#i come back with such tepid fanfare

[ww2yaoi]

[I caved and started writing a webgott fic even though I'm 23 years late. this ground has definitely been traversed before but I'm an advocate for the webgott 2024 renaissance. here's a taste]

The war is over, and still, David and Joe are butting heads, velvet-shed antlers clashing like rival bucks during rutting season.

David’s not sure what he expected. He thought after the exultation of taking Berchtesgaden and raiding it of its liquour and silverware Joe might lighten up. He’d smiled so much that day, drank vintage champagne straight from the bottle, tore down Nazi flags and ripped them to ribbons. Something had broken in him at Landsberg, David knows that much, but he’d been hopeful that as the war tempered so too would Joe’s ire. Now he knows he’d been naive to think so.

Joe parks the Jeep outside the hotel where they’re billeted and wrestles the keys from the ignition. He climbs out and slams the door without another word, jump boots clomping against the cobblestones as he stalks away. David sits silently in the passenger’s side, Skinny’s eyes burning holes in the back of his head. He presses his lips into a thin line, sucks them between his teeth and bites down.

Captain Speirs had no right to give that order, least of all to Joe. They had no reason to keep fighting, no reason to dirty their hands when the old blood stains still linger. Leave that to the MPs and the military tribunals, their war was supposed to be over.

David gets out of the Jeep but decides not to follow after Joe. He knows the more he seeks Joe out, the more Joe will push him away. Instead, he walks, weaving through the streets of Zell am See, past shops and cafes and chalets all untouched by the ravages of war. Hitler’s home country, the birthplace of so much death and destruction, and it has the ersatz gloss of a resort town. The irony is not lost on David. He’ll write about it later if he gets the chance.

Birds chirp in the trees. Locals stroll past him, well-dressed in their spring clothes and chatting away jovially amongst themselves. They regard him without much fanfare, used to the sight of American soldiers by now. The water of Lake Zell is so blue it makes David’s eyes ache. He fishes his cigarettes from the pocket of his paratrooper jacket and slides one into his mouth, fiddling with his Zippo until the flame sparks and lights the tip.

The first inhale brings David back to the mountains, that cabin on the hill, chickens clucking in their pen. The hit of nicotine had done little to calm his nerves as Joe shouted at the kommandant in his Austrian-tinged German. David had just about jumped out of his skin when the shot rang out and the kommandant burst from the cabin, bleeding from his neck. Joe had bled from his neck in Holland. He has the scar to prove it. Sometimes, when they’re sitting side-by-side in the truck and Joe’s not looking, David will stare at it, curling his fist at his side to stop himself from reaching out and smoothing his thumb over the puckered skin.

He keeps walking, smoking his cigarette down to the filter. Eventually, he comes upon a church, throwing his cigarette to the ground and stamping it out. The imposing wooden doors are open to let the tepid May air waft inside. David steps across the threshold and the piquant smell of incense hits his nose, olibanum and myrrh.

The church is empty except for a custodian sweeping the floor by the pulpit, but the man eventually disappears into a room at the back. David sits at the pew closest to the door, the knotty wood ungiving against his back. He admires the stained glass windows, cyan and crimson and gold with the pious faces of saints. The apses vault high above him, the air that rains down from the rafters drafty and filled with dust motes. It would be easy to imagine what this place would look like had the fighting swept through here, but David tries not to. It’s too beautiful a church for that kind of exercise.

David let his Catholicism lapse years ago, before the war even started really. His family was never that religious, only attending services on Christmas and Easter, but David prays now. He doesn’t go as far as kneeling on the tuffet or even interlocking his fingers, but pray he does, letting his eyes flutter closed for a moment. He asks God, if there even is one, to take Joe’s pain and put it elsewhere, to spare him the anger and the hurt, the need for revenge that undoubtedly itches underneath his skin. He’s sure if Joe knew what he was doing, sitting here asking his Christian god to save a Jew, he would laugh in his face, but David’s not ashamed of it. If anything, he’s desperate. He’s not sure if Joe is ever going to speak to him again, even though he’s well aware that Joe tends to run hot only to cool back down a few days later.

Maybe this time is different though. Maybe this is what finally breaks the unsturdy bridge David has built between them since he missed Bastogne, possibly to the point of irreparability. He sits there, trying to parse what he feels. Perhaps it would be a relief to let their friendship shatter in his unwieldy hands. No more tiptoeing around Joe’s persistent bitterness, his bad moods that seem to bubble up with the slightest prodding. Then again, David doesn’t think it’d be a relief at all. He’s not even angry at Joe. If anything, he’s upset they’re still here after the Germans have surrendered, stuck cleaning up a mess that was never theirs in the first place.

Sometimes, David is so angry he forgets to breathe. Was he like this before the war? He can barely remember. Back at Harvard, he used to get heated in his classes, arguing passionately with his peers about Proust or Dostoevsky, but he knew how trivial it was even then. It was just a game he liked to play, something to make the hours he spent stuck in lecture halls go by faster. He doubts there’s anything he can do here to make the time pass quicker. There’s probably nothing Joe can do either.

With that, David gets up from the pew and exits the church. He steps back into the golden blare of the Austrian sunshine, headed towards Easy’s billet.

[aetla]

 ❖ ‘ you know — ’

 ❖  ‘ — i just don’t think this is going to work. ’

[thezodiaczone]

Gemini Compatibility

GEMINI + ARIES (MARCH 21 - APRIL 19) ♥♥♥♥ You're two high-strung, passionate Fire signs who both like to be the Alpha dominant. As such, you'll need to toss the hot potato back and forth, submitting to the other's rule—at times through gritted teeth. Acquiescence may not come naturally, but it builds a necessary trust. Aries is a paradox: you're the zodiac's infant (its first sign) and its gallant hero (you're ruled by warrior Mars). You want to save the world and be saved at the same time. You'll need to occasionally allow yourself to play wounded knight or damsel in distress, and let your mate charge to your rescue. However, don't spiral into neurotic helplessness or analysis paralysis. Nobody can beat a topic to death quite like you can—but that's what therapists are for, Aries. Neither one of you can be saddled with the emotional care and feeding of an adult baby. You're too independent for that. When your problems gain too much mental gravitas, it's time to move—literally. Disperse your Martian angst and anger with lots of physical exertion. As fellow adventurers, you travel well together. Try snowboarding, exotic bike tours, Costa Rican rainforest expeditions. Passionate sex is another antidote to prickly feelings for your high-touch sign. Like Aries Hugh Hefner, you have a champion libido (and an awesome sense of entitlement). Some Aries couples may mutually agree to flex the terms of your monogamy, although the jealousy it stirs might not be worth the trouble.

GEMINI + TAURUS (APRIL 20 - MAY 20) The stubborn Bull locks horns with the willful Ram, nostrils flaring, heads bowed in determination. So begins a fierce but fiery courtship, as splashy and menacing as a Pamplona stampede. Aggression, however uncivilized, is part our Darwinian natures. It certainly is for your signs—who possess an arsenal of steamrolling tactics, from doe-eyed charm to old-fashioned philistine strong-arming. No weak-willed mate will survive your natural selection process. Nor should he. Neither one of you feels safe in the arms of a mate who can't protect you. Thus, your initial faceoff is simply a warning shot: Show me your strength so I can trust you. Once the fanfare is over, you make a great team—like British pop royalty Victoria (Aries) and David (Taurus) Beckham.

As tight as two mafiosos, you like to dress up and flaunt your natural superiority over the rest of the animal kingdom. The deal is sweet for both of you. Taurus gets an attractive show pony and a lusty mate to satisfy his Earthy libido. Aries has a lifelong provider and benefactor to supply creative freedom and endless playtime. Issues can arise if Taurus grows too possessive or tries to tame independent Aries. Indulgent Taurus will need to remain active to keep pace with the energetic Ram (read: lay off the nightly steak frites and vino). You both crave attention, but don't go looking for it outside the relationship, unless you want a real showdown. Like two tots in a nursery, you share a favorite word: Mine!

GEMINI + GEMINI (MAY 21 - JUNE 20) We'll spare you the joke about there being four people in this relationship, mainly because it's an understatement. Like twin kaleidoscopes, you're each a fractal pinwheel of personalities that re-pattern at the slightest twist. Good news: versatility is a virtue in Gemini-land. Monogamy, not always easy for your restless sign, becomes a non-issue when your mate embodies more personas than Sybil. Dyed-in-the-wool dilettantes, you never run out of things to discuss. Clever Gemini rules communication: your ideas come fast and furious, and you love to debate. Intellectual tussling is a turn-on, although you must take care not to talk over each other. Remind yourself: listening skills are just as important as a well-crafted sentence. The pop psychology technique of "mirroring" (listening, then reflecting back your mate's communication) can be shockingly effective. Your main challenge is making time for each other, since you're both forever juggling any number of jobs, businesses, classes, hobbies, social circles and whatnot. Gemini is a collector; your home can resemble a natural disaster zone, piled to the rafters with books, newspapers, DVD sets from your favorite screenwriter, old-school vinyl, vintage costume jewelry. Forget couples' counseling: a cleaning service or storage unit can save this marriage. (Thank God for the Internet and YouTube.) With your wonder-twin powers, you can start a creative business together. Just make sure to hire a team of Earth or Water signs who can finish what you start, since you'll both leave a trail of loose ends. Light the spark, and let others keep the flame.

