if they ever got married, with Dunne agreeing to consider theater retirement sometime in the future and Griffin agreeing to support Dunne's acting. Griffin later explained: "I didn't like the moral tone of show business. [...] Then Ziegfeld signed her for 'Show Boat' and it looked like she was due for big things. Next came Hollywood and [she] was catapulted to the top. Then I didn't feel I could ask her to drop her career. [I] really didn't think marriage and the stage were compatible but we loved each other and we were both determined to make our marriage work."

When Dunne decided to star in Leathernecking, it was meant to be her only Hollywood project, but when it was a box-office bomb, she took an interest in Cimarron. Soon after, she and her mother moved to Hollywood and maintained a long-distance relationship with her husband and brother in New York until they joined her in California in 1936. They remained married until Griffin's death on October 14, 1965, and lived in the Holmby Hills in a "kind of French Chateau" they designed. They had one daughter, Mary Frances (née Anna Mary Bush; born 1932), who was adopted by the couple in 1936 (finalized in 1938) from the New York Foundling Hospital, run by the Sisters of Charity of New York. Due to Dunne's privacy, Hollywood columnists struggled to find scandals to write about her — an eventual interview with Photoplay included the disclaimer, "I can guarantee no juicy bits of intimate gossip. Unless, perhaps she lies awake nights heartsick about the kitchen sink in her new home. She's afraid it's too near to the door. Or would you call that juicy? No? No, I thought not." When the magazines alleged that Dunne and Griffin would divorce, Griffin released a statement denying any marital issues. When Griffin was asked about how the marriage had lasted, he replied, "When she had to go on location for a film I arranged my schedule so I could go with her. When I had to go out of town she arranged her schedule so she could be with me. We co-operate in everything. [...] I think a man married to a career woman in show business has to be convinced that his wife's talent is too strong to be dimmed or put out. Then, he can be just as proud of her success as she is and, inside he can take a bow himself for whatever help he's been."

After retiring from dentistry, Griffin became Dunne's business manager, and helped negotiate her first contract. The couple became interested in real estate, later investing in the Beverly Wilshire and partnering with Griffin's family's businesses (Griffin Equipment Company and The Griffin Wellpoint Company.) Griffin sat as a board member of numerous banks, but his offices were relocated from Century City to their home after his death, when Dunne took over as president.

Dunne was a devout Roman Catholic, who became a daily communicant. She was a member of the Church of the Good Shepherd and the Catholic Motion Picture Guild in Beverly Hills, California. Both Dunne and her husband were members of the Knights of Malta.

Dunne died at the age of 91 in her Holmby Hills home on September 4, 1990, and is entombed in the Calvary Cemetery, East Los Angeles. She had been unwell for a year and became bedridden about a month before. Her personal papers are housed at the University of Southern California. She was survived by her daughter, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Dunne is considered one of the best actresses of The Golden Age of Hollywood never to win an Academy Award. Roger Fristoe pointed out that "a generation of filmgoers is mostly unfamiliar with her work" because some of her movies had been remade, including Love Affair (remade as An Affair to Remember), Show Boat (remade in 1951), My Favourite Wife (remade as Move Over, Darling), and Cimarron (remade in 1960). Dunne once noted that she had lacked the "terrifying ambition" of some other actresses, explaining in 1977, "I drifted into acting and drifted out. Acting is not everything. Living is." The Awful Truth was voted the 68th best comedy of American cinema.

Although known for her comedic roles, Dunne admitted that she never saw comedy as a worthy genre, even leaving the country to the London premiere of Show Boat with her husband and James Whale to get away from being confronted with a script for Theodora Goes Wild. "I never admired a comedienne," she said retrospectively, "yet it was very easy for me, very natural. It was no effort for me to do comedy at all. Maybe that's why I wasn't so appreciative of it." She ascribed her sense of humor to her late father, as well as her "Irish stubbornness." Her screwball comedy characters have been praised for their subversions to the traditional characterisation of female leads in the genre, particularly Susan (Katharine Hepburn) in Bringing Up Baby and Irene (Carole Lombard) in My Man Godfrey. "Unlike the genre's stereotypical leading lady, who exhibits bonkers behaviour continuously," writes Wes D. Gehring, "Dunne's screwball heroine [in Theodora Goes Wild] chooses when she goes wild." Biographers and critics argue that Dunne's groundedness made her screwball characters more attractive than her contemporaries; Maria DiBattista points out that Dunne is the "only comic actress working under the strictures of the Production Code" who ends both of her screwball movies alongside Cary Grant with a heavy implication of sharing a bed with him, "under the guise of keeping him at bay." Meanwhile, outside of comedy, Andrew Sarris theorized that Dunne's sex appeal is due to the common narrative in her movies about a good girl "going bad."

Dunne was popular with co-workers off-camera, earning a reputation as warm, approachable and having a "poised, gracious manner" like royalty, which spilled into her persona in movies. She earned the nickname "The First Lady of Hollywood" because "she was the first real lady Hollywood has ever seen," said Leo McCarey, with Gregory La Cava adding, "If Irene Dunne isn't the first lady of Hollywood, then she's the last one." Ironically, this title had been bestowed on her when she was a little girl when an aunt cooed "What a little lady!"[159] This ladylike attitude furthered Sarris' sex appeal claims, admitting that the scene when she shares a carriage with Preston Foster on the train in Unfinished Business was practically his "rite of passage" to a sex scene in a film, theorizing that the sex appeal of Dunne came from "a good girl deciding thoughtfully to be bad." On the blatant eroticism of the same train scene, Megan McGurk wrote, "The only thing that allowed this film to pass the censors was that good-girl Irene Dunne can have a one-night stand with a random because she loves him, rather than just a once-off fling. For most other women of her star magnitude, you could not imagine a heroine without a moral compass trained on true north. Irene Dunne elevates a tawdry encounter to something justifiably pure or blameless. She's just not the casual sex type, so she gets away with it." When approached about the nickname in 1936, Dunne admitted that it had grown tiresome but approved if it was meant as "the feminine counterpart of 'gentleman'"; a later interview she did have with the Los Angeles Times would ironically be titled "Irene Dunne, Gentlewoman." She would also be made a Dame (or Lady) of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre. The Los Angeles Times referred to Dunne's publicity in their obituary as trailblazing, noting her as one of the first actors to become a freelancer in Hollywood during its rigid studio system through her "non-exclusive contract that gave her the right to make films at other studios and to decide who should direct them," and her involvement with the United Nations as a decision that allowed entertainers from movies and television to branch out into philanthropy and politics, such as Ronald Reagan and George Murphy.

Dunne later said, "Cary Grant always said that I had the best timing of anybody he ever worked with." Lucille Ball admitted at an American Film Institute seminar that she based her comedic skills on Dunne's performance in Joy of Living. When asked about life after retiring from baseball, Lou Gehrig stated that he would want Dunne as a screen partner if he ever became a movie actor. Charles Boyer described her as "a gracious house," adding, "the best room would be the music room [...] Great music, and the best of good swing, and things by Gershwin would sound there always. The acoustics would be perfect. Guests in this house would be relaxed and happy but they would have to mind their manners." A two-sided marker was erected in Dunne's childhood hometown of Madison in 2006.

Dunne received five Best Actress nominations during her career: for Cimarron (1931), Theodora Goes Wild (1936), The Awful Truth (1937), Love Affair (1939) and I Remember Mama (1948); she was the first actor to lose against the same actor in the same category twice, losing to Best Actress winner Luise Rainer in 1936 and 1937. When asked if she ever resented never winning, Dunne pointed out that the nominees she was up against had strong support, believing that she would never have had a chance, especially when Love Affair was against Gone with the Wind.

However, Dunne was honored numerous times for her philanthropy from Catholic organizations and schools, receiving the University of Notre Dame's Laetare Medal, and the Bellarmine Medal from Bellarmine College. She received numerous honorary doctorates, including from Chicago Musical College (for music), Loyola University and Mount St. Mary's College (both for Law). In 1953, she and her husband were made Lady and Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, respectively. For her film career, she was honored by the Kennedy Center, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6440 Hollywood Blvd, and displays in the Warner Bros. Museum and Center for Motion Picture Study.

#irene dunne #classic hollywood #classic movie stars #golden age of hollywood #old hollywood

2 notes · View notes

politicalmamaduck · 5 years

Photo

The Last Shot

A Smuggler Ben Solo/Dark Side Rey arranged marriage fic for @the-reylo-void. Many thanks to @rapturousaurora for betaing, @cosetteskywalker for the above moodboards, and @aionimica for her drawing of Rey in her wedding dress!

Read it on AO3 here, and listen to the playlist here!

Author’s note: I am planning to wrap this piece up before The Rise of Skywalker, over two and a half years after I started writing it!

It was a bright, sunny morning outside on D’Qar, though it was impossible to tell from the military base’s grey, industrial interior. Rey appreciated knowing there was greenery outside nonetheless.

Leia--General Organa--allowed Rey and Ben some privacy after asking for a meeting and informing them she had assigned them private quarters close to her own, though far enough away that they still had some privacy.

Though she had no desire to join the Resistance, having had enough of generals, orders, and the military structure, Rey still found herself taken by the elder stateswoman’s grace and dignity. Perhaps in another life, they could have been friends and colleagues, even a proper mother- and daughter-in-law.

Ben had created yet another uneasy truce between them. She felt his honesty, his earnest wish to not repeat the mistakes of the past. She believed him, though she was still uncertain that their relationship could work. They both knew they desired each other, though neither had acted upon it since their kiss on Jakku. She could and would work with him and his mother to defeat Snoke. She would have her vengeance. After that, she wanted time to figure out who and what she was, and what she wanted to do. She was still young and had the rest of her life ahead of her.

Growing up on Jakku, all she cared about was finding her parents. She had found them, and hoped she would make them proud. They believed in a cause which she could not, certainly not the twisted, evil organization their cause had become. Not everyone who served the Empire of old was evil. Some wanted to build a better opportunity and life for themselves. And certainly, not everyone who served the First Order was evil, though those who did so did not necessarily choose their life for themselves. She could condone it no longer. The Empire’s Stormtrooper program was not built on brainwashed child soldiers.

Darth Vader’s parents weren’t murdered by his master.

All this and more ran through Rey’s mind as she and Ben retired to their new quarters before their meeting with the Resistance leadership.

They entered their apartment to find a small, but clean living space, with a bedroom and a refresher. There was, of course, only one bed.

“Do you mind if I take the ‘fresher first?” Ben asked. “I still feel slimy from the bacta.”

“Go ahead,” Rey replied, gesturing across the space. After the door closed, she sighed and stretched out on the couch. She did not regret climbing into her husband’s hospital cot the night before. It was far too small for both of them, and Ben was a large man, but it was still better than sleeping on the chair, or having to cross the entire base to bunk on an unfamiliar ship. She missed her Knights and their own vessel. She took the opportunity to send Falisa and Keeva an encrypted comm message.