GEMINI + CANCER (JUNE 21 - JULY 22) Cancer is an emotional Water sign who loves to nest and bond; Gemini is a restless Air sign who prefers intellect over sentiment. You have similar interests, different temperaments. In many cases, this works out anyway. You both adore culture, the more obscure the better. You love to discover new bands, read novels by controversial authors, gorge yourselves at the jewel of a restaurant tucked into an undiscovered neighborhood. You bond over TV shows and bargain-hunting for treasures (you both have a thrifty streak). No flea market, tag sale or eBay store is safe from your scouring, and your home can resemble a bizarre gallery of antiques and modern gadgetry. The tricky part is when you lapse into astrological auto-pilot. Cancer is the zodiac's mother, who heaps on affection, nurturing and well-intended care. To Gemini, this can feel like clinginess and smothering. Gemini is the zodiac's fickle tween, waffling between bouts of dependence and asserting autonomy. There will be moments when Gemini greedily laps up Cancer's doting, and others when mama bird is roughly pushed away with a sarcastic, heart-piercing insult. Cancer must work hard not to take these moments personally—otherwise, the Crab lashes back with a below-the-belt barb, and it turns ugly. Remember, Crabcake: it's not you that Gemini is rejecting, it's your overprotection. Get a pet to dote on instead. Gemini needs space, Cancer needs reassurance. Memorize this formula.

GEMINI + LEO (JULY 23 - AUGUST 22) ♥♥♥♥ You make great friends, since you both love to gab about everything from the Times to the tabloids, Ferragamo to flea markets. Conversations are fever-pitched and fascinating; you're both well-versed culture hounds. Romantically, the temperature may be tepid, though. Leo is a Fire sign ruled by the blazing Sun—the regal Lion wants to be consumed by passion, heat, devotion, attention. Gemini is an Air sign driven by speedy, information-gathering Mercury. Listening to The Leo Monologues, which span from political diatribes to emotional melodramas, is sheer torture. When Gemini dares to interrupt the King or Queen, suggesting that s/he actually GET TO THE POINT, hell breaks loose. Leo must learn to take Gemini's tough love and unvarnished feedback in stride, not as an ego assault. Unconventional Gem should assent to traditional romantic gestures: red roses, the Tiffany bauble du jour. Learn to adapt. Gemini rules the hands, and will need to put them on affection-hungry Leo more often, since the Lion is greatly reassured by touch. And yes, as an Air sign, Gemini will need to blow a little smoke you-know-where; Leo can be a nightmare without regular doses of praise. Gush and flatter—it won't be the first insincere thing to pass through Gemini's lips. Leo should keep a battery of patient friends on speed dial. Gemini may have multiple personalities, but as a romantic partner, s/he can't be your de facto shrink, psychic hotline, career coach, parent and social director. Spread the demands around.

GEMINI + VIRGO (AUGUST 23 - SEPTEMBER 22) Gemini and Virgo share a common ruler: speedy Mercury, who zips around the Sun gathering light and information, then disseminating it to the masses. You're both natural communicators with a thousand ideas and opinions. Romance is a cerebral affair for your intelligent signs. Conversations spark into lively debates; asking each other "What do you think?" is akin to foreplay. Although Virgo is a more staid Earth sign and Gemini is a breezy Air sign, you share a "mutable" quality. That means you're flexible, and you can adapt to each other's quirks. Good thing, since you each have a bevy of rigid, borderline obsessive-compulsive habits. (Virgo's can include folding underwear into identical, neat little squares; Gemini's usually involve hoarding, starting new hobbies or impulse shopping.) You both love control, though Gemini is loath to admit this, while Virgo flies the flag. At times, you may wrestle for dominance, a habit you'll need to overcome for this match to work. Virgo's nagging can take the wind out of Gemini's sails; Gemini's sketchily researched half-truths set off Virgo's trust alarm. But combine the depth of Virgo's cautious planning with the breadth of Gemini's boundless curiosity, and you've got the total package. You can make great parents, too, since your styles tend to complement and you'll divide up roles with ease. Gemini can help serious Virgo lighten up, and responsible Virgo can help ground the easily distracted Twin.

GEMINI + LIBRA (SEPTEMBER 23 - OCTOBER 22) ♥♥♥♥ You're compatible Air signs with silver tongues and gilded wings, a magical match indeed. Libra is a pretty pixie and Gemini is an impish sprite. Your meeting rouses the fairies and gnomes, stirring up mischief in your midst. You love to mingle and schmooze, and you'll chatter like two little tree monkeys, gabbing a mile a minute. But will the breathless excitement last? Getting past the superficial romance stage is the challenge. You're both so indecisive that nailing down a commitment is like catching moonbeams in a jar. That said, the illusionary quality of your relationship is a magic you both enjoy. It's when life becomes too real that you vanish in a pinch of enchanted dust. To make this last, you'll need to dip your toes into the murky morass of intimacy, then learn to swim. Money can become an issue between you, particularly the way you spend it. Gemini is ruled by intellectual Mercury, and would rather invest in college degrees, a film collection, enriching travel. Libra is governed by beauty and pleasure-loving Venus, and splashes out on art, couture, custom suits, spas. You'll need separate wings for Gemini's books and Libra's handbag or shoe collection. You have different approaches to romance, too. Libra loves a lengthy courtship with all the trimmings, but Gemini bristles at picking up too many tabs, especially with Libra's extravagant taste. You'll probably need to keep separate accounts to avoid meddling in each other's purchase habits. Cut up the credit cards, too—many happy relationships can be destroyed by debt. Don't let that happen to you.

GEMINI + SCORPIO (OCTOBER 23 - NOVEMBER 21) You live on completely different planes, which either turns you off or utterly fascinates you. Both of you are accustomed to reading people like flimsy comic books, then tossing them aside. Here, your X-ray vision fails to penetrate each other's psychic shields. Mutable Gemini is the shape-shifting Twin, home to a traveling cast of personalities. Intense Scorpio is shrouded in mystery and bottomless layers of complexity. Being baffled leaves you without the upper hand, but it also stokes your libido. You're piercingly smart signs who love a good puzzle—this is your romantic Rubik's cube. The challenge sets off sexual dynamite. You tease each other with cat-and-mouse evasions, neither of you making your attraction obvious. This prickles your insecurities, daring you to strive for the other's unbroken gaze. No two signs are as quietly obsessive as yours! There will be frustrating moments, too. You're both prone to depressive spells, and swing from giddiness to unreachable shutdown. Clever mind games edge on cruel or callow, breaking the trust that Scorpio needs. At times, airy Gemini may not be emotional or sensual enough for watery Scorpio; in turn, the Scorpion's emotional and physical passion can be overwhelming to Gemini. However, if you combine your strengths, you'll go far. Gemini is dilettante and a trivia collector who's always got a pocketful of creative ideas. Instinct-driven Scorpio rules details and research—this sign hones in like a laser and masters his chosen field. Whether it's starting a family or running a business, you can be an indefatigable team, with Gemini playing the rowdy ringmaster and Scorpio running the show from behind the scenes.

GEMINI + SAGITTARIUS (NOVEMBER 22 - DECEMBER 21) ♥♥♥♥ You're opposite signs that actually have much more in common than this label suggests. Gemini rules the so-called "lower mind": common sense, reasoning, facts, hard data and intellect. Sagittarius governs the "higher mind": wisdom, philosophy, consciousness, ethics, metaphysics. Together, you find sweet neurological nirvana. You're both restless adventurers who hunger for knowledge and experience. With Gemini's curiosity and Sag's nomadic nature, you get antsy in commitments unless there's a lot of excitement and variety. Boredom is simply not an option for your signs, and you're both involved in a billion projects. Scheduling issues are your biggest hurdle, but for true love, you allow nothing to interfere. Take globe-trotting Sagittarius Brad Pitt and Gemini Angelina Jolie, who traipse the continents with their ever-growing brood. As best friends and playmates, they make their own rules about love and family—and you will, too. Conventional coupling holds zero interest for your signs. Your main difference is in disposition. Air sign Gemini is cooler and distant compared to Sagittarius, harder to read emotionally. The fiery Archer has a hot temper and wears his heart on his sleeve. Still, you make each other laugh; you're both clever, entrepreneurial and quirky. You do best with a common goal that's a thousand times bigger than yourselves, and you'll dream up many. However, you may need Brangelina-sized paychecks to fund your lofty visions. Who has time to consider the bottom line when you're focused on reaching the top? Take time to consider the practicalities before leaping off the cliff. Knowing you, you'll jump anyway.

GEMINI + CAPRICORN (DECEMBER 22 - JANUARY 19) A metaphor for this match: a music producer combines a soulful 1970s classic (Capricorn) with funky electronic hooks (Gemini) and delivers a mashup that's either a mess or a chart-topping hit. You couldn't be any more different if you tried, yet you can really benefit from each other's natural resources. Gemini is ruled by speedy Mercury, the lightning-fast trickster who speaks in silver-tongued half truths. Capricorn's overlord is Saturn, the cautious, conservative planetary patriarch, who only trusts that which stands the test of time. Gemini is versatile and restless, like a fusebox with a million criss-crossed wires. Capricorn is the dutiful ox who carries the yoke and plows the field, rarely diverging from routine. While Capricorn's dogged consistency and family loyalty can frustrate Gemini ("How can you let these people walk all over you?" Gemini asks, referring to Cap's elderly parents), it also grounds the scattered Twins. Gemini is Capricorn's one-man circus, keeping the Goat amused and entertained, adding color to his monochromatic world. You both have a lusty, experimental side, too. The magic really appears when you get physical, which happens fast, since your sexual attraction is intense. In fact, Capricorn is one of the few signs that can spike Gemini's jealousy. There are so many people who rely on sturdy, supportive Cap, and Gemini doesn't like to compete for the spotlight. To make this work, Gemini will have to accept that Capricorn's loyalty extends to family and lifelong friends. Stoic Cap will need to show a little more emotion, since impish Gemini needs to know he can get under Capricorn's skin. It will take time to work out the kinks, but the erotic tet-a-tets will be worth the trouble.