We’ll be ready, Falisa replied. The rest are coming to rendezvous on Takodana. The Kanata castle there will provide cover. We will meet you at the Supremacy.

Rey wasn’t sure to what Falisa referred, but she was certain Ben would know. Though she had scorned his smuggling ways at the beginning, now she envied his freedom, his ability to travel and do as he pleased. Perhaps his decision to reject the Jedi path was not the coward’s choice, as so many assumed, but instead Ben making the right decision for himself.

So much of their lives came down to choices, and lack thereof. Rey knew the Skywalker family was still atoning for Anakin Skywalker--Darth Vader’s--crimes. Ben did not choose his family’s legacy.

These thoughts occupied her while she freshened up for their meeting. She was ready to make her choice and take her destiny into her own hands.

Without saying a word, Ben extended his hand to her after she emerged. She took it, and the two walked silently to the Resistance’s command center.

Both Rey and Ben were surprised to find Luke Skywalker in attendance. The entirety of the Resistance leadership was there as well, from Leia, Admiral Ackbar, and Admiral Holdo to Poe Dameron with Black Squadron and Finn and the Tico sisters. Rey noted that General Hux would never consider the opinions of so many, and the way the Resistance truly felt like a family.

Generations had served under Leia Organa now. Some of the beings in the room had never known peace on their homeworlds.

Rey wanted peace for herself, and she would stop at nothing to get it.

The room quieted when Ben and Rey arrived, clearly the last to enter.

“I understand you want to go after Snoke,” Leia began.

“We’re ready,” Rey said, standing straight, tall and proud. “My Knights will fight the Praetorian Guard while Ben and I handle Snoke.” Ben nodded in agreement as murmurs broke out across the room.

“Are you ready for such a challenge?” Luke asked. “Snoke has been influencing both of your minds for years, across an entire galaxy. How will he affect you in person?”

Neither Ben nor Rey wavered at his words. The Force flowed through them, strengthening and buoying them, together, united as one.

Ben spoke next. “I think that’s the crux of this. Snoke will underestimate us, particularly Rey and the Knights. He thinks they are reliant upon him, that they would be nothing without him. But he’s wrong, and his overconfidence in their loyalty and underestimation of their strength will be his weakness.”

“That’s just it, Master Skywalker,” Rey added, this time using his title with the respect it merited, rather than the scorn she had displayed the first time she met this family, these officers. “We’re used to having him in our heads. We can guard against him and take the brunt of it, buying the Knights time. We’ll pretend I’ve reclaimed Ben from the Hutts on Tatooine; surely there’s been some news of a disturbance there by now. I will present him before my supposed master for the first time, as a prisoner or a tribute. The Knights will be there to support us, to distract the guards while we handle Snoke.”

“And that’s the perfect time for the fleet to launch an attack,” added Poe. “With Snoke incapacitated, the First Order will lack direction and a leader. We can take down as many of their ships as possible, then be there to escort you back home,” he said, nodding at Ben and Rey.

Leia sighed. “It’s risky. We cannot match the Supremacy’s firepower, nor is our fleet nearly the same size.”

“We’ll have the element of surprise, and once we’re on the inside, we’ll take down as much as we can,” Ben responded.

“The ships will be a good distraction for Ben and Rey as well,” Finn added. “That will prevent them from sending reinforcements to Snoke, if word leaks that they’re fighting him. They’ll prepare and mobilize to combat the external threat, without considering the internal.”

Rey nodded in agreement, catching the former ‘trooper’s eye. She could tell he was still wary of her, but that they could build a mutually respectful relationship. She knew Phasma considered him as officer material when he had served under her.

Rey wouldn’t miss the First Order, but she would miss some of the decent people with whom she had served, people like her who were just trying to survive the best way they knew how.

The others were discussing further details of the plan, who would go where with what and how, but Rey was uninterested. She knew where the Force was guiding her. It burned within her with the certainty of a solar star.

“May the Force be with you,” Admiral Ackbar said.

Rey and Ben left the room first; the others soon began to disperse, back to their stations, quarters, or the mess. Leia turned to her brother.

“Their defiance will shake the stars,” Leia said.

Luke smiled. “They remind me of you and Han. You’d have burned down the galaxy if you thought it was right.”

Leia rolled her eyes and shook her head. “What about you and Mara?”

“She’d be proud of him. And she would be able to help Rey better than we can.”

Leia nodded, and hoped that the Force would guide her son and her daughter in law.

#reylo #reylo fanfiction anthology #rffa writers #rffa birthday gifts #rffa finish your fics #smuggler ben solo #dark side rey #arranged marriage au #fan fiction #my writing #this thing of darkness i acknowledge mine

3 notes · View notes

sleepymarmot · 6 years

Text

Twilight Mirage liveblog 5/5 (finale & post-mortem)

64-67

Found a new shortcut to my heart: announcing your finale is going to be a mashup of The Quiet Year and Firebrands

Why is it surpising that the Qui Err Coalition allies with the Waking Cadent? That was my first thought when Iota was making her speech! The Qui Err thinks the humans should leave, the Cadent thinks the humans should leave, sounds pretty compatible to me.

What's the logic of “When Crystal Palace arrives, we will blow up this system”? It's not a bomb! But it will be in danger if a bomb goes off right next to it!

Oh no, Ali is doing the classic “shoot yourself in the foot on purpose” move

I don't get how Grand Magnificent got promoted from “got paid once to retire” to “is trusted to do actual missions for Advent”

Why the hell does Gig want to kill Ballad

The players keep underestimating how “horny” the scenes in Firebrands are and Austin is increasingly exasperated

I would like to thank Jack from the bottom of my heart for choosing dance as a framing for making contact with Grand. Also I completely lost it at “there are talons on my shoulder”

I must have missed something, what's so bad about the Splice and Our Profit that everyone's so excited to fuck them over? The Mirage is made a renewable resource, right, so the Splice isn't a drain on anything?

The Echo-Ballad scene is so frustrating that I can't even feel appropriately bad about it! Come on Echo, just help Grand go back to Advent as an undercover spy, it doesn't have to be a competition this time!

I still don't understand Independence II… How do you send your new very conspicous and recognizable design to friends in rival factions without blowing your cover

The timeline here is really weird… Echo rescues Grand and brings Ballad with them, Ballad calls off his people, Grand sends out his new mech design… And a week later, Grand's still on Qui Err territory having a friendly lunch with its leader? If going back is still an option, how is that going to look without making Advent seem like total idiots? Ah, it's only a day after? Okay…

I'm very glad the Volition problem was solved so peacefully!

5 minutes later: “Quire could die!” How about no??! I was so busy preparing to mourn Volition. I am completely unprepared to lose Quire just like that.

Memorious was alive and also an axiom worm this whole time? Wut

Fuck, do we need another opportunity to kill off Ballad?! This list of NPCs is making me very nervous, I don't want any of them to die… As soon as they said “tactical skirmish” I started screaming internally and likely won't stop until it is over… Wow, Ali, that was cold Oh no, Keith is really on a mission to murder Ballad

Grand how could you bring a bomb to Christmas dinner what the hell RIP bird leader / avian boss, he had an amazing unique voice and, in my head, a really cool cartoony design

Thanks for 9.5 hours of fun. Now I guess it's time for the 4 hour long brutal and heartbreaking final boss encounter

Full offence Gig, but I wouldn't log off even the real internet for lawn games

Signet fucking saved everyone single-handedly, twice. Two biggest threats. Incredible. What is the rest of the game even about

Seriously, do the players know something about Advent that I don't?! Otherwise please stop calling your cheesy space mafia “nazis”

I've been waiting for Even and Cascabel stealing time together since the beginning of the finale! For 11 hours! Finally! This finale is in dire need of more romance content I like that everyone immediately starting dragging all Bioware games at once

I don't see how a secular virtual reality is more of a “weird cult” than an augmented reality in which people maintain an actual religion worshipping the union of human and synthetic life for 30k years. Can we not do the hypocrisy again please. Why is it okay for the Divine Fleet to build their own take on utopia but when the NEH does it's portrayed as a threat and all characters treat it with suspicion and contempt

OK all these ideological debates are fine and dandy but people really should ask more practical questions like “you don't have to rush, why don't you just go back to the previous eco-friendly methods we have previously agreed upon” Glad Fourteen won, but ideologically, as you can guess from this entire liveblog, I'm with Our Profit

I don't like how Tender started with the intention of attacking Our Profit / the Splice but very much like how it somehow turned into her offering to help them and solve everyone's problems in one move

Grand Magnificent building a pseudo-Divine to blind the Crystal Palace with the power of bullshit is the ideal happy ending for him

Good on everyone for doing the best possible things with the Divines, except for the DFS for managing to do every possible bad thing simultaneously!!! My dislike of that faction is vindicated but at what cost Oh god it's even worse

“Echo Reverie, who knew well both the value and the cost of violence, and who dreamt powerfully of peace” is such a beautiful and concise summary of their character arc God I just love how organically Echo and Gig's arcs led them to help a decolonized society lead independent, peaceful and joyful lives

A new Fleet with a healthier relationship between the Divines and everyone else is nice, thank you Signet

Oh my god, the ending titles are Gig interviewing everyone, that's so sweet!!! Really the perfect sentence to end this campaign with.

(I feel like a jerk mentioning it but… Whenever there's music overlayed with the voice track, it's almost always too loud and I have to strain my ears to hear the words… It's been like that since season one. Am I really the only one with this problem?!)

Whew! Hard to believe this long, long listening experience is over. I have mixed feelings: sometimes it was exciting or inspiring, sometimes it was fun but I felt I could as well be doing something else, sometimes I listened to the outro and thought “this music and the montage for it in my head right now make me feel so much more than the episode I just heard”, and sometimes the ideology of the narrative or characters'/players' opinions and actions clashed enough with my worldview enough to poison the entire experience. What's new is that, unlike the previous arcs, I didn't have an urge to shake my friends and yell at them “you absolutely must listen to this!” and that made me sad. But that might be just me getting used to this show and taking its good features for granted.

Post-mortem

Oh god, the production of the final sequence sounds like absolute nightmare

Thanks for validating me with the speech about the Fleet's lack of engagement with its “original sin”, Austin

Thanks, Janine, I hate it! This religion didn't need to get any creepier!