GEMINI + AQUARIUS (JANUARY 20 - FEBRUARY 18) This match of compatible Air signs can feel a bit like high school romance—teasing, texting, movie dates with jumbo popcorn and licentious groping during the previews. You bring out each other's breezy, buoyant spirits, and that's a plus. You'll bond over TV shows, favorite sci-fi novels and superheroes, obscure philosophers, music. With your clever comebacks and verbal repartee, you could take a comedy act on the road. Although you can both be overly cerebral at times, you prefer laughter and light conversation to emotional melodrama. Eventually, though, you need to get out of the shallow end of the pool. Intimacy is a challenge for your signs. We're talking true intimacy—being caught with your pants down and no clue how to get them back up. Telling each other your entire life stories in monologue form (which could have happened on the first date) doesn't count. You must soldier through the post-infatuation "awkward phase," or you'll end up feeling like buddies. That would be a shame, as you can make excellent life partners and playmates. The biggie: you'll both need to give up fibs and lies—particularly lies of omission. You're excellent storytellers and politicos, gifted at crafting a spin to fit your agenda. However, the naked truth is the only way out of the Matrix. Though it may topple your PR-friendly public image, it's a necessary risk you must take to build the character and depth of a lasting commitment.

GEMINI + PISCES (FEBRUARY 19 - MARCH 20) You're both dual signs: Gemini is the Twins, and Pisces is symbolized by two Fish swimming in opposite directions. You're pop psychology's poster children for commitment-phobia. Are you in or are you out? It depends on the day, the mood, the cosmic alignment. Obviously, this is no way to run a relationship—but wait. Here's a golden chance to peer into love's looking glass and see your own shadowy Id mirrored back. Yes, your psyches and hang-ups are as bizarre as Alice's rabbit-hole tumble into Wonderland. Pisces, you really can be as needy, emotionally exhausting and manipulative as Gemini says. Gemini, you are indeed capable of being a double-talking, evasive ice-tyrant with a heart like polished marble. And…so what? If you can actually own your dark sides—which we all have—you're also capable of spreading tremendous light. You must negotiate your differences with transparent honesty, though. Pisces is an emotional Water sign; Gemini is an intellectual Air sign. Unless you balance the proportions, Gemini drowns in Pisces' undertow and the zodiac's Mermaid suffocates from breathing too much oxygen. Gemini must strive to connect emotionally, and Pisces will need to lighten up. Perennial dissatisfaction is also a killer. Don't say you want something, then refuse to be happy when your partner provides it. Gratitude is an intimate act: it requires you to acknowledge that your partner can reach you, a vulnerable place. Two words to save your relationship: "Thank you" and "You're right."

[booboothefoolish]

hey can i get some pregnant reader inserts for cc? i dont really care for who i just want some fluffffff

Well this has sat in my inbox for a couple months oopsie sdsdfsdawed

it’s w/ jamie boi btw

You really didn’t think this day could get any worse, like really it couldn’t. Your feet had swelled so much you couldn’t fit into your favourite shoes, the last three stores you visited were out of your favourite ice cream, and most of all Ein had decided to cuddle up with James instead of you.

So you made the reasonable decision; you locked yourself in the bathroom and cried in the tub, like any other adult would. You’d been lounging for the better part of an hour and the once scalding water had mellowed into a more tepid temperature.

There came a knock at the door. He had left you alone since you had your meltdown, but now your sadness was worth his time an hour later? Fuck him! “Go away!” you shouted at the intrusive noise. Couldn’t he hear you trying to peacefully cope in the bathtub.

You could hear him jiggle the handle in an attempt to enter the bathroom, “Stop pouting in the tub babe.” he sounded tired.

Your knee jerk reaction  to cry kicked in again, but this time harder. You couldn’t seem to hold yourself together, “No!” you shouted back, and even you could hear that you sounded like a immature child with those fat crocodile tears streaming down your face.

He sighed and you could hear him  get up and move around, “I bought you a treat.”

Now this got your attention, “Oh! what is it baby?” your voice was still a little raw. The crying had stopped almost immediately.

He snickered, and it made you blush a bit. His laugh still gave you butterflies after all this time, “You’ve gotta let me in if you want it.” his voice came out in a playful huff.

You suddenly realizeds you couldn’t remember why you had holled yourself up in the bathroom. And after brief consideration you leant out of the bathtub and stretched to unlocked the door, “C'mon gimme!” your petulant nature really started to come out in the second trimester of Pregnancy.

He snorted and entered the bathroom. James looked at you lounging in the tub. The bubbles in your bath had long since disappeared so it was just you and your bump resting leisurely in the tub. “Comfy?” he asked with a grin, and you responded with a slow little nod, “I’m glad my favourite girls finally let me in.” you rolled your eyes at that comment.

“What’ja bring me sugar tits?” James couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped at the cocky tone of your voice. Nonetheless with as much fanfare as was necessary he revealed what he’s been hiding behind his back.

“Ta-da!” in his hands he held a prized treasure- the icecream you had been craving. You started to tear up again. He was just too sweet to you sometimes, like you could burn the house down and he’d still come and kiss you on the forehead and tell you it’d be okay. James on the other hand looked panicked, “Shit is this the wrong one? I can run back to the store and-” you cut off his rambling by partially lifting yourself out of the tub and pulling him down for a kiss.

“‘S perfect babe.”

he pulled away from the kis, and looked at you with a softened gaze, “I love you both so much.” he muttered caressing your swollen abdomen.

And you were content.

You were less content when you caught Ein out of the corner of your eye and remembered why you were upset in the first place.

[soobadnoonecanstopher]

Kiss Me Before You Go - (A Minseok One-shot)

Pairings: You X Minseok

Rated:  15+ for Adult Situations, Sexually Suggestive Themes

Genre: Romance, Angst, Past-life AU

Prompt: You meet Minseok in a bar and swear that you know him from somewhere. You have no idea where you know him from, but now you have to do something about it.

A/N: One-Shot Prompt Challenge taken with @thesammtimes​, @3kpop2jagi1​, @xiubaek13​, @artificialskyway​, and @forexcapism​

Soundtrack:

Hyolin - Each Other’s Tears

Sam Kim - Who Are You

Soyou - I love You

Warnings: Adultery, Multiple Major Character Deaths, A rollercoaster of emotions.

Length: 27K words, I’m so sorry.

Certain things leave a mark on the soul.

Some events are so profound, they slash in deep jagged wounds, pulling at the flesh and ripping through tendons with such ease one would think the soul was made of nothing more than a pad of soft butter forgotten beside the stove.

Birth, heart aches, love, death. All of these leave their marks. Some bigger than others, but nothing leaves a mark quite as deep as watching the one you love, die.

ACT I

He was energy. He was warmth, cloaked in the color green that suited him so much better than the crisp white of your own uniform. The white that never stayed white in this dusty tent. The makeshift medical bay in the middle of a field, far enough away from the vicious combat to keep the bits of shrapnel and fire from the grenades and exploding bombs from piercing the canvas walls, but close enough to the action to see the steady stream of wounded men pouring in through the parted tent flaps.

He was mischief and brevity as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against an empty medical cot, eyes flipping around the tent quickly before he moved to slip his fingers slowly and carefully into the front pocket of your skirt, removing a handful of morphine capsules and pocketing them with a wink of his eye when you gave him the best school teacher disapproving expression you could manage.

“Thanks, beautiful,” he leaned hard into the wink to sell it and you held a hand out, palm up, expecting him to at least pretend that he might return your medical supplies.

“What if I get into trouble?” you pouted and he looked down at your open hand with his lips curled at the edges just enough to let you know that you wouldn't see a single vial of that medicine back.

“Then my men will appreciate your sacrifice when they’re bleeding out in the mud.” His pretty eyes held you hostage. The sounds of explosions surrounding you was a constant and neither of you flinched when a particularly loud explosion shook the walls of the tent, despite being a bit closer to the medical tent than they usually landed. His eyes merely blinked once and took on a far away focus that seemed to give you permission to look over his face.

Manliness and dirt. Oil and grime and the smell of gunpowder mixed with some other kind of smoke mingled around his entire being, yet his face remained untouched. The small scab from an old superficial wound marred his temple and his black hair laid just beside. He was beautiful. His face belonged at the front of a fashion runway, not at the front line of this fucked up war, yet he brushed off the names the other men called him behind his back easily. Their words rolled off his back like water over well oiled feathers. The only indication that he had even heard them was the occasional narrowing of his striking eyes that preceded some order he shouted out to a subordinate, the easy authority evident in his voice held almost as much power as those eyes did. Almost as much power as the bombs that kept shaking the walls of this tent.

Whenever he stared at you, you found yourself breaking some of your own rules. Rules that were kept in place to protect you from getting too close with any of them. Rules that reminded you that you were surrounded by enough death to choke on and you knew better than to wonder about him. Rules that you felt slap you across the back of your hand hard like the ruler of a strict nun every time you stared for too long at his lips. Every time you felt the pull inside your chest when you would catch him watching you from across the mess room with an unreadable expression on his face and that same far away look you often saw when he wasn't eating the food on his plate, or listening to the words coming from the soldier who sat across the table from him.