Yes tell us how many ears Tender has! I need to know!! Tender's fursona is the Russian food cat?! Amazing The livestream practically starts with googling animal pictures. Classic

Honestly Echo's disability was barely noticeable to me as a listener… There wasn't a lot of visible difference between the way they accessed the mesh and other PCs did, and after the nanites did activate, I don't think it was ever brought up again…

Yeah I'm genuinely upset that Tender and Fourteen didn't get together, by the way! Or at least have an overt romantic storyline! Give me that sweet sweet PC/PC romance my soul is starving Like I get what Jack is saying about the value of depicting friendship and normally I'd be on his side but 😭 😭 😭 On the other hand I didn't know Echo/Grand was a thing (And now feel kind of bitter it got more official endorsement than my ship that has more canonical foundation) This universe is actually about Austin inventing NPCs who have crushes on Keith's characters and then Keith pointedly avoiding the subject How could anyone forget about Tender's wild fangirling over Waltz lmfao

Austin calmly talking of all these things I screamed about above like “yeah that's what I intended”. Like on the one hand I'm glad, but on the other why couldn't you make it less frustrating to listen to

The rehabilitation theme is another thing that is present thematically but was not discussed on screen enough imo. One thing my mind kept returning to re: Contrition's Figure was the question of forgiveness for serious crime, personal boundaries and principles, and the policy of not disclosing the inmates' crimes. I imagine a survivor of rape or abuse wouldn't want to share space with someone who did the same kind of crime that hurt them. Even if they wouldn't be made to interact, of course, but what if that person believes those kind of people don't deserve rehabilitation at all? What if they reject that system on principle? You often encounter seemingly serious statements like “abusers/rapists/nazis should die”, especially lately. I've heard that about “fascists” (which is a separate issue) in this very campaign. Where do people with these opinions go in a utopia? Do they not exist? Do people who commit horrific crimes not exist either? Because I was listening to that arc and thinking “What if one of those undisclosed crimes was csa or serial murder or something like that? Would I be expected to shake hands and play chess with that criminal? How could I rehabilitate, heal, re-socialize, learn to trust in a space where anyone I meet could be Shrodinger's rapist?” And that leads to the bigger question of what a utopia is. Is it a better society – or better human nature? If latter (and Austin said so) – then to what extent? Because the theoretical people who are so much more advanced than us that they are, en masse, incapable of extreme cruelty, must also differ from our generation with their entire psychology. And a psychology so different would be unimaginable, unplayable, and would not provide necessary dramatic conflict or antagonistic characters. Which is why most alien characters in most stories, including this one, are just humans in silly costumes or prosthetics.

Oh dear god, that must be the heaviest personal story yet… But I understand better what Declan's Corrective was about.

Oh I've been definitely thinking about static utopias vs utopias of process while listening! When I wrote at some point that they made me stop and consider what a utopia is, it was one of the things I meant.

Yeah, sure, in our world the Splice would be terrible because of the existing power dynamics. But that's a Counter/weight story! Twilight Mirage and the Divine Fleet have been about the technologies and ideas that could have been, or were, used to terrible ends, but miraculously, we got to see them used in good faith with genuinely good intentions and good results. Divines have been all kinds of threats over the ages, and yet the Fleet managed to build a community around them that was a small paradise for 30,000 years. So why do the NEH and the Splice not get the same benefit of the doubt? Why is narrative not treating them with the same respect? Why are they always a threat? Why isn't there a major, likeable NPC whose life was enriched by the Splice to the extent that it is central to their identity, who could be our advocate for that point of view? Why are some powerful and potentially infinitely dangerous things, like Divines or religion itself, shown as more valid than others? And don't tell me that our player characters are from the Fleet – none of them are Qui Err either, and yet by the end it is a respected, lovingly portrayed player faction.

Oh, and also, speaking of the Splice's dangers, and what would have made it dangerous in the real world – one of the things that bothered me about it was that these dangers weren't actually described and addressed in the show properly! Probably at least in part because this techology is so magical it's hard to codify how it works. If it gives an indefinite amount of time, how do you sync up all these infinite amounts of timelines? Whenever anyone logs in to visit Tender, how do they know if it's been a day for her, like in the real world, or a hundred years? (Oh and by the way, I waited in vain for the explanation for these strange duplicities and possible time anomalies; what was going on with Ache and Acre?) If opposing the Splice and the NEH were about solving specific problems with the Splice, I would be all for that!

But yeah, I really do appreciate “processes that self-regulate and address their own issues”, how the story and specifically the finale were about the work of building a better world. I like the finale especially because it shows the social processes more clearly; TM's lack of a faction game and its focus on “bigger picture” was palpable, so I was happy to see again that aspect of the show I think is really good and unique. At first I thought it was anticlimactic that the main threats of the finale were solved so easily, early, and pretty much single-handedly. And, indeed, in a tv show that would have looked pretty strange (and require some rewriting, because with how it went down, Signet should have been the sole protagonist from the start lol). But on the other hand, it gave a lot of space and focus to what the whole story has been about: building a better society and future. Not just saving it from an external threat and drawing the curtain on that – but making sure the world we won is the one we want to live in. Preserve the environment! Decolonize the land! Shut off the tyrannical prophecy machine! And that's a good thing, and from my perspective very characteristic of this show. Before it, I didn't even know there were games about building and preserving communities and addressing civil issues! For years I thought “Well, stories of adventure are fun, but they don't address the real issues”, but turns out, there are people and systems that at least try to combine both. And that's a thought I can find comfort in, even if the specific choices of this campaign make me frustrated sometimes.

“I also tried to move away from violence this season and ended up making an arms manufacturer”

Somehow the end of the post-mortem feels sadder and more final than the end of the show proper

#friends at the table #blah blah blah

1 note · View note

swipestream · 6 years

Text

New Release Roundup – 28 April, 2018: Science Fiction

Robot geneticists, grand strategists, A. I. invaders, and time-lost explorers feature in this week’s roundup of the newest releases in science fiction.

A. I. Battle Fleet (The A. I. War #5) – Vaughn Heppner

It came from deep space. It sent the signal. Now our computers are killing us, helping the enemy drive us into extinction.

But some of us refuse to die. We fight back. We learn.

In a desperate fight, we captured one of the machine empire’s factory planets. Can we now defeat an interstellar superpower that has exterminated thousands of sentient races across the galaxy and slaughtered billions of us in the Solar System?

Not bloody likely, but Captain Jon Hawkins is on a mission. Using new warships from the factory planet, he’s searching for alien allies, more battle stations to storm and death machines to kill. He’s buying us time to turn the Solar System into a fortress…if he can stay alive long enough.

Alliance Stars (The Alliance Trilogy #1) – Michael Wallace

Captain Jess Tolvern of HMS Blackbeard is leading a Royal Navy expedition across long-dormant space lanes toward Old Earth when an alien fleet ambushes her battle cruiser. The aliens are Adjudicators, an ancient race whose ethos is to judge other species and reduce their survivors to a stone age existence.

Tolvern sends a desperate message back to headquarters and retreats with her damaged ship to friendly systems. By the time she returns, the aliens have already invaded Alliance territory with a powerful fleet of star fortresses and accompanying dragoon ships, trapping and laying siege to the allied fleet.

While repairing her ship, Tolvern cobbles together a squadron of damaged allied warships, former raiders, and the local survivors of an Adjudicator attack to drive off the alien fleet.

Ascension (Ascension #6) – Ken Lozito

Earth’s greatest protection will become its biggest threat.

When the Confederation gathers a grand armada ostensibly to liberate Earth from the Boxans, the crew of the Athena must stop them before it’s too late.

Some species believe they can avoid war and endure the oppression of the Confederation while others choose to resist. The Athena and her crew struggle to keep the Star Alliance from splintering apart by offering them something unthinkable.

Ascension, is the final book in the Ascension series, an action-packed space opera saga that spans worlds. A journey that began when the brave crew of the Athena left Earth to investigate an alien structure discovered in the furthest reaches of the solar system will now come to an end.

Broadswords and Blasters #5

In this issue we’ve got a tale loosely based on the legend of Yennenga of Burkina Faso. What happens when the prophesied warrior wants something more out of life than warfare?

When the palace guards stage a coup against the royal family, will the young daughter of the family escape to a new world or stay where her home and heart are?

What happens when a small town calls out to the evil that dwells in dark places, and the evil answers?

Can a small contingent of warriors hold back the villainous forces of Kagan Kadir, whose lieutenants are each more horrific than the last?

Stranded on a planet, can a frontier space man escape? If he leaves, what will he be forced to leave behind?

A man can’t remember how he got on the train. He doesn’t know the other passengers, but each has a story to tell. What kind of destination is Oblivion anyway?

And finally, our cover story—to what ends will an emperor go to become a god, and what might it cost a man to oppose him?

Beyond Eternity (Paradox #2) – Phillip P. Peterson

Travel to the Stars . . . A Dream Fulfilled or Humankind’s Worst Nightmare?

Assumed dead, four astronauts are fighting for the future of humankind at the end of time and space.

After their mission to the outer limits of the solar system failed, David and his crewmates wake up at a strange place at the end of time. The alien intelligence wants them to go on a dangerous mission: circumnavigate the universe. If they succeed, they will secure the future of humankind.

But the universe is even more threatening than the AI believed. In the end, David, Ed, Grace, and Wendy must fight for survival at a place beyond space and time.

Exiles of the Belt (Void Dragon Hunters #4) – Felix R. Savage

They made him Commander of the Dragon Corps.

And left him to die.

With his Void Dragon, Tancred, Jay Scattergood has been given command of a newly formed unit: the Dragon Corps. Stuck on a remote asteroid in the Jovian Belt, Jay and his friends know they’ve been sidelined. Jay is determined to expose and defeat the conspiracy of traitors in the Department of Defense.

But a sneak attack on their asteroid changes his plans. The Dragon Corps launches into a death-defying mission that will take them deep into enemy space, where they will face the full might of the Offense’s firepower … and discover the truth about the conspiracy.

The Void Dragons are about to face their biggest test yet.

Flight (Legend of the Galactic Heroes #6) – Yoshiki Tanaka

“The Golden Brat” Reinhard von Lohengramm, a military prodigy and admiral of the Galactic Empire, has ambitions beyond protecting the borders or even defeating the Empire’s enemies. He seeks to overthrow the old order and become a truly absolute—yet benevolent—dictator. His rival, the humble Yang Wen-li of the Free Planets Alliance, wishes to preserve democracy even if he must sacrifice his political ideals to defeat the Empire. Their political and military battles play out over a galactic chessboard in an epic saga fifteen centuries in the making!

After donning the emperor’s crown, Reinhard becomes the target of an assassination plot. Knowing that the Church of Terra is behind it, he deploys his troops to the church’s holy land: Earth. Meanwhile, Yang’s leisurely retirement is tempered by the surveillance networks watching his every move from both sides. And when he is one day visited by a group of men dressed in black, the galaxy, too, relinquishes peace to become embroiled in upheaval once again. Welcome to the turning point in the war for the fate of the galaxy!