You knew better than to glance down at his left hand and catch the tiny flash of gold that adorned his ring finger and then scoff at the tinge of disappointment that filled your gut each time you saw it.

Of course he had a girl back home. With a face like that, the man would have been snatched up long before he was drafted. As your mind drifted along that vein you couldn't help the images of the happy reunion. Him stepping off the plain into the open arms of the most beautiful woman in town, the kind of beauty he deserved. The kind you'd never even scrape at. Elegant and perfect enough to deserve to look into that face every morning over breakfast. When the daydreams began to include little miniature versions of himself dancing happily around the couple as they embraced to flashing cameras and triumphant fanfare you cleared your throat and smacked the palm of your hand noisily against your head, annoyed at yourself for taking things so far.

There was a burst of chaos through the door. Something that happened so often you no longer felt that surge of panic as the bodies were dragged, carried and reeled in through the doorway. Bloodied and screaming men arrived, many with life altering injuries, some with that vacant shell shocked look on their faces as their minds tried to protect them from the trauma they had just endured.

“Soldier, report.” He spoke up from beside you, addressing a soldier who carried a limp man who had long lost consciousness from blood loss.

“Commander, there was a surprise attack, two clicks from here. The enemy has broken through the stronghold from last night, forcing us back again.” The soldier's voice was worn and rusty and you tried to concentrate on stopping the bleeding in the man in front of you. The bleeding that was moving fast enough that told you no matter how quickly you moved, the damage had already been too significant.

The unconscious man on your table was the wrong color and the only reason the blood loss slowed was because there simply wasn't enough left to flow.

You'd seen it enough to know that you simply couldn't stand to waste the extra blood on someone who didn't stand a chance and the commander’s eyes followed your hands as you laid a flat palm over the dead man’s forehead, you uttered a quick prayer and removed the dog tags from around his neck. They clattered against the dozens of others occupying the small metal bucket that sat at the feet of your medical station.

“Morgue!” You shouted and two medics retrieved the casualty.

The commander was busy with the map and crackling radio that sounded out on the table top. He rarely let the stress show on his face and sometimes you'd wondered if he ever let any emotion show on his face at all, but the more you worked around him, watching his face too closely if you were being honest, the more you began to see his well hidden tells.

Most of his emotion was hidden behind those eyes. The same eyes you were certain watched your face a little too closely at times to catch your weaknesses as well. As much as you didn't want to admit to yourself, those eyes were gaining ground in becoming your greatest weakness. It was a good thing you could hide your emotions so well. The man would remain oblivious, complete his duty and return home to the wife that waited for him.

A soldier with a gaping wound in his thigh appeared on your bench and you got to work sterilizing and suturing the wound. He winced hard when the needle pulled bits of his skin together and you felt in your pocket for your morphine before recalling the commanders wandering fingers moments before the bombs. 

“We’re moving. We pack up tonight. Let's put some distance between us and those fucking bombs before this whole base gets wiped off the map.”

Soldiers gave their salutes and your eyes widened at the thought of having to pack up and move everything. Sure it was all designed to be portable but you'd been running on maybe two hours of sleep in the past three days since the onslaught began and your limbs were beginning to grow heavy and sluggish no matter how much tepid instant coffee you choked down.

An order was an order and although you weren't a soldier you felt the pull against your gut to fall in line. The other nurses did the same as they hastily began packing up supplies, rolling up cots, packing the bleeding wounds tight with rolled gauze, enough to hold for the move and as you worked with them you felt it again.

That nagging pull to him that felt like a warm blanket of sunshine coating your skin. A clean warmth, much different that the sticky humid sweat that coated your skin here, the warmth you felt at your back was as tempting as a hot shower with steam pouring out. With the smell of shampoo and soap and the splashing of water as your lover waits for you to join.

Surely you were imagining this. When you turned you were sure you wouldn't find a single thing of interest. Everyone was working hard, you had to have been imagining this.

The nagging was too strong and you gave in. When you turned turned your eyes found his instantly, as if pulled by a magnet you found those eyes and he had you again, trapped in his net.

It only lasted for a second, but the warmth spread from your back around to your neck and chest and crept its spindly fingers up your cheeks. He looked away quickly. Busying himself with whatever he had been pretending to do as he watched you instead and you stared at the shape of his back for longer than you should have. Watching the way the muscles moved just below the fabric of his army fatigues. Wondering just how his skin would look below. You knew he was firm. You'd brushed up against him enough times to feel the heat his body generated and the solid way his body moved against your arm, against your back, against your...

“Careful there,” Maria, one of the other nurses and the closest friend you had here whispered over your shoulder and you jolted to life. Shaking your head to rid yourself of the commander. You licked your lips and shrugged into a small smile.

“No harm in looking. Besides it's just war stuff anyway.” You defended against the knowing look she shot you and you did your best to ignore the short scoff.

“Not when he looks at you just as much,” she said, leaning in to you for privacy. It seemed unnecessary given the amount of noise going on around you.

“And is wearing a ring,” she said under her breath shaking her head and you screwed your lips shut tightly, with no retort that could justify this.

Even as you said it, you could feel the lie in your own words as the harm coursed through your veins and brought with it the guilt for even giving any voice to the temptation.

That's what he was. He was a temptation. So what if it was war and times like this had different rules that were regularly regarded as ‘wartime rules’ where mistakes were plenty and comfort was shared as freely as were reports of goings on back home or the weather forecast for the week. The truth was he wasn't yours, could never be yours, probably didn't even really like you that much, and when this war was over he wouldn’t spare you a second thought as he rushed into the waiting arms of his wife back at home.

So what if sometimes he wasn't even wearing the ring around his finger and you wondered if perhaps he took it off on purpose so you would see him without it. How pathetic were the waters your thoughts liked to drift in.

So what if sometimes he stood to close to you and looked too closely over your shoulder as you worked on his injured troops and when he moved just right you could actually smell the him even through the mask. A smell nearly intoxicating if you really got down to it. Like grass, gun oil, faintly like diesel exhaust with a sweet undertone that you couldn't place and what you could only describe as the musk of a real man. A man who liked guns you figured. There were some rumors of his accuracy with a pistol that you were sure were a bit too tall to be real, yet spoken amongst the newly arrived recruits as if they were gospel.

Wartime rules were a cop out, designed to absolve sinners of blame. Those rules surely didn't apply to him and they sure as hell didn't apply to you. You could easily resist the temptation.

Probably.

At least he seemed content with watching you from afar and so far had kept any actual touching to a minimum. You were thankful for that because then one time you actually felt the brush of his fingers along your cheekbone, slowly tickling their way up toward your ear to tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear during a procedure, you felt so shocked and affected by just how warm his fingers were that you dropped the needle you had been holding right into the gaping wound of the soldier you had been suturing. Of course it was on a string and easily fished out, but your face burned with embarrassment for at least a half hour after you closed up the final stitch.

Supplies and equipment were all packed up. Even the walls of the tent were rolled tight and loaded onto flat vibrating trucks that spewed their exhaust into your nose and made you cough and sneeze . The whole camp was moved.

Even in the bustle movement there was direction and a strange sort of order as soldiers played their part under the watchful eye of the commander and the other higher ups. Soon your feet stood on dirt and you watched the other medical personnel climb into jeeps and trucks as the sound of gunfire and explosions muted the sounds of the engines moving through the forest.

The new camp, you overheard, would be several kilometers to the north and you welcomed the brief respite you knew would greet you with the move. Once there was some distance from those bombs, perhaps you would even get to sleep in a flat cot before the exhaustion caught up with you and you dropped out of necessity, closing your eyes in a heap at the corner of the medical tent as men wailed in pain or bled out mere feet from you.

You could feel the fatigue bumbling through your veins, catching up to you where you stood with your boots squarely planted over the bare dirt where the medical tent once sat. Looking across the bare field you saw where the makeshift camp was where your cot had been. Where you laid your head and drifted off, how many hours ago had it been? You felt the world swaying the longer you stood in your spot and someone ran a warm hand over the small of your back, leaning a shoulder against yours.

Your eyes were closed but your mind was awake and you swear you could smell him. That damn musk that had to be bottled one day so you could take it with you and spray it on your wrist and have it at will.

“When was the last time you slept?” Were you imagining his voice in your ear or…

When you jolted to life you could feel the blood rushing to your face as your cheeks heated up. Had you drifted off? Standing here in this empty field? When you jumped you felt the hand against your back tighten and wrap around your waist.

You turned to face the voice and met the striking eyes of the commander, watching you with what you could only describe as concern. It looked like concern but he was too close to you and your mind wasn't at it’s sharpest right now. You looked at his face, letting your eyes drift down to his lips that were moving and he held you at the waist with a strong arm, smelling like he did. How could someone be this tempting?

The field around you was quiet. The distant sound of gunfire sounded further away now, perhaps the troops had drawn the action in the opposite direction to give everyone a chance to leave. The sound of the trucks that left already a low hum in the background and you looked around at the well packed dirt looking for any sign of another human being.

They had all left.

“--don’t sleep when you have the chance you could make a mistake. Like standing in a deserted field all alone while the entire army moves camp. Do you want me to draw a target right on your back? Would that make you feel more comfortable?” He was nagging you and your eyes watched the way his lips pulled as he spoke. The way he tilted his head to emphasize the words he thought were the most important parts of his lecture and the way he spoke softer to you than to his men. The calm sort of sweetness you could feel just below the surface of his words. Sweetness that you were probably imagining. Hell you were probably dreaming right now and he wasn't steering you into the passenger seat of his jeep as you watched him lean in close, touching your waist to buckle the seat belt over your lap.