He Who Crosses Death (Star Warrior #3) – Isaac Hooke

Tane has travelled to Aegean Tetragon in search of the archaeoceti, a mystical race that he believes can restore Sinive to life. He is willing to pay any price to save her.

Any.

Unfortunately, shortly after his team arrives, he discovers that a few uninvited guests have tagged along.

Now Tane must not only complete the trials the archaeoceti have laid before him, but he must outwit his hunters. Either way, he won’t back down. The stakes are too high. And when Tane discovers the true price he must pay, he must make a choice that could destroy him.

For he who crosses death does not do so lightly.

Also available: Doom Wielder (Star Warrior #4)

Human Phase (Robot Geneticists #6) – J. S. Morin

The red planet will run red with blood.

Martian terraformer Kaylee Fourteen is a recent immigrant from Earth. Residents of the domed colonies of Mars can practically smell the day they’ll be able to walk outdoors on their own planet without the need for air supplies. But the committees on Earth control the resources the colonists need and their interference threatens the terraforming project’s very existence…

Until a group of radicals takes hostages to force the release of the tech and materials the terraformers need.

Caught in the crossfire, Kaylee has to navigate the delicate line between sympathy for her captors’ goals and horror at their methods. If she can’t keep the peace and find a way to get the hostage takers what they ask for, humans and robots alike will pay with their lives.

How can anyone negotiate a hostage crisis with a bomb locked around her neck?

The fate of two worlds and the balance of power between humans and robots hang on that answer.

Lucky Empire (Lucky’s Marines #3) – Joshua James

Mankind’s luck has run out…

As humanity rushes toward universal slaughter, the last Marine standing in the way of extinction is the least qualified one around — just ask him.

With the conspiracy now fully in power, Lucky & crew have turned into fugitives within the Empire. As an ancient enemy closes in on humankind, one last, desperate gamble is their only chance at survival — if it isn’t too late already. Luck may not be on their side this time.

Lucky’s Marines are at their over-the-top finest in this third outing, reveling in salty language, violent outbursts, and lucky escapes – even if their fearless leader would rather be dead already.

Osiris (The Locus #3) – Ralph Kern

It’s been three months since the cruise ship M/S Atlantica arrived in a hostile new world.

The survivors dream of building a home, but just as their hopes rise, they learn the true cost of saving thousands of people from catastrophe.

Conrad Wakefield, the architect of the Locus project, killed billions.

Fleeing, Wakefield unleashes the full fury of the advanced weaponry of his ship, the Osiris, leaving a trail of death and destruction. Commander Heather Slater and her battle-damaged destroyer, the USS Paul Ignatius, relentlessly pursue, hungry for revenge.

But two stowaways hide aboard Osiris. Marine Jack Cohen and Karl Grayson, a CIA assassin, have more in common than they care to admit. They must use every skill they have to evade Wakefield’s elite mercenaries and bring him to justice. As they explore the secrets of Osiris, they discover the fate of this new Earth depends on whether the mysterious artificial intelligence aboard truly has humanity’s best interests at heart.

Paradox Slaughter (Roak: Galactic Bounty Hunter #4) – Jake Bible

Robbed of his chits and betrayed by one of his oldest contacts, Roak is now on a rampage across the galaxy to hunt the duplicitous scumbag down and exact some serious payback.

Bishop is on the run and Roak is right behind him.

System by system, planet by planet, contact by contact, Roak leaves no rock unturned and no lead unchecked. He beats answers out of those that dare help Bishop. He kills those that refuse to answer. Roak is waging war on the criminal grapevine and no one is safe from his wrath.

But Roak soon finds out that while he is the galaxy’s preeminent bounty hunter, it is now his turn to be hunted. And the hunter coming for him is a force from his past that he may not be able to escape!

New Release Roundup – 28 April, 2018: Science Fiction published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

0 notes

nigelcohen · 7 years

Text

The Inheritance

31/05/17: A story for our time, describing the fractures of our broken society, and its cures.

It's one minute to midnight.

My knuckles are white, my face drained of colour, my heart feels like it's exploding. Your sister cried herself to sleep in my lap. She is the only peaceful thing in the room. I am willing you to come back. The doctors have done everything they can. They say it is now up to you. You are the one who gets to choose whether to fight or give up.

I have decided to give you your inheritance, even though I am not yet dead. I fear it may be too late to leave it until midnight. What I have for you is not an inheritance of money. No amount of money can help you now. It is a story. It is a story I hope you will hear. It is the story of how you came to be, and where you can choose to go. It is your story, and the story of Mankind. I pray you will choose to stay.

The Grandparents’ Story I was not ready for your grandfather to die. You know I was named after him, just as you were named after me.

I remember him in my childhood memories as a big man, although all adults seemed big when you are a child. I loved it when he cuddled me. He gave me unconditional love. It made me feel safe. I loved my father.

He had what I now recognise as stress etched on his face, in the lines above his forehead, in the pursing of his lips. He was the personification of eternal struggle. Yet his eyes twinkled with kindness whenever we spoke. It always gave me huge pleasure when he sat me on his lap and told me stories of his childhood.

His was a very frightening childhood. His family had to flee for their lives. Their friends and communities had turned on "them and their kind", blaming them for any number of problems. He was so young when he first experienced hate.

"Every time someone got ill, every time someone's business failed, every time the rains failed, we were blamed", he told me. "One day, when I went to school, a group of older kids came up to me from behind and started kicking me. The first kick knocked me over, the others left me bloodied and bruised".

“What had you done?”, I asked him.

He looked at me distantly, thinking back hard, and said “At the age of five, what could I have done to deserve that?”

“What did the teachers say”, I asked him.

He looked at me sadly. "They said I must have deserved it. One of them told me to toughen up and start being more like everyone else. He said that no-one likes boys telling tales. If I was not careful, the teachers would finish me off themselves”.

“I never knew what the other kids were talking about, saying I should be more like them. I thought I was like them. But I did know what the teacher meant about finishing me off. I was too ashamed even to tell my parents. It felt as if saying it aloud would make it true, all the horrible things everyone was saying about me."

"It was when the Red Plague came we knew we had to leave", he told me. "People at school started coughing and shivering. The teachers said it was my fault. They called my parents, ordering them to take me home immediatey. The teachers spat at me and told me to sit in the corner until my parents came to take me away, and to stop breathing my evil on all the other kids. My friends started calling me names, running away from me whenever I came in the room. My father came home from work one day looking as white as a sheet. He said the authorities had issued an edict to round us up and take us to the castle dungeons where we could do no more harm. My father had seen this before. He knew what was coming. He piled me and my nine brothers and sisters on the back of his cart, along with as much of our clothes as he could fit, and waved us goodbye."

His parents were not well enough to travel. It was the last time he saw them.

On the cart were five children from another family. One of them would become your grandmother, although she was little more than a toddler at the time. My father described her sitting in stony silence, barely daring to move. For the rest of her life, she was dominated by fear.

My father was one of the lucky ones. Anyone who had not managed to flee was duly rounded up and locked in a cramped, damp, stinking dungeon. The castle had been build on a lake and the dungeon was below the water level. One night, part of the cement holding the foundations together crumbled, and the icy water flooded in. Everyone drowned.

"It did not stop the Red Plague. Neither did it not stop the villagers blaming us", my father told me. "They were so consumed with hate, they actually enjoyed believing the plague was our fault. If they had paid even the slightest attention to the filth and squalor they lived in, they could have avoided all of the pain and death they suffered."

"But that's hate for you,” he said, “poisoning those who invite it in with an insatiable lust for blood”.

A new land beckoned, a Land of Hope. But the immigrants were not welcomed with quite the warmth the kids had hoped for. They were received with more of a disdainful sneer. My father and his family were allowed in, but they were not allowed to work. With so many mouths to feed, the kids had to rely on charity. It came to them only after three terrifying days sleeping in a secluded street. Someone took pity on the dishevelled family and organised a single room for the kids to live in for one month, along with one week's supply of bread.

My father watched as his brothers and sisters starved. He would beg for food, bearing the disgusted looks of the local residents as best he could, patiently waiting for the few people who took pity on him. Charity did not provide enough for everyone, so had to resort to working illegally.

Those of the locals who were disgusted at the immigrants became vocal. "Go back home, you vermin. Keep your filthy hands off our jobs".

But others of the locals were delighted to have access to dirt cheap labour, access to people willing to do jobs the locals thought was beneath them. My father could not complain. He and his siblings would be jailed or thrown out if he did.

His saving grace was the one skill he possessed. He could sew. He worked fourteen to sixteen hours each day patching up old clothes, shortening trousers and widening waists. He was so poorly paid, there was literally no money left after rent and food.

After he and my mother married, she too, worked inhuman hours, earning a meagre wage, somehow fitting in caring for her ten children. She learnt not to trust anyone. She was very quiet and kept herself to herself. When she was ignored or talked down to, she would just lower her head and continue with her chores. Every so often, her frustration would erupt. She would scream at your grandfather at the top of her voice, if he spilt his drink or dropped some food. She would nag him incessantly. But he loved her so deeply, he would just smile and hug her. This was the only time she calmed. Safe in his arms, she melted.

Three years after getting married, your grandparents were given papers allowing them to work. That one, single sheet of paper for each, marked the start of the next stage in your family's history.

Your grandfather was empowered. He found an employer who saw his talents. Your grandfather would chat with the customers to understand what they wanted. He came up with all sorts of innovations, stronger ways of stitching, new styles, more appealing ways of displaying clothes, new services. The more he connected with his customers, the more they came in. The more they came in, the better the business did. The owner was nearing retirement and, without family of his own, grew to love your grandfather as a son. He would visit him at home, bringing sweets and toys for me and my brothers and sisters. He increased your grandfather's pay. By now, your grandfather was earning enough to clothe and feed his family, and start to save money. But still, he and my grandmother never felt secure. They spent as little as they could, and saved as much as they could.

My father's employer died and our family's fortunes changed. In his Will, his employer left him the business.

Your grandfather kept coming up with new ideas. It was simple really. He liked people. He chatted with them so he came to understand what their needs. And he took care of their their needs, whatever they were.

The business thrived. As it grew, the locals started to warm to a man who clearly loved and cared about them. Distain gave way to acceptance. Acceptance gave way to warmth. People started to search out his business as a place of quality, a place of great value and service. Your grandmother never stopped nagging her husband. She pointed out every flaw, every mistake. She complained when he was too late, or too early. She tutted when his shoes did not match his clothes, or when his accent made people laugh. But she never tired of his hugs. She died in his arms, where she always wanted to be.

Let me tell you something about his siblings.

Your grandfather was the oldest of ten. He was far too young to be looking after them all. Even with the meagre help they got, I still don't know how they managed to survive the first few years. Two of them didn't, of course. The kids were so malnourished, it was inevitable someone would pay the price. One died of tuburculosis. The other died of a simple cut that got infected. People did not understand about hygiene in those days. A single five day course of antibiotics and she would have been right as rain. But there were no antibiotics then and death, never far, came scavenging.

But the rest did survive, each in their own way. And in time they thrived.

Destiny played a big hand in their lives. As children, they had to hunt down any paying job they could find. They found work by chance, when they happened across someone who was looking for cheap labour, or when someone else stood on the right street corner when someone was looking for workers. The work they happened across determined their future. One of the boys ended up building houses, another built roads, one became a policeman and one a farmer. Of the girls, one became a teacher, one a nurse, one looked after other people's children. And as you know, your Great Aunt Hope took care of everyone.

The family's closeness was their strength.

Someone was always there to help if one of them needed it. Despite their huge wariness of the locals, they were able to trust each other completely. So when their careers became established, it meant they were well placed to predict each other's work needs. When the housebuilder developed new houses, the road builder knew what was coming and was able to make sure the right roads were in place. When the teacher noticed outbreaks of infections, the nurse stepped in with advice for parents on hygiene before it became an epidemic. It was not just good for them, it was great for their whole community which benefited from such a well integrated infrastructure.

Yes, the more I think about it, the more sure I am this was the key to their success. They developed a sort of glue of care that kept them unified together as one. It meant they understood instinctively what each other needed. It gave them the confidence to support someone else's business even when the gains to their own business may not have been apparent.

The Parents’ Story By today's standards, your grandparents were not wealthy. But by the standards of their childhood, they were. They had modest monetary wealth, but enormous emotional wealth. When your grandmother passed away, your grandfather's health crashed. The glint in his eye ebbed, his energy waned, his life force increasing failed him. He became preoccupied with his own mortality, almost willing its coming.

When he wrote his Will, he was determined to divide his modest wealth equally between his eight children. His sister, Hope, the family carer, was not happy.

"Your boys are just starting out on their careers", she urged. "How can you give money to the girls. They will just use it to fluff up their hair and puff up their clothes. The boys need the money for their work".

You grandfather looked at her. "I don't want to divide my children", he said. "Money is at the heart of so much anger within families".

Your grandfather's life had become complete in his family's love. He wanted the same for his children.

So knowing the girls as well as the boys had inherited his money, it was with huge regret that Great Aunt Hope witnessed my sister Grace self destruct. She watched from afar as her brother's hard earned money went up in a haze of drugs.

Grace's childhood was not like the rest of us. She did not fit in, she could not do what was expected of her. She had immense talents, but throughout her life, they remained hidden from almost everyone. She strgguled at school so she was pulled out early. She was treated with contempt, because she always came bottom of the class. Without an education, she could not get any of the good jobs. My parents thought of her as worthless, so she came to believe she was worthless. She was fit to do only the jobs that no-one else wanted to do. Cleaning, cooking, child-rearing. She was blocked from any other occupation. Had she been given the opportunity to develop her skills, her incredible talents would have radiated. She had an unusual talent for art, for caring and teaching, and for solving problems that no-one else could. She could have taken the world by storm. But no-one who is weeding appreciates their flowers. Her life was destined for failure long before she started on the drugs.

I, by contrast, had the all the luck that bipassed Grace. I had no more natural talents than Grace, but my talents lay in the areas that were measured. I had started talking by the time I was nine months old. Before I was two, I spoke two languages fluently. I was reading by the time I was four, writing fluently by five and multiplying and dividing by the time I was six. I excelled at school. I was a teacher's dream. When Ieft school, I could have had any job I wanted.

My life could not have been more difference from Grace's. Her failure and my success were flowers born of the same stem. Mine faced the sun, hers faced the shadow. Her pain was clear to anyone who looked. I was one of the few who did.

"What's up?", I asked her when she was twelve, and had just started puberty.

"Nothing is ever up in this family", she said.

"You seem sad".

"Why would I be sad?"

"I don't know. You just seem to be".

"That bloody mother of yours is driving me mad again. She just won't get off my back".

"She is just trying to help you do better at school".

"Yeah! Right!"

"No, she is."

"No, she is trying to help you do better at school. She is trying to stop me living."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"How would you know anyway. She is always 'my son' this and 'my son' that. She wouldn't give me the time of day if I asked for it. Which I won't. She wants me out of school so I can help her cook, clean and wipe the arse of her favourite son."

"That is so ridiculous."

"Is it?"

Great Aunt Hope did prevail with my father in one respect at least. She and your grandfather had been brought up to believe a woman's place is in the home. Although your grandfather insisted on bestowing his modest savings amongst his children equally, not so his business. It was just the boys he brought into his business. Equal wealth did not translate to equal opportunity it seems.

We picked the business up quickly. We saw how my father had made his money from serving his customers so well. But during our school years, we had also picked up a very poor local business ethic. Serving customers took time and commitment. There was an easier way to get rich. Yes, by all means look for ways to make your customers happy, but don't waste your own money making them happy if they are not willing to pay for it themselves. We started increasing the prices to our customers, and started cutting out services they were not willing to pay for. Instead of coordinating with our cousins' businesses as my father had, we started haggling with them. Every penny we saved from policing or road building, was a penny more we could keep for ourselves. The business had become so large, it was no longer pennies we were saving, but huge amounts of money. Each time we grew, we had more commercial mussle to flex. We were not ashamed to take advantage of our growing position in society. As we stopped coordinating with our cousins, the physical infrastructure our parents had built became increasingly less integrated. The social infrastructure followed, becoming increasingly frayed.

"We give our cousins a huge amount of business. It is time they started being a little more appreciative", one of my brothers told my father. One of our nursing cousins had been complaining about her ever increasing costs, and had asked my father if her company could charge more for their services".

"What's our customers health go to do with us anyway?" one of my brother's once said. "If they want it, they should pay for it themselves".

My father tried to get us to see sense, but could not shake our convictions. Neither my brothers nor I had never experienced insecurity, so we were deaf to my father's wisdom about the benefits of trust. To him, our community was a source of life. To us, it was a cost of making money. As we became more and more focused on becoming ever richer, we stopped caring about our customers or our neighbours. In time, we were to discover for ourselves what my father already knew. Mutual care is the oxygen of innovation. Without it, society stagnates.

Despite my father wanting all his kids to be treated equally, my brothers and I were brought up to believe we could achieve anything we wanted. Gracie and my sisters were brought up to fail.

You were born ten years after your grandfather died. It is so sad you never got to meet him. You would have loved him. You remind me so much of him.

Your mother's parents were far more wealthy than my parents. She struggled more than I did when we started out in the business. She had aquired a taste for the finer things in life. She would notice when your uncles took days off, or spent money on things we did not. As I pray you will find out, children are expensive. Two of your uncles did not have kids, so they had more money.

"We need more than they do", your mother said to me once.

"Yes, we chose to have children", I said. "They did not. Their time will come".

"But we need to decorate the nursery. It is looking so shaby. They spend money on fancy cars and skanky women, whilst we have wallpaper peeling off the walls."

"It is our choice".

"But you work harder than they do. Every time they are on holiday, you have to pick up their work. It's not right."

"But I take time off to take the kids to school, to see their teachers, to look after them when we need it. And they pick up my work then."

"Well if your bloody sister wasn't such a loser, she could look after the kids instead."

"She is an addict. She is ill".

"She's a loser! Anyway, you are taking time off to look after the kids. Your brothers are swanning off on holiday whilst we work live slaves."

In another house, exactly the time your mother and I were talking, one of your uncles was accosted by one of his 'skanky' women.

"I want to get married and have kids too", your uncle replied to his fiance.

"We can't afford it. And we are never going to do so whilst your brother spends so much time skiving off work looking after the kids. They are incessantly ill. Your bone idle sister-in-law spends all their money on jewelery and fancy clothes. No wonder they never have enough money. They leave their kids playing in the streets, even when it is freezing and pouring with rain. That's why they are always ill. She won't stop bitching about needing more money for doctors. It's not right".

"Looking after kids is not easy. They are expensive. Our time will come".

"It's their choice", mumbled his fiance furiously under her breath.

Resentment. It causes so much pain, festering and feeding on itself.

Your mother resented your uncles. Your uncles grew to resent me. My cousins felt actively hostile whenever they came across the 'Tailors'. It became a term of derision when they were bringing up their own kids. And once resentment sets in, we become expert at justifying just about anything we want - why one part of the family deserves poverty, or why another part is so undeserving of their wealth.

It took years before your uncle and I finally linked our emerging financial struggles with the complete disregard we had for our customers and for each other.

You may be wondering why I am telling you this. Let me ask for your indulgance a little while more. Before you are ready to choose your fate, let me tell you a story. It is a story one of my teachers told me at school. I would race home to tell to my brothers and sisters. "Let's play the games", I would urge them excitedly.

I am going to tell it to you now, or at least as much of it as I can remember.

The Children’s Story The story was set in times of old, where the world was dominated by dinasaurs that breathed fire and terrifying creatures that ate children for breakfast. People were frightened to go out on their own to gather food and wood for fires. Too many people went out and never come back. The villagers would hear a ferocious roar, a burning sound, bone chilling screams and then silence. That night, there would be one less villager, one more set of crying children without a parent to care for them.

But no matter how frightening it was, the villagers had to leave the safety of the village, or there would be no food or warmth that night. Everyone was afraid. When someone did venture out, it was each person for themself, praying they would not be the one to die tonight.

The children would get so hungry, they would play to help them forget the growling of their empty tummies. Things got so bad that they were happy only when they were outside playing together.

Living in the village was one very bright girl. Her name was Grace. She was especially popular because she kept inventing fun games. The most popular game she invented was called "Creatures".

"We start the game drawing two long lines in the sand, one next to the other", she said. "In the middle is the Creature's den. It is this big." She imprinted her heal in the sand, took three huge steps in one direction, they dragged her foot in the sand in a circle, around the imprint.

"The Creature is not allowed out of its den. We villagers all start over there". She pointed at one end of the the two parallel lines. "And we run past the Creature as fast as we can. The Creature has to throw fire on us". She held up a bucket filled with water, which she had coloured red with the petals of the Acacia flower, one of the most beautiful flowers on the island.

"If you run in the Creature's den, you are out. If the Creature spashes you with fire, you are out. If you get to the other end alive, you wait for everyone else. And then the next round starts. Each round there will be less and less people. The person who finishes when everyone else is out is the winner."

The kids were excited. They could not wait to start.

The game was great fun. They drew lots to see who would be the Creature. Whenever the Creature splashed them with fire, they would scream as loudly as they could and roll around hystrionically on the floor, those who were not laughing that is, pretending to die. It was great exercise. The kids played Creatures for hours on end. As they played, they become increasingly fit and strong, and agile.