He was moving slowly, clearly not sensing any immediate danger you didn't feel a sense of urgency in his actions at all. He struggled to line up the buckle and press it into the space between your seat and the center console. He was so close you could see the individual hairs on his eyelashes as he squeezed his eyes in frustration when the buckle didn't fasten.

His eyebrows furrowed and he pulled it out again, leaning down to look closer he moved his other hand to hold the female end of the buckle, he pushed again and you heard a click before he sighed and relaxed his expression some.

“Sorry this one is--” he was speaking in front of you, too close and too handsome and you couldn't help it. You weren't quite in your right mind right now but he was here close enough for you to touch.

“--broken.” The small puff of air he expelled through his lips cut his words in half like a sword and the warmth of his face felt soft and inviting below your fingertips. He had a bit of dust along his jaw line and you brushed it away as you moved your fingers along his face.

His eyes were on you, moving over your face wide and alert but he didn't leave. He didn't reach up to grab angrily at your hand, pulling it down and shooting you an admonishing look for the liberties you had taken with his skin and his dust. Instead you felt that breath along your face. Warmth and musk and the inhale he took sounded unsteady and he closed his eyes.

The commander, the most self assured, confident, bravado filled, gun slinging, sharp shooting, downright scary at times when you got on his bad side commander...that commander, your-- commander.

Your commander… just inhaled the shakiest breath you had ever heard from another human being and he wasn't leaving. He wasn't storming away from you, straightening his posture and pulling himself in a huff around the jeep, into the driver's seat to drive your misbehaving ass to the new camp site so you could get some sleep and stop making mistakes. His eyes were closed through it and your mind sharpened to what you were doing.

Just in time for his eyes to open and you found yourself completely trapped with your hand on his face, your thumb brushing down near his lips and his eyes staring into your eyes with a sharp focus that made the skin on the back of your neck prickle.

Why wasn't he stopping you? Maybe he was caught off his guard. Maybe he felt this incredible force that was pushing you into him.

Something in his the way his eyes held yours felt too familiar to discount. Something in the quiet way he breathed in and out, close enough to feel the warmth against your skin felt like a ghost. A phantom that haunted you in a dream maybe. Was this just deja vu?

It wasn't just the exhaustion that made you do it. It was the familiarity with his lips that gave the final push into him.

He didn't even stiffen in surprise when your lips met his. He didn't react in any way that felt admonishing. He was frozen only for a fraction of a second before he came to life with a sharp inhale. His hands which had been bracing somewhere on your sides moved and he held your face.

And he kissed you back.

He held onto your face with warm, rough hands and a tilt of his head, a parting of his lips and a quiet sound from deep within the walls of his chest. The commander kissed you back with a desperate intensity that matched the feeling inside your belly that fluttered and swelled with every pull of his lips, every brush of his thumbs along your cheekbones, the fullness grew inside of you until you felt that perhaps you might burst at the seams. Despite the lack of oxygen as your brain grew fuzzier than it had already been, you felt it. That same familiarity in his kiss, as if this was the man you were made to kiss. This was the man you had been kissing in your sleep every single night since you saw his face-- no -- since before you ever saw his face.

The taste of his mouth was that familiar to you. It was comfort. It was home.

The man kissed you like you were his and he was yours.

His thighs rested against your knee and he didn't angle himself away from you to conceal his erection. The heat from between his legs pressed against you as he moved closer, stepping into you and you shifted. You felt tingles shoot down your thighs down to your toes. Your movement was restricted by the seatbelt he had just fastened and you grunted into his lips when you couldn't escape.

Impossibly, the tiny giggle that escaped his parted lips did even more for your arousal than the kiss. Your eyes opened to find his face, the small smile flashed for a second before he bit down on his bottom lip, pulling it between white teeth.

Your eyes were stuck on his mouth until you heard a click-- you had been freed by roaming hands. Strong and rough, they moved over your hips, reaching the edge of the crisp white fabric of your skirt to hook behind both of your knees, he pulled hard. You met the edge of the jeep’s seat. Legs parted and the warmth of his hips settled in between. A stance so gratifyingly suggestive.

“What are you doing?” You heard the confusion in your own voice, just below the thickness. Were you asking him or asking yourself the question? Was this a mistake? You knew it was wrong. Definitely not allowed both by the military's laws and by the laws of God and of man, but there was something inside of you that felt...felt like his. You had always felt like you were his, through the months of flirting, small touches, attention, looks, stares, all of it.

“What are you doing?” Your own question, he repeated back to you with a knowing lift of his eyebrows.

You felt vaguely reproached. He was right. You had touched him first. You had kissed him first. And you definitely wanted to do it again.

You shrugged your shoulders and he licked his lips once.

“I guess I'm just doing what I want,” you said as calmly as you could. You were half aware of the breath you were holding and slowly exhaled through your lips as if you hadn't been holding it in.

His tongue was moving inside of his mouth. You saw the movement below his cheek and his eyes moved over your face.

“And what if I do what I want?” The tips of his fingers trailed along your face, practically outlining the heat you felt traveling just below the surface of your skin. His words felt too powerful for you to withstand. The man was an expert in calling bluffs it seemed, and you felt your false confidence slipping the longer he touched you.

“W-What do you want to do?” Had your voice always sounded so thready and uncertain? The hesitancy on your tongue took your words from your lips and jumbled them against your own ears.

Were you really ready for this? Ready to throw all of your rules out the window for this man. Ready to compromise whatever ethics you spent your life practicing for the chance to be his?

The commander leaned into you, his chest flat against you, bringing his warmth close enough to make your own body temperature rise two degrees by mere proximity and the exhale from your lungs pulled your shoulders down and the warmth of his lips along the skin of your neck tingled as he nipped at the space below your ear.

“God, I’ve missed you,” he whispered into your ear and you nodded your head in accord because you felt it too. You felt just how much you missed his lips on your skin, the feeling of strong arms securing you within his hold. You missed this feeling, this man so completely inside your soul that you felt a surge inside of you as he touched you. Almost as if his every touch, every pass of his lips over yours, every gasp of air from his mouth into yours, prodded at something deep inside of your chest that had long been abandoned over the years.

A crackle, a staticky sound lingered somewhere behind you and the ache inside of your chest vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

“--[static]-- to Commander, come in.”

“Commander, do you read?” He stiffened instantly at the sound and your vice-like grip around his waist went slack.

He was moving, his heat left you as did his lips and his arms and he reached over you for the radio attached to the center console of the truck. His words in response were inaudible over the pounding of your heart against your ear drums and you straightened your back into the seat to keep out of his way. As he worked, you watched his profile with as much abandon as you had wished you could watch him all the time. Only now, the memory of his lips and his hands on you afforded you a certain amount of liberty to observe him up close without the danger of your crush being discovered.

If was safe to say the cat was well out of the bag now. The dangerous words he spoke, the sexy way he whispered into your ear

God I’ve missed you.

I’ve missed you.

When he said it, it didn't sound the least bit odd, but now that you heard those words again in your mind, something was off.

Missed you?

How could he have missed you? This was the first time you and he had ever shared an intimate moment. This was the first time you had kissed him, he had kissed you, and as far as spending time together, well… in the last few months he had been a constant in your world. Leaving for short missions with his men, coming back unscathed again and again to your medical tent where in the corner had been set up a sort of on-the-go command center for strategic defenses and attacks on the enemy.

“Yes, I have located your absent nurse.”

”No, she was just standing in a field--”He sighed into the mouthpiece of the radio as the static crackled a curt response.

”It’s probably exhaustion. Now how in the fuck do you expect them to take care of my men if you're working them without sleep?”

It was strange to hear him shouting over the radio, having been so gentle and soft with you mere moments earlier. Even odder to be the subject of his anger. The voice on the radio, your supervisor two levels above took on a defensive tone and you could feel the tension in the commander’s body still that lightly rested over your lap.

”No. I’ll return her after she gets some fucking sleep and no sooner. Over and out.”

His shoulders shook as he slammed the receiver back into the green box of the radio transmitter wedged between the seats of the jeep. A few switches were hit and the static went silent.  He turned it off. During a war and active combat, the commander turned off his radio in a fit of anger about your sleep patterns. He didn't even have to turn it off. He outranked them all. They simply had to follow his orders.

You wrung your hands together and watched his face closely for any clues about his next move. Did you dare tell him that your lack of sleep had little to do with your superiors and had more to do with your own poor coping skills with the war and the resulting nightmares. Namely as soon as you found yourself drifting, in would pop an image of a bloodied, unconscious face into your mind, or worse, a wailing screaming soldier with a life threatening injury that would consume him slowly.

He was gone from your side of the vehicle and he climbed into the driver's seat, making the jeep engine roar to life and you were off just as soon as you were able to snap your seatbelt back into place.

You knew enough to recognize that as the ride grew less and less bumpy, the thickness of the trees lessened as well. As did the hair turning tight turns he took to avoid things like fallen logs, or giant jeep swallowing puddles of mud. You were definitely heading away from wherever the new camp had been set up.

When you saw a road up ahead you were just too curious to hold your questions.

“Where are you--”

“--there’s a town about 10 miles up this road.” He interrupted you, as if so intune with your moods he knew the exact moment your curiously bubbled up too high to push back down again. “There is a bar that the officers know and above that bar an inn with a shower and a bed. There’s no hot water, but I'm sure you aren't that delicate are you?”

A bed? You felt your mouth suddenly go dry and you looked away from his focused profile as he drove. You could hardly see a damn thing out of the grimy front glass, but It didn't matter, you had to look anywhere that didn't involve having to picture this man, and yourself in a room, alone with a real bed.

“They even have shampoo. Not just those tiny white bars that smell like lye, but real shampoo that bubbles up and washes everything away.” He was still on about the shower and all you could think about was a mattress that would possibly bounce up to meet your back as he pushed you down on top of it, covering you with his warmth and his lips.

The small town was just as he promised, and the inn above the bar was in your sights, accessible through a rickety stairwell in the back. You felt his arm secure around your shoulder in an almost possessive manner as you made your way in between buildings with shady looking locals smoking along the wall. You noticed the hand that wasn’t on you was laid over the pistol in his belt and the threat of danger made your stomach flip, despite the multiple soldiers you saw all over the town, clearly meaning your army had taken it for their own use long ago. Surely the locals wouldn't try anything with an entire army living in their midsts, right?

At the doorway he paused as you stepped through the open door into a genuine room with a small bed, a makeshift dresser with a mirror and painting on the wall. Your eyes drifted to the square black bible sitting on a nightstand next to the bed and you felt a fresh wave of guilt surge through you.

“You can shower and sleep. I'll be just outside this door if you need anything.” His hand was on the doorknob and you stood in the center of the room as he watched your face and waited for you to acknowledge his words in some way.

You felt frozen. Why wouldn't your head nod or your mouth give an agreement or something? Why did he seem like he wanted to say something to you and why was the pull to him so damn strong?

A thought dawned.

“What did you mean before? When w-we--”

--kissed...the word stuck in your throat like cement.

“When you said you missed me.” You furrowed your brows and shook your head, “why did you say that?”

He couldn't possibly feel that same sense of familiarity around you as you felt with him, could he?

The commander’s eyes widened marginally and his lips parted, hanging open just crooked enough to look juvenile. Just enough to show his teeth. Those eyes left yours for a second and danced around the room slowly, pausing at the ceiling above before they traveled to the left then to the right. He closed his lips and squinted.

“D-Did I say that?” He looked genuinely confused now and you tilted your head to match his own.

“Don't you remember? You whispered into my ear ‘God, I’ve m-”

“God, I’ve missed you.” He spoke up again. His own words plain as day despite the obvious frown on his face and confusion on his lips. He was taking a step forward and when he let the door go it lazied it's way closed behind him with a click.

“I---” his head was in the clouds now and his eyes were on you but out of focus. “I have missed you, but...how?”

“Do you feel that too?” You whispered and his focus sharpened like a blade, zeroing in on your face like a torpedo having found a target he took two big steps and closed the distance between where you stood lamely in the center of the room refusing to let this go, and where his confusion had taken hold of him.

“What is this?” He said softly with a breath exhaled against your face now with his close proximity.

You shook your head.

“Why do I feel like I've known you before? Why can't I stop thinking about you? Why does your face fill my dreams at night?”

You could feel your heart pounding against your rib cage, beating too hard and too fast. Your hands that had been balled into tight fists at your side fell open as he came closer to you.

“I want you,” he said as his eyes sank heavy into yours, “more than I have ever wanted anything in my life. I want to… make mistakes.” The pained breath he inhaled with his final confession gave away the sin that he was aware of. The one on both of your tongues that neither of you dared to speak of.

Your eyes drifted away from the intense eyes down to look for the flash of metal around his finger.

Only it wasn't there this time. When had he taken it off? In the Jeep? Before he left to search for you? Before he followed you into this hotel room.

“I feel desperate around you.”

That pulled your eyes upward, past the belt with the pistol, past the uniform, dirty from the road, past the firm chest that rose and fell too rapidly, into his face. The dangerous bits of him that were tempting and beautiful even with just a hint of stubble over his lip and on the tip of his chin. His pink lips that naturally turned down at the corners and that you knew tasted just as heavenly as you were now certain you remembered from long ago.

You felt it somewhere inside. Inside your chest and at the spot that ached somewhere in your belly. That's where the memory of him lived.

“I want you to kiss me again,” he took another step and his hand reached out for yours.

“Commander--” you said softly. Your voice held all of the uncertainty you felt inside of your chest, with enough of the wavering from your desire to color the edges.

“I'll be damned to hell. For you, I'll be damned for all eternity. I need you to kiss me again.”

If he would be damned, so would you. You reached for his face and he leaned with you. Anticipating your lips, his eyes closed before yours and he only gave you fractions of a second where time stopped and the warmth of his mouth fit perfectly into yours. The pause was minuscule before his hands were on you.

The dusty, muddy clothing you wore was a nuisance. A damned inconvenience as you sought out his flesh and he yours. A heavy thud as the gun fell to the floor, still holstered and belted within the uniform slacks, gravity took them down easy and in a flash you had his bare skin against yours.

His eyes were greedy as he ripped your clothing away and as they raked over you, something stirred inside of you when he paused over your stomach just below your navel. You had a birthmark there, a funny straight line that you rarely paid much attention to, yet he fixated on that spot for a moment before you felt the softness of his lips placing tender kisses along the mark.

“I know this mark, from my dreams.” His voice was thicker than you had expected and before you could question him, he was moving on you, pushing your legs open to nestle in between you found his face and his breath and his lips over your own again. Desperate and possessive. Overwhelmed yet insatiable at the same time.

He coated you in warmth and fingertips that left your skin hot and tingling everywhere they touched and you felt consumed by it. The want and the need he had given into. When he pushed inside, joining with you completely and fully, your chest soared with the rightness of this feeling.

He was yours. You knew it deep inside of your soul, that this man was meant for you and you for him.

He was gasping breaths against every inch of your skin he could kiss. Ragged cries of gratification left your lips and when he gripped you tightly around the waist and rolled onto his back, pulling you astride his waist, your union did not separate.

As he filled you with heat, his essence spread through your belly, bringing with it a sense of belonging and when you came undone on top of him you were certain that something that felt so good and so completely perfect must be ordained by God himself.

You were, both fractured apart, finally complete together.

His limbs grasped for you, the physical need had been temporarily sated, but he clung on to your waist with a child like desperation. As if he'd only just gotten you back and you could be snatched from his grasp at any given moment.

The kisses against your skin, lazy and growing heavier along with your tired eyelids spoke of a great love from your memories. A love that transcended years of pain and persisted despite your actual memories that you had been so certain were the only truths in your world. The memories of him, of his love, of his touches and his needs that could only be satisfied by you, were so strong in your sleepy mind that you couldn't help the sweet words and tumbled from your own lips as he laid with his eyes closed, head against your chest, listening to the sounds of your heart beating.

“I love you,” you didn't care if he knew it. You wanted him to know it. You wanted him to take your words deep within his soul and keep them there to protect him from whatever harm the world would throw in his direction.

He shifted, moving his face lower from your chest downward and you felt his lips, his palm, his warm breath over your belly. Over the birthmark you'd never paid any mind to, yet he swore he remembered from something far away that you no longer doubted.

“I love you too,” he whispered in a low voice against your skin, barely audible from down by your belly. You reached, pulling at him, needing him closer to you and he complied with a crooked grin.

“I can’t hear you down there,” you whined and his grin widened, showing his white teeth with pale pink gums.

“You can't? I said, I--”he was at your neck now, breathing hot and low against your ear, “--love you too.” The declaration was interrupted by tiny bites along the sensitive skin of your neck and you felt the skin of your scalp tighten and prickle with his playful actions.

The sleep caught up with you both quickly. The smiles faded into comfort and security in his arms and he hugged you tightly as he drifted. You let yourself drift too and against all of your expectations, the nightmares were kept at bay. In favor of other, less unpleasant dreams filled with his face, his touch, his eyes and his lips.

The hours of sleep you had with him felt like a gift from the heavens. And the prospect of an actual shower with real shampoo suddenly seemed more enticing than trying to fit in a couple of more hours of sleep. When you moved, the sleeping man next to you also moved he opened his eyes to silently watch you move nakedly around the room.

You didn't much like the idea of putting on the same dirty clothing as you had been wearing before, but honestly it was better than nothing.

You gasped at the cold water, and the muscles tensing in his arms as he fought the same shocked gasp at the temperature made you giggle. It didn’t matter, he was warm enough for both of you and he was right about the shampoo. It was the kind of luxury item that filled your nose with a pleasant fragrance and washed away every bit of the war that had been sticking to you for months now.

You knew this was coming to an end as you pulled on your uniform, shaking out as much of the dust and dirt as you could before pulling it back on. His eyes followed you as you dressed, and yours followed him as he pulled the uniform back up, buckling the belt and straightening the pistol. As he moved, something small clattered to the floor and you looked down to see a small metal ring fall from his pocket and roll beneath the bed.

Your heart pounded in your chest, and your breathing gave you away. You knew your face was too hot and the prickling of the goosebumps along your skin made the room feel colder than it should feel.

You began to move, dropping down to your knees to peer under the bed for the ring. Somehow needing to touch it, to see it, to verify it’s existence and remind yourself that you had just done what you had just done with someone else’s husband. Your hands were shaking and you felt a strong resistance to your descent.

“No, stop,” he was saying and his eyes pleaded with you and gripped your shoulders hard, pulling you back up. Pulling you into his arms, pulling you into a tight embrace that felt like the sunshine.

“B-But,” you mumbled against the firmness of his chest and you could feel him shaking his head.