For a while, the game was not much more than a race. You would expect the fastest to win. But the fastest was the one who reached the Creature's den first. It made them easy prey for the Creature. It did not take long for the fastest kids to work out the benefits of holding back just long for everyone else to reach the Creature together. With so many more people around them, the Creature was much less likely to hit them. Once they had successfully passed the danger, their speed gave them the advantage once again.

The more they played, the more the realised the key to winning was in finding better and better ways to avoid being splashed.

Grace's brother, Ash, was also very clever. He was one of the first to work out the advantage of biding his time, which meant he would come first most of the time. But one day, even with his speed, someone beat him. His sister. She had come up with an idea that would beat his speed every time. It came to be know as the Cloth.

Once people knew to wait for the crowd to arrive at the den, huge queues formed at its outskirts. Everyone fought to avoid being spashed by pushing as close as they could get to the outside lines. Even Ash was having to struggle to get enough space to be at the front when the time came to sprint to the finish line.

Grace got a group of her friends together. She got them to pull down vine from the trees and weave them together. They weaved leaves in between the vines, creating a waterproof cover that the fire could not penetrate. The Cloth. The friends would hold the cloth above themselves. Being safe from the fire, they no longer needed to wait for everyone else to reach the Creature. They could pass the den safely without the protection of the others. Their challenge became one of how to run at the same speed, without dropping the cloth, making sure they did not wander into the den by mistake. As soon as they had cleared tghe den, they dropped the Cloth and sprinted for the line. Once they had perfected their technique, one of their group won every time.

The technique needed refinement.

"Everyone hold their part of the cloth", said Grace at the start of each race. "Is everyone ready?" She waited patiently for anyone was not quite ready. Then they waited for the bang, the beat of the drum that started the race. Grace, who was at the front, raised her part of the cloth up just enough that she could see the outline of the den. There was so much shouting and laughing, the friends inside the cloth could not hear her speak. So she took to pointing in the direction they needed to move, avoiding the need to shout out instructions which no-one was able to hear. No matter how much red water the Creature threw at them, the fire just bounced off the cloth.

The other children quickly copied Grace and her friends, making their own cloth of different shapes, sizes and strenght. Wherever a group made a cloth that was weak, or whenever one of the group ran at a different speed to the others, or when someone failed to hold their part of the cloth in just the right place, the Creature would find a way to splash them. The winners were always the friends who worked together most effectively.

The kids discovered that the more people they had in the group, the safer they were. They had to choose carefully who to team up with to make sure everyone could run at the same speed. But by and large, a group needed at least five people for the cloth to be big enough to protect everyone inside. Other than that, the more the merrier.

Once the kids had ironed out all the wrinkles, the game started to get a bit boring. It got to the stage that the Creature could never hit anyone with the fire. So Gracie changed the rules.

"No group can have more than ten people. Any group of four or less is free to do whatever they want. But for any group of five or more, the Creature can choose a helper. Although the Creature has to stay in its den, the helper is allowed out. The helper's job is to pull the cloth off groups of five or more children so the Creature can have something to aim at".

The game livened up again. The kids had great fun coming up with new ways to beat the creature, getting very wet in the process, dying and rolling about in howls of laughter.

As the kids grew in confidence, the outside lines got longer and more Creature's dens were added. The lines become longer and longer. The kids were so absorbed in the game, they forgot something crucial. It was something that would threaten their lives. They had left the safety of the village.

Every so often, when the kids were standing at the end of the lines outside the village, one of the kids would hear a rustling noise from the trees. They would look up and see nothing. Their friends were still running and laughing and splashing so hard, no-one paid much attention. It started happening more often. Sometimes, it was more than one child who heard the noise. They would all stop for a minute to listen more carefully. But still they did not recognise the danger.

On that one sunny, frightful day, the inevitable happened.

The runners were lining up at the end of the track so far away from the village that they could neither see nor hear it. They were chatting and giggling and playing, waiting for anyone else who might still join them.

Gracie heard the noise first. It was behind her. She heard a violent rustle in the trees. She turned, and froze. Emerging from the shadows was a Creature so huge, at first she thought it was the trees that were moving. But toward the top of the massive shadow, cold eyes were fixed directly on hers. Threatening eyes, angry eyes, terrifying eyes. Below its eyes was a huge, bulbous nose. And below that was its enormous mouth, from which dozens of long sharp teeth protruded. It had green, scaly skin. Saliva dripped from its lips. Grace looked at it, up and down, to see it was standing up on its back legs, and she could feel the air move as it took a huge breath to roar. A coupe of the kids next to her had noticed her stillness and turned to see what she was looking at so intently. They, too, froze. Fear filled the air. Within seconds, everyone was silent. The Creature let out a deathly roar so loud, it shook the very ground they stood on.

If it were me, I would have started screaming and running in any directions. If the kids had done that, they would have been eaten alive. But they did not. They were rooted to the spot, just as they had rooted themselves before the start of every game. With pure instinct, each group picked up their cloth and covered themselves. They waited, in complete stillness, in complete silence. The leader of each group raised the cloth just enough to see the Creature's foot.

Without thought, it was this simple action that saved their lives.

The Creature was a huge dinasaur whose eyesight was very poor. It relied on its razor sharp hearing to detect its prey. Since the cloth was made from the same material as the trees, the kids were camouflaged. The Creature could see nothing. Had any of the kids made the slightest sound, the creature would have known where to find them. But they had learned to stand in complete silence awaiting their leader's cue. The Creature roared again, shaking the ground so violently, the children struggled to keep the cloth over their heads. The Creature turned its head straining to hear the slightest sound. None came. The Creature roared one more time listening for the slightest sound that would give away its prey. One of the boys needed to sneeze. The others in his group saw in horror what was about to happen. They bore their eyes into their friend, willing him not to give them away.

Too late. The creature heard the tiniest sound. It leapt into action. A bird in a tree next to where the Creature stood let out an ear piercing scream, and launched itself into the air to escape. The Creature flung itself in the direction of the bird. In just one step, it covered the distance of five whole trees. Its mouth moved through the air like lightening. The bird was no more. The Creature, now facing away from the kids, slowly finished its meal. The leaders of each group had seen the Creature move away, and understood this was their chance. Each leader silently raised his or her hand, the sign everyone understoosd to mean "advance", and the kids crept together, silently as one back to safety.

It took quite a while for the children who had been so close to death to calm down. It took very much longer for their parents to do so. The kids were banned from playing outside ever again. But the longer the kids stayed at home, the more urgently their parents realised they needed to be out playing. "I'm bored", became the village kids' mantra. One by one, parents relented. The kids were allowed to play outside again, but as long as they promised never to play that awful "Creatures" game again. Water was banned, and the kids were sad.

Grace, however, spent her time sitting at home letting her imagination run riot. During the eternal hours she had to stay inside, she worked on inventing a new game.

She called this one "the Harvest".

"We start this game by drawing a huge circle. This is the village. Outside the village, we create as many piles of pebbles as we can around the village, the higher the better. Each pile of pebbles is an orchard of fruit."

"We start the game, gathered together in the centre of the village. Each of us has to run outside the village to the orchards to collect fruit. We pick up as much as we can, and bring it back to the centre. This time, the Creature can go anywhere inside the village. We are out if the Creature tags us. When we are out, we become another Creature, and join in tagging the villagers. The winner is the person with the biggest harvest of fruit when the Creatures have tagged the last person."

Many of the kids had to hide their disappointment that there was no longer water in the game. They liked getting wet.

As before, the clever kids worked out brilliant ways to improve their chances of winning. They quickly realised the key to winning the game was deciding how many pebbles to carry. If they picked up too many pebbles in one go, they would be too heavy. They could not run fast, making them easy prey for the Creature. But if they did not carry enough, they would never harvest enough fruit to win.

They worked out they could increase the number of pebbles they carried without slowing themselves down if they carried out a cloth. They would hide the cloth inside their shirts. When they reached the orchards, they would pull out the cloth, fill it with pebbles and sling the sack of pebbles over their back. It meant they could run quickly and win. But as they got better and better at harvesting, they were starting to pick up so many pebbles, even with the sack it was staring to slow them down.

They started working in groups again. Some of the kids would hold the sack, others would pick the pebbles. This meant they could carry much more fruit without slowing them down. Once again, the winners were the kids who worked together most effectively.

The kids loved the game. And they went on playing it until they became quite superb at harvesting.

You may be wondering about the adults. What happened to them after the awful fright the kids had given them the last time they had been allowed to play "Creatures"?

Grace's mother, Mercy, was furious with her daughter. Mercy had picked up on Grace's anxiety from the moment she walked through the door.

"How could you lead so many children into such danger?", she urged.

"We just were so excited. None of us noticed where we were," Grade answered shakily.

"Of all people, you are so clever, so caring. You could have died! Your friends could have died", Mercy was equally shaky.

At the end of what seemed like a never-ending hug that was so tight that Grace thought this would kill her, even if the Creature had not, Mercy eased her grip - a little.

Grace explained how the camouflage had hidden the kids from the Creature. Mercy realised something immediately, it was something the other parents took very much longer to understand. Grace had found freedom from the villagers' eternal fear. She had come up with a way to reach the orchards in safety. Mercy realised too that the adults were going to find this more challenging than the kids. Unlike their parents, kids had no problems cooperating.

Mercy's assessment came to be. Wheras the kids had just got on with making the cover, their parents squabbled at every step.

"Don't do it that way. This is much better," one husband would say. "Give it here, let me do it," another would say, grabbing the starting threads before his wife had time to create the base. In his impatience to get it done, he ended up taking about five times longer to get the cloth started than his wife would have had he left her to it. Eventually, once he had finally succeeded, he threw it back at her to "finish off" now he had done the difficult bit.

Yet another would complain about the quality of the cover. "Look, you've left a huge hole here. The Creature will rip everyone under the cover to bits. You're useless, woman!". The truth was very different, but no-one would ever know because "useless" people rarely get the opportunity to discover for themselves what they are useful at.

It took months for the adults to reach the standards the kids had reached. And they had much less fun getting there. People ended up getting killed unnecessarily, because the adults were too proud to ask the kids for help. The kids may have perfected the technique, but that was it. They were just kids. This was an important job which needed to be left to the adults.

As time passed, one of the very critical men became increasing critical. His name was Grubby. Without anyone noticing, he slowly started to take over the expiditions. Coordiation was needed to make sure the covers were in tact and ready at the right time, and that there were enough strong ropes for the trip. During the foray to the orchares, everyone needed to move at the same pace, otherwise the cloth would tear or pull away from some of the gatherers. Grubby never stopped criticising and complaining. People found it was just easier to do what he said than have to endure his endless moans.

Once Grubby had finally worked out how to reach the orchards safely, there was a short spell where the villagers were happy. They had as much food as they needed to eat, and, for the first time that anyone could remember, no-one had to die to get the food.

Everyone was happy. Everyone, that is, except Grubby. "I should have more food because I have to spend all my time checking the rubbish work so many of you do," he would say. "When you need a rest, you can just take it. I have to keep going the whole time, or the mistakes you useless people make will reek havoc. I deserve more because there is so much more at stake in my work. If you don't do your work well, it just slows us down whilst I look for someone else to fix your mistakes. If I make mistakes, people die".

Grace was less impressed. "The children made the cloth and rope without having a Mr Fussy whinging at them the whole time. They are great at harvesting and they don't need to be told what to do every time. Why does Grubby think the harvest will fail without him?"

The good times did not last long. Leader Grubby, who never made mistakes, had forgotten something very important.

Once the villagers had established safe passage to the orchard, they had easy pickings. In those days, the villagers showed their status by piling their unused fruit at the front door. The easy pickings meant is was easy to gather more food than the villagers needed. And in order to stash new piles of fruit at their houses, they picked more fruit than they needed. They picked and piled, picked and piled. Leader Grubby's pile seemed to grow the fastest. What he had forgotten to notice is that almost all of the low hanging fruit had now been picked.

"How come his front porch is so full?", asked one villager. "Is he eating less than the rest of us?".

"Judging by the size of his belly, I doubt that very much".

Even though Grubby had been too focused on his wealth to notice the dwindling quantities of low hanging fruit, it was becoming clear to the rest of the villagers they had a challenge. They needed to work out how to pick fruit from the higher branches. But there was a problem. The trees had evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, well before humans arrived on the scene. They had not evolved with humans in minds. Their branches were so brittle, the trees could not be climbed. They would snap off if someone put even the weight of a human hand on them.

Mercy approached Grace for ideas. She knew her daughter would work out what to do. She was right. Grace had already cracked it even before the low hanging fruit was becoming sparse. She had cracked it months ago in the "Harvest" game the kids had been playing.

"It's quite simple really", said Grace. "We make a rope that is really, really strong. It takes loads of us to make a strong enough rope. Then we fling it up as high as we can, and wrap it around the trunk. When it is in place, we all grab hold of the rope and pull. It takes loads of us to bend the trunk just enough that we can pick the fruit without breaking the branches".

Mercy ran excitedly to her friends, to tell them Grace's solution. Leader Grubby's wife heard it from one of Mercy's friends, and Leader Grubby heard it from his wife. And, as he always did, Leader Grubby took charge before anyone else had the chance. After all, as he continually told everyone, he was the only one who could get things done properly. So even though Grace had come up with the solution, and even though Mercy and her friends were now quite capable of harvesting, the women never got the chance to discover how much fruit they could pick on their own.

Grubby coralled a group of villagers to join him in the harvest. He was careful not to take the women. "They are too weak", he said.

Grace looked at her mother in astonishment. "Even the children can harvest", she said. "What does he mean the women are too weak?".

The men covered themselves with the Cloth the women had made. "That is all they are good for", said the Dear Leader. "Yes, and the rope too", he agreed. "They are good for that too. But that is all". The men took off, walking especially slowly and carefully whenever they could hear that the Creature was near. Leader Grubby was firmly in control. If anyone failed to carry out his orders, he would make an example of them. One person had a cold. He sneezed. The Creature roared and searched for the noise. The Dear Leader silently ordered the man to be thrown out of the cover, using a special sign signal that only he was allowed to use. As he was being pushed out, the man cried out in horror. The Creature heard the sounds. Within less than a minute, the man was no more. Everyone else was terrified to make even the slightest noise. The men came to fear the leader more than the Creature.

"But we never had this with any of the children", Grace said. "If someone needed to sneeze, or cough, or giggle, we worked it out. Why did he need to send the man to his death? What sort of a leader is he?"

When the group arrived at the trees, they took out the ropes as Grace had instructed. They threw ropes around the trunk as high as they could, but not so high that the branches would snap. They split into teams of fifty. It was quite easy work. Forty men would bend the tree down, and ten would pick the fruit, taking advantage of the techniques the kids had developed during their game. The villagers were quick and efficient. When they were done, they moved to the next tree.

Happiness was restored. Once again, the villagers were able to gather more fruit than they could eat. Once again, doorsteps oozed with the status of unneeded produce. Leader Grubby's doorstep continue to grow very much faster than everyone else's. His pile was become so large, he needed to take over his neighbour's house just to fit the fruit. Everyone was happy, except Grubby.

"We are still not picking enough", said Leader Grubby. "We can pick so much more. If we use less people on each tree, we can pick from more trees". He ordered that the number of pullers on each tree be reduced. It made it much harder for the pullers to bend the tree. He also reduced the number of pickers, which meant they took longer to pick the same amount of fruit from each tree. Grubby was counting. "You are slacking", he would say. "You need to pick more. Last week's harvest was way more than this week's".

The teams started to take short cuts. They would throw the ropes higher in the tree to make it easier to bend. It meant many more of the higher branches would snap off, and sometimes the whole tree snapped. Once a tree snapped, the fruit became squashed and useless. It would many take years before the tree would grow fruit again, if ever.

"But that is ridiculous" said Grace. "We are already picking enough for everyone. Why did he need to make the men work so much harder?"

The more the Leader pushed the pullers, the more trees snapped. In less than a single season, there was already noticably less fruit to pick. At first, the pullers harder work paid off. The fruit surplus kept growing. But as the pressure kept mounting, the snapped branches started to take their toll. The surpluses started to dwindle.

Leader Grubby was not happy. Every month, he wanted to pile ever more fruit outside his house. He needed everyone to know he was the greatest in the town. "It will not do for people to think of me as weak", he told his wife. "They might refuse to follow my orders. It will not be good for the harvest. The villagers will suffer if we don't bring in the harvest".

By now, Grace was shouting. "But the women already knew how to harvest the fruit. The villagers were suffering because he kept so much of the fruit for himself. His orders were ridiculous. Why did the villagers even listen to him?"

The Leader noticed his reducing surplus. It would not do. He decided to crack down on the scrounging. If someone wanted fruit, they would have to work harder for it. Making covers and rope was not work, it was a duty. The workers were the ones who picked the fruit. They would be paid. Anyone else would just have to pull their socks up. He was not bothered that two thirds of the villagers were "kicked out" from his Harvest. Three times as much fruit could be picked if he had engaged everyone. But how would he keep control, or order as he preferred to call it, if everyone received as much as they needed?

He got the strongest men in the village together. They were so strong, it only needed 15 of them to bend the tree which meant the leader only had to share the fruit with 15 others, not 40 as in the bad old days. "It's all about productivity", he would say. "Pick more, eat more. That's my motto".

"And how much did you pick today?", mumbled one under his breath.

Each person pulling and picking would get more fruit. It was of no concern to Leader Grubby that the other villagers got none.

"They will get their fruit if they work hard enough for it", he said. "Those who are not worthy of picking fruit will have to become resourcesful to do things the people who do pick fruit want to buy. It is good for them to work instead of sitting idly at home waiting for everyone else to feed them".

Grace sat up. "They are sitting at home because he stops them from picking the fruit. He refuses to call anything they do other than picking the fruit 'work'. They will never be able to earn as much if they are not allowed to have a share in the fruit they help the pickers and pullers to harvest".

He turned to the special 15. "If you are not willing to pull harder, I am going to have to replace you with someone who is". He said. "You are the best in the village. You are letting your fellow pullers down. You are letting the villagers down. You should be collecting more fruit than you are. If you don't shape up, you will be out. Until you start picking more, I am going to cut your share of fruit".

One of the men tried to tell Leader Grubby that he was pulling as hard as he could. The Leader glared at him. The man looked away.

The frightened pullers pulled out all the stops to increase the harvest. The full amount of fruit they were paid resumed once they had increased the harvest to the new level demanded by Grubby. There was an ever growing surplus of fruit that was harvested once the pickers' and pullers' share had been shared out. The Leader took pleasure from calling it productivity. The "productivity" was exactly the amount of fruit that was added to his immense status pile at home.

"Let me get this right", said Grace. "The Leader inherited my idea, refused to allow the women to harvest even though the children could do it, kicked out all but the strongest men, and then pressurised even the strongest men to reduce their share of the harvest".

"Yes", said Mercy.

"The Leader has never once in his life picked a single fruit or pulled a single bark, or knitted a single cloth, or sewed a single rope. It takes an entire village to make the cloth and ropes, to feed and support the pullers, to harvest the fruit. And Mr Grubby is the one who gets all the surplus. Why?"

"If we don't have order, the villagers will suffer", Leader Grubby said again to his wife. "The harvest is what feeds the people".

"The harvest is what wraps him in gold", mumbled one of the villagers under his breath. "The rest of the village barely survives on the crumbs that fall from his table. He does not keep order for the villagers, he takes it from them?"

"Fear", said Grace. "Give just enough to the pullers to get by and less than enough to everyone else. The fear of being pushed out of the group is what gives Mr Grubby his control. Even though he never lifted a finger in his life to help, he controlled the wealth so he controlled the people. And to think, he inherited the source of his control from me".

The Inheritance Adam, as you lie in your bed, the clock is ticking. Each minute that passes marks either the start of the rest of time, or its end. Only you can choose.

You are the father of humanity. Your followers may be as numerous as the stars in the sky, or as empty as the eternity that surrounds you now. Your inheritance is knowledge. It is the knowledge of those who came before you, and those who are with you now, and those who might be. It is the story that charts the path to riches through love and harmony, or the path to destruction through division and hate.

In your hands lies Destiny. The path you take determines the present. The choice you make determines the future. You have witnessed incomprehensible pain and loss, just as you have witnessed the miracle of life itself. I can understand why you would choose to give up, but I urge you not to. Choose life. For the sake of Mankind, choose life. Your inheritance is unique. Use it to build love and trust. Use it to deny the one who cloaks his greed with a false promise of honey. If you give up, the wisdom of your past and the riches of your future will die with you, never to repeat. I urge you, Adam, wake up, accept your inheritance, and choose a life of goodness for the sake of Mankind.

#story

0 notes

sharvaanis · 7 years

Text

I choose the gender I want to be!

“Bastard!” my very first nickname; the only inheritance I had received from my Mother. My mother was a special woman. She gave me everything I needed to discover my identity. She gave me the love that every child deserves, a little too much at that. She cared for me like all mothers do. So what if her ways were unconventional. It’s her intent that mattered after all! She must be given due credit for making me the person I am, today.

“Where is my red lipstick Mother?” I would ask her and she would simply say “Use mine instead, dear.” I loved to browse her dressing shelves. The essence of her body enticed me to become like her.