“No, leave it. It doesn't matter. Just forget about that. I have you and that’s all I need now, please believe me.” He was backing up, his arms so strong and tight around you and you gave in, following the man you loved out of the room, you left that tiny reminder behind wherever it landed under the bed of a well used crappy hotel room in this far away country. He left the room, holding you tightly in his arms, leaving behind every promise he had ever made to her. Whoever she was.

You shook your head. Trying your hardest to rid yourself of those thoughts and the guilt that bubbled inside your chest.

Outside of the room was quiet.

Eerily so, the town seemed much less than before and you wondered where all the locals and soldiers had gone off to. Perhaps it was just the time of day.

Back in the jeep he drove silently, a hand gripping yours tightly as he drove, until the road ended and he had to drive more aggressively through the forest to reach the new camp. The radio was still off and after a moment of silence you began to hear the first bits of far way gunfire.

The commander’s eyes widened and he quickly flipped the radio on, filling your ears with shouting and static that definitely didn't sound like a drill. Your stomach dropped. It sounded like a warning and he turned up the volume and grabbed at the receiver, shouting into the radio for status reports or anything that would tell him what was going on.

The problem, it seemed was at the new camp. Something about an ambush. Something about pulling out and definitely a huge loss of life, both soldiers and the medical personnel. Only a few had escaped and were radioing for reinforcements.

The roar of the jeeps engine was loud and the commander shouted over the sound for you to grab the helmet in the back seat and put it on quickly as he changed course and began to move away from the camp. You had nearly arrived it seemed but the danger was too great. The fighting was all around you now and you pulled the helmet over your head, glancing at the black of his hair and the way it flew in the wind as he drove.

This was his helmet. He would be unprotected if he went in like this. You shook your head and pulled it off, plopping it over his head quickly and he shot you a look with both hands tightly on the wheel.

“Just leave me here, I’ll hide somewhere,” you said but he was adamant in his refusal.

“Absolutely not,” he said with a growl and he reached for the helmet, pulling it off his head and slamming it over your head. “Keep it on.” He said firmly and you huffed in anger in your seat. This made no sense. You weren't the one who would be fighting. He would. He needed the helmet. There was a rendezvous point a few miles up, but the trip through the forest would be dangerous. The jeep would give away your location easily with its noise he explained the situation quickly as he pulled to a stop and began packing up weapons from the back of the jeep into a bag.

“Can you shoot?” He said as he tossed a pistol in your direction and you nodded your head gripping the handle tightly with two trembling hands.

“Stay with me,” he whispered and you were off. He moved silently as he walked, pulling you along when you stumbled and felt like you couldn't go on with the way your heart was raging inside your chest.

His breathing remained silent and steady, his eyes on high alert for enemies hidden through the trees. You noticed he communicated with you through hand signals you had seen during training. You never thought you'd actually have to use any of this, yet here you were, stopping and ducking silently when you saw him signal back at you from behind a tree.

You could hear something just on the other side, something that sounded too dangerous for you to want to go any further and you gripped the pistol and slammed your eyes shut, saying a silent prayer for this to just stop. For the men on the other side of this wall of thick shrubbery to simply leave and let you two pass unnoticed so you could reach the rendezvous point. You knew it had to be close. It just had to. This couldn't possibly go on for much longer. Or perhaps you couldn't go on for much longer.

Your eyes were closed for too long because you felt him touch you and you jumped at the contact a split second before you felt him place a warm palm over your mouth securely, keeping you from making the shocked noise you almost made.

He was looking into your eyes. His expression serious, despite the worry and softness you knew you could sense behind his irises and he leaned his face close to yours.

“You’re doing so well, my love.” He said in a barely audible tone. You read his lips mostly as he spoke and you nodded your head as he smiled the tiniest smile at you. It was a forced smile. Meant to keep you going. You could do this. You would do this for him.

“Wait here,” he was gone for a second, slipping further down the muddy pathway you had both been following and you could tell he was trying to see what was waiting for him on the other side. From the sound of it, it seemed like there were at least ten men there. All armed and talking in some language you didn't understand. You heard a bit of laughter and the district lack of gunfire led you to believe that they had already taken the camp, already scouted the area and believed that the threat had been neutralized.

You wondered just how many of your friends and coworkers had gotten out. The guilt inside of your belly flashed up hot. You had been spared the attack. Your life was still yours to hold in your hands because you hadn't been there.

The commander returned, his belly coated in the thick black mud that covered this horrible place.

“There’s a space where we can pass. We have to do it quickly, and we must go now.”

He moved and you followed closely behind. Every step he took was expertly placed and you didn't hear a single sound from him as his eyes sharpened and ears listened for signs of trouble. You did your best honestly but every one of your movements felt too slow, too loud, too risky and the noise from the other side of the trees suddenly quieted down.

The commander stilled in an instant and you froze, a hand clasped tightly over your own mouth to try and control your breathing. It wasn't working well. You were too scared and the trembling in your hands made the pistol rattle. His eyes widened in alarm when he must have sensed the movement before you did and he was running in an instant. You felt his hand grip yours tightly as he bolted running fast and pulling you noisily along with him through thick trees. You heard loud shouting behind you.

And then the gunfire began. The commander pulled harder, making you move faster than you thought your legs would carry you and when you landed wrong in a hole on the forest floor you stumbled. You only half felt the sting in your ankle and he was yanking you roughly up, making you move again.

He was fast. You were sure, had you not been holding him back the lead he had on them would have been greater, but the ache in your ankle was glowing red hot with each hard step you landed on it. Still your body moved.

Up in front of you, you could see a clearing. You felt something pinching at your shoulder and you looked down to see a bit of blood beginning to seep through the white of your uniform. It burned hot like your ankle did and you kept moving.

The clearing felt wrong. There were no trees to cover you and nothing to duck down behind but he moved so fast there was no way you could have stopped him.

Once you made it past the tree lines the gunfire from the other side of the field erupted, shooting loud and rapid, taking out your pursuers one by one as you and he ran with every last ounce of willpower you had left in you.

The fire from the thick trees was slowing, with the occasional zoom near your head just grazing your helmet. Ahead was a rough dirt ledge. Over, a makeshift bunker dug into the ground and clearly his men on the inside of that bunker providing the much needed cover fire.

It was in your sights and your foot hit the dirt mound with a force as you felt a rough shove from behind you and the momentum carried you over and you fell.

The oxygen raked at the inside of your lungs and he was right behind you. Mere seconds after you hit the ground you looked up to see the muddy brown of his uniform casting a shadow over the sunshine that flooded your eyes and made you squint hard as you looked up. His boot hit the dirt mound and he was falling as something popped. The sound of something smacking against him echoed out and his face changed from steadfast determination to something else. Was that surprise? Pain? Confusion?

He was falling hard and fast and you knew. You knew from the look on his face as he fell what that was that popped against him, a fraction of a second before he made it inside the bunker. He had pushed you inside first, probably breaking his momentum and slowing him down just enough for it to happen.

The bullet hit him in the back and he was falling.

He fell on top of you with a dull thud, the weight of him pushed the air right out of your lungs and you gasped and choked for oxygen as you pushed hard against him, quickly searching over his back for the wetness you knew would be there.

Hot, red, sticky wetness grew in the center of his back and he groaned as he choked on something inside. From the blood that you saw at the corner of his mouth you knew it was his lungs and who knows what else that had been damaged, out in this hole dig in the ground in the middle of a fucking field, without any of your supplies, you screamed out at the top of your lungs. Still gasping for air from being winded the sound wasn't loud enough.

“Medic!” You cried, your voice hoarse and ineffective and you turned him on his side, on the injured side so gravity would help keep his lung inflated while you screamed.

Was the bullet still inside? Your fingers prodded his chest, searching through the mud for any signs of an exit wound and your tears clouded your vision when you found none.

“Medic!” You screamed louder, begging for anyone to hear you over the sounds of the guns but none came.

“There are none!” You heard someone shout back at you and you felt the commander's hand grab ahold of yours.

“D-Don't--” he mouthed, unable to get the sound out without any air. You leaned closer to him, desperate for his words to tell that you he was okay. To tell you that he just needed a minute and he would get back up.

“--cry, my love--”

“No,” you begged against his face. He was fading too quickly. Too fast for you to save him.

“I’ll see you again,” he whispered against your face and you nodded in understanding as you touched his face, red marks from your hands smeared along his pretty face and he smiled for you.

“Kiss me before I go.” You leaned into him, and the softness of his lips gave against your own as no kiss was returned.

He was gone.

You could feel the strike of God’s judgement hitting you hard. Making you pay for your sins.

His judgement was swift and it was complete.

And he was gone.

23 August, 1945

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ACT II

Your sleep was fitful, yet the dream was so complete and all consuming when you finally pulled your eyelids open and looked up at the darkness surrounding you, your reality shifted and fractured as the memories came back to you.

Your face, the pillow, and the collar of your nightshirt were all soaked with tears and as you blinked again, trying to find some light inside this place that would give you a sense of bearing you found nothing but pain.

The reality that hit you in the face was offensive.

He was dead.

The man you loved with every bit of your existence for such a maddeningly short amount of time, was gone and you were left to somehow continue on with this life without him.

The memories were changing as they flew. A flock of sparrows, each moving quicker than the last, you reached through your mind to catch them and hold on. Yet with each new one you frantically grasped, another flew by, threatening to escape completely until the feeling of his fingers along your skin, the touch of his lips against your birthmark, the sound of his voice as he whispered into your ear, and the vibration of his laughter along your neck, were all gone forever. Everything about him you wanted so desperately to hold on too moved too fast and the threat of losing it all made more tears fall as you wept into your bed.