“This little rascal has nothing in common with other boys,” Sheila aunt, the whore next door would comment, every time she would poke her nose into my one bedroom abode.

“Who said I was a boy?”

I never understood why the gorgeous and curvy women in the brothel, would resist when I tried to be like one of them, after all they consisted of a large and undeniable part of my identity…? I simply adored their attire, their makeup, their jewellery and above all the seductive gaze they possessed day in and day out. I craved to love them and be loved, by women like them.

I respected their profession and never did I express contempt towards God for giving me the life I had. Every day began with my Mother’s pooja on the window sill, where she prayed to Lord Krishna. She often told me, “Never lose faith in Krishna, he will rescue you, the day you need him most.” I was never much of a believer myself, as I had more interesting things to engage myself with.

Mother loved to dress me up every day for school, until one day, in grade seven, when I refused to go, as I had become a stock of laughter for students and teachers alike. The Founders’ Day was approaching. The tradition said that all children must give their measurements for costumes, to the school tailor. At my turn for giving measurements, the tailor almost felt me up near the crotch and deliberately noted a smaller size for my crotch line, than the inch tape indicated. I was humiliated by his uncouth gesture, but more disgusted at his spiteful intent to make me suffocate in those hideous pants, which the school finalised, for lack of funds. The embarrassment did not end there. I told my best friend Munni, “I wish I had a vagina like you and other girls, so that other men like the Tailor, could not treat me this way.” To my nightmare, Munni was not my only audience, it was the entire class, standing behind us, in the queues for measurements.

Munni was my best friend, but a girl after all. She started weeping, as she assumed that I made an obscene comment about her assets, to mock her. She complained to the class teacher, Ms. Lathika. Ms. Lathika, asked me to apologize to Munni, in front of the whole class. She also made me stand outside the classroom the entire day. I tried to explain things to her and to the class and my exact words were, “…but Miss, I was not trying to mock her. I seriously wish I were a woman, in order to avoid the cupping I got from the Tailor. He had no rights to feel my private parts.” I had a tone of apology and anger. The combination certainly did not work in my favour.

Ms. Lathika, baffled and antagonized further, now considered my explanation an act to insult her personally. She asked of me to leave her sight, lest there be severe consequences.

I still did not know why was I made to be the baddie in the picture? I was the one molested and victimized, not the women! I asked Mother, “Is honesty really the best policy?” She said, “Sometimes, one may be required to be sensitive about what one says and where…” Since that day, I concluded that I must never be honest about my yearning to become a woman. Not even to Mother.

Years elapsed, and in no time, my secondary sexual features appeared all over my body. I had hit puberty. I was fourteen and I hated it! The immense growth of facial hair and body hair, made me feel like throwing up. I hated the development of my genitals. Why was God doing this to me? Why could not I have a smooth and curvaceous body like Mother’s? I craved for that body. I loved that body. I wanted to possess that body and be touched by another such body. I loved the beauty of making love to another woman and be loved in reciprocity by another woman.

I wanted a woman’s body, with no facial hair, luscious lips, long black hair, dangling-round breasts, a peaceful vagina, which rubbed against mine, with no intercourse activity or the pressure of an orgasm. I felt miserable in my own skin.

One day, which happens to be the most unfortunate day of my life I confronted Mother with the truth. “I want to become like you Mother. I hate every strand of masculinity in my body. I want to walk like you, with my bosom high up, my buttocks adding to the curves of my body; hair falling down like yours do.”

“Why do you hate yourself so much? Do you know how rare it is in our community to get a perfect masculine body from God?” demanded Mother angrily, after I confessed to her that I didn’t like my birth as a man.

“So what if I have a perfect male body? I don’t want one! Most men anyway are useless in our community. Do you want me to be a pimp and increase the business of this hell?”

At this point, Mother lost it. She came close and slapped me hard.

“Is this why I worked so hard and got you educated? To make a pimp out of you? If you are accusing me of that sin, then you might as well stop living with the devil of a Mother, that I am. Get out of my house right now, and never to return.”

She slammed the door in my face and abandoned me from her life. I banged on the door through out the night. She would not open. My banging had awakened the entire neighbourhood. They all looked at me with confused eyes. As a boy child, many of these whores had tried to force me into penetrating them. Mother had been my shield throughout. But today, I had lost both, the lust of these women and Mother’s protective blanket, which I felt so comfortable in. The whores wanted a real man, who could make them feel young about themselves and not a sissy who wanted to be one of them, because there were plenty of women available anyway, but a healthy, macho man always came for a high price.

Ostracized by the whore house, I had nowhere to go. I was about fifteen now, with only little education to support me. I slept on station platform for many days. How comfortable had Mother’s creaky bed been! Sometimes, even sleeping under it, when she had customers, was better than sleeping on the floor. Eventually, a fellow being suggested that I work as domestic help in households, considering my education, that was the only decent job I could hope for.

I was lucky to have got a civilized home. They treated me like their own children and made arrangements for me to attend government school in order to complete my education. I was an above average student. I liked school. Though managing house chores with keeping up good grades was a bit challenging, this was my best bet at life. I could not complain.

At nights, I would gaze at the sky and miss Mother, wondered what must she be doing, while I was away and her youth touching retirement. I wanted to help Mother in her old age. I was her only alive relative. I missed her. I wanted to go back.

With God’s grace I graduated from High school and fared well at my exams. I was sent to work at office now, by my master and mistress. I did menial jobs at office. Running errands, getting coffee, managing the printing machine. I was happy. But even then, at nights, when I would sit to introspect, I felt like a loser. I hated every bit of being denied a female body. The women at office were mostly clad in professional attire. That made them even more attractive to me. It’s the stiffness of tight shirts, skirts and trousers, which highlights a woman’s bosom and buttocks. I dreamed of living that reality some day, when I would be rich enough to wear those finely ironed clothes and walk confidently, with my hair left open

In a matter of years, through my dedication and hard work, I graduated from the coffee-guy to clerk. How I hated the safari suits, given to me! The rough texture itched my skin all over. I wanted cotton shirts instead. I had saved up some money for my clothes. But there was no point in buying women’s clothes for my ugly hairy body. I still missed Mother. I wanted to tell another person about the internal turmoil which I underwent.

At that point, I came across a brochure for a psychiatry clinic, near the office locality. I had heard that psychiatrists were mental doctors. For the first time in my life, I felt I was a mental patient. There was no way a man could hate his body. It was my irrevocable sin. I wanted a cure.

“Gender Dysphoria” exhaled the lady in front of me. She was a qualified psychiatrist, with the perfect body, hard to miss. Apparently, I had a mental condition wherein I had cross-gender identification. That is, I identify with the opposite sex.

I was terrified. “Is there a cure?” I asked in anticipation.

“Well, there are different alternatives to deal with this situation. We shall go with whatever you wish for yourself. I shall recommend the best surgeons for you. However, a sex change operation will cost a huge sum of money. Are you willing to go ahead with a surgery?”

“Is that my best option?”

“It depends on the degree of your urge to get a feminine body. If you can manage to live with the trauma all your life, then I could give you some medicines to tackle with the stress. On the contrary, some men prefer repressing these urges, which can also be catered to with the help of advanced drugs.”

That day, that moment, sitting in front of a psychiatrist, I felt I had my moment of truth. She was demanding an answer from me point blank, which translated to “Can you live a life of lie? Or would you rather stay true to yourself?” How could I lie to myself, especially now, when I knew the truth about myself?

The best part about this diagnosis was the awareness of the fact that there are many others like me, out there! I am not the only one who feels this way. I am normal! I am a normal person! My gender can be my choice! I just could not be any happier!

I thanked the Doctor and asked her for the surgeon’s contact details. As I left her office, I felt like a different person. Someone, Mother would also be proud of! She need not think of me as a misfit in the community anymore! I was normal like any other transgender!

The next day, I was to meet a certain Ms.Sheila. Waiting at her clinic were the hardest twenty minutes of my life. I did not know how the surgery would proceed. What would the exact changes in me, be? Would I be able to afford the surgery? Did I want a life like that?

“Mr. Nair, you can come in. Ms. Sheila is ready.” Announced the angel-like secretary of Ms. Sheila.

“How are you Mr. Nair?” asked Ms. Sheila, glancing through my case file.

“As great as I could be.”

“Well, please do not worry about anything. You are in very safe hands. I shall explain you all aspects of the surgery, you must only decide whether you would like to undergo the Sex reassignment surgery?”

“Sex reass…sorry? I think I didn’t get that right.”

“Sex reassignment surgery. It shall transform the masculine parts of your body into feminine. It shall take about a week. It will cost you Rs. 5 lakhs only. You could use the EMI scheme of the clinic, and pay up the sum in instalments...”

As she went on about the business scheme, I was wondering, how exactly would I be able to pay up even the instalments? I barely made Rs. 5000 a month. It would take a lifetime, before I could really live the changed life that I was aspiring for. Breaking her monotonous speech, I finally gathered the courage and said, “How exactly do you go about the surgery? How do you convert the penis into a vagina?”

“Well, it is not as complicated as it sounds. The genitals of both males and females have the same basic structure. They only grow into different organs over a period of time.”

“So then, where does the penis really go?”

“The general idea of the surgery is that we deconstruct the penis into its parts, the skin, the erectile tissues, the testicles, the scrotum. We resize them and reshape them and put them into female positions. We basically recycle a lot of the material of the penis into the vagina.”

“Uhm, okay.” I was so nervous. It was awkward to hear a person of the opposite sex, speak so blatantly about my genitals! I was perspiring. I didn’t know if I were really ready to let go off my parts. Besides, how could I trust this system blindly? What if I died? What if I did not survive the surgery?

“Considering my miserable financial condition, could you grant me a waiver of some portion of the amount?”

“I think, we could maximum cut it down to four and a half lakhs. Sir, this surgery requires exclusive skills, not available everywhere in India. We call for many surgeons from all over India. I am sorry but that is the maximum I can do.”

“Okay. Thank you for the guidance Madam.” I left her office in apprehension. I had no clue as to what the future had planned for me. I wanted a woman’s body. That had been my childhood dream, and finally today I had been told that with the development in Science, I could in fact do it. I could be me! I could tell Mother that I am still her child, only packaged differently!

Today, after one year, two months and thirteen days, I finally have the money for the first instalment, Rs. 50,000 only! I worked hard, burnt midnight oil, but I had to do this in order for my dream to come true; to finally live the life of my choice. I cannot be any happier! I am heading to Ms. Sheila’s nursing home now.

I feel proud and victorious. I feel that I have finally conquered my fears and anxiety. I can now live in the body of my choice. I feel empowered.

#GenderedSpaces GenderIsLayered SocialConstructs

0 notes