Your bed…

Your fingers trailed along the rough fabric. A stiff mattress filled with straw below you, somehow simultaneously familiar and foreign...why was this your resting space?

Why was this darkness so consuming and why couldn't you quite remember the sequence of events from the night before that would have resulted in you ending up in a bed such as this, and in a room as dark as this one.

The commander’s face flashed through your mind, like a phantom with piercing eyes and lips that called out to you in that voice, only the longer you dwelled on your surroundings the weaker his essence became.

Would you lose this too? Would you lose his eyes? His face? The straight black hair that blew in the wind when he held onto the wheel of that strange vehicle, while sounds from spaces far away spoke to him in garbled staticky sounds.

Your stomach lurched when you sat up, sending a wave of nausea through your body that covered your head in a sick green, making your dark room spin. You recognized the way your mouth watered, and leapt from your bed, suddenly more familiar with your surroundings as you found your nightstand and the small empty wash basin you kept there at night. You’d made it just in time for your dinner to make a reappearance and you vomited until the all consuming waves quieted down.

How many nights had it been now, since the nausea had taken you in the early morning hours before the sun had even dared to show it’s face.

You coughed hard, trying to rid yourself of the acrid taste at the back of your throat and on shaking hands and knees, crawled back to the wooden table that sat beside your bed. Back to the cup of water you knew you would find there.

You didn’t dare give a name to the reason for your current sickness, even if deep down inside your belly, your hand often found a place to lightly rest, and pat reassuring words to whoever might be listening in there. Memories flooded through your mind's eye of the commander and his love filling you mere hours before he was stolen from you. The vision of his pretty face and those eyes that he promised you would see again. The irony in his words, would you only see him again through the generation he must have blessed your body with?

You shook at your head. Your reality and that ghost in your dream were dueling for your attention. Both screaming that one was true and the other making the same claims. Yet here you say, firmly rooted in your darkened reality with a very real basin of sick that needed to be taken care of.

You heard the soft knock on your door, seconds before the creek of the wood opening and a housemaid peaked her head inside, the candle in her hands illuminating her face and casting deep shadows over her features.

“Are you okay miss?” The reverence was clear in her voice when she addressed you and you were sure she suspected what you also knew. Especially since you had yet to ask for your monthly napkins.

“I’m fine, I’ve just had a bad dream,” you struggled to calm your breathing and she entered the room cautiously, bringing the light with her that you had searched so frantically for earlier.

The more you thought about it, the stranger that dream really had been. Weird gadgets that could produce their own light without fire. Loud popping weapons that were capable to causing so much pain and destruction, yet small enough to hold in the palm of a hand. Voices coming from small boxes wired to even bigger boxes on wheels that could move faster than a horse and a carriage, and didn't even need to be pulled by anything at all.

The visions of the dream were fading fast and his face that smiled back at you struck you with just how odd he looked out of his usual clothes, wearing such a drab green color that blended in with the forestry behind him.

The tears you felt, now dried on your cheeks, the emotions you felt, so strong and devastating when it happened, now seemed almost silly to you when you thought about it.

Him -- dead? You'd just spend the night in his bed with his hands lovingly caressing your face as he filled your head with promises of his never ending love. The memory of his desperate lips erased the pain you woke up with and brought on a warmth that spread right through your chest down into your belly.

Despite the dim lighting you still caught the glance she made at your hand that rested there.

“The king requests your presence at breakfast. Shall I tell him you are ill?”

“Absolutely not. If my king requests me, I will be there.” You voiced your confidence, with just a bit of hoarseness left over from the early morning retching and she lowered the candle a touch as she leaned in closer.

“You know he would be most pleased.” Of course she knew. She was with you nearly constantly these last months and although you tried not to get too attached to the maids, this one was softer than the others. This one seemed better at reading you than some of the others.

“Not yet,” you shook your head, recognizing the delicate nature of such things. You also recognized the very real threats that surrounded you at all times. “Not with her still in the castle.”

“Of course,” the maid bowed once and dropped her eyes, turned to set her candle down on a surface by the door and left.

You had at least an hour before the sun would rise, yet the tightness in your chest, leftover from your dream pulled at you hard.

You needed to see him with your own eyes. The commander was fading now and your king was calling to you.

In the dim candlelight you could make out the inner contents of your wardrobe and you slipped on the silk overcoat he had gifted to you. It was red and much too luxurious of an item to be of any practical use at all, but you like the way it felt against your skin as you wore it around your chambers.

The corridors were mostly empty. Servants scurrying way as you passed, no one bothered to stop you any more. Not when you walked these halls to his room like you belonged there always. In fact there was usually only one person in this entire palace who dared have an opinion on who’s room you visited at night, and she was nothing more than a filthy gnat buzzing around your head. A political pawn who weaseled her way into a marriage with a king who could never love her.

Not the way he loved you.

You wouldn't think of her today. You were going to see his face and he would be alive and breathing and watching you with those intense eyes, like only he could. 

He wasn't expecting you yet. He had called for you to join him for breakfast yet here you stood, hand braced to knock hours before the dawn, the pull against your heart too strong to resist.

You knocked twice, lightly enough that if he had been asleep, it should not have disturbed him.

You heard no sound from within the room and pushed the heavy wooden door open slowly, entering the forechamber of his private room. The final space visitors were allowed to enter unless expressly invited in by the king himself.

There was a stillness in this room. A clean quiet that usually coated you from head to toe as you made your way inside, but somehow in the dark before the dawn, the silence felt magnified.

Your body seemed to be making too much noise for such a sacred space and you slowed your breathing as you stepped beyond the threshold toward where you knew his bed would be found.

The moon shone through the big picture windows, painting the entire room in a blue faint glow that your eyes adjusted to nearly instantly.

You could make out the shape of him in his bed, curled up with thick down blankets gripped tightly within his arms, eyes closed, lips parted as he breathed and that blue glow illuminating the clarity of his skin. Dark eyebrows, dark eyelashes, dark hair in stark contrast and in perfect proportion to his pretty face.

The man was breathtaking. In fact you had to lay a hand over your mouth to keep your gasp contained as you watched the steady rise and fall of his chest. He was alive and so beautiful. Alive and breathing. Alive and as real as the memories that danced through your mind.

You had to touch him. Your fingers craved the warmth you hoped you would find in his skin.

Your hand, against his face, trailing lightly along his cheekbones as he spoke to you for the last time, a wet hot sticky red marking his perfect features that screwed together in pain as he told you he would see you again. Told you not to cry. Asked you to kiss him goodbye.

Your mind must have still wanted to play tricks on you, for he was not injured. He merely slept, ready to be awoken as proof that he was unharmed, yet the wetness you felt in your eyes did not listen. The tears that ran down your face, stopped up your nose, made your head ache and your heart hurt as if you had been the one shot, all of these emotions that coursed through you with the memory that felt too real to discount. They were too strong.

By the time your fingertips reached his face, they were trembling, and when you felt the softness of his warm skin you choked out a quiet sob.

He was safe. He was alive and he was safe. Maybe you couldn't save the commander at the time, but you were looking at his face and touching his skin, your king was safe.

The touch on his face pulled his eyes open and only seconds passed as he stared at your face, a sleepy sort of confusion on his features, before a widening hit those eyes and alarm took over.

“What is it? What has happened?” His voice was thick with sleep and your tears flowed too freely for you to stop them now. The dams had already burst and your face screwed together as you shook your head, recognizing that you were now crying openly in front of him after startling him awake.

The king. Your king, and you, nothing more than a concubine of his, dared to enter his bed chamber and wake him well before you were supposed to meet with him...because you had a bad dream and had temporarily lost your mind.

You felt beside yourself. As if you were watching yourself behaving in such a preposterous way from the outside. Unable to stop, and even less able to comprehend what could have possibly possessed you to do this.

“I’m sorry...I don’t k-know what has come over me,” you struggled with making your words comprehensible through the sobs that raged inside your chest and strong hands gripped around your arms as those eyes tried to reach yours, which you now tried desperately to evade.

You had made a mistake. You had forgotten your station and taken liberties that would surely be the end of anyone else, but there was something in his searching eyes that made you want to look at him, made you want to reach for his warmth and wrap your arms tightly around his chest.

You had nearly no self control left when faced with the prospect of inhaling his smell so closely, so deeply and you lunged into him, a lingering desperation that would not be sated by merely seeing his face, you needed your every sense satisfied and flooded with this man.

His breath left his chest in an agonizingly slow exhale, well controlled, yet somehow raw sounding over the top of your head. His chest, his sides, his back just below the palms of your hand were heated. Well warmed from the hours asleep in his cozy bed and your trembling hands ran along the skin of his back, searching for something. Seeking out what you were certain you would not find, surely not...it was just a dream. Just a haunting memory from another life that should not affect you so.

“You are trembling,” he whispered over your head, warm arms encasing your shoulders, making you squeeze against him tighter. “What has left you so unnerved in the middle of the night?”

You couldn’t get enough of his crisp smell. Clean and well set in, the smell of him was warmth. Like a comforting fire and a warm meal. Designed to heal you from the inside so you might possibly get through whatever life decided to toss your way. You shook your head against his chest, unable to bring voice to the words of his death that had destroyed you during the night. To speak of such things felt all but impossible.

“Did someone hurt you? Who would dare? Won't you tell me so that I may deal a swift punishment?”

“I dreamt of your death, my lord.” You spoke against his skin and your words took only a moment before he stiffened in your arms. Then a small chuckle left his lips, dancing over your head as the tightness with which he held you went slack.

“Ahh, did my darling have a bad dream?” The brevity in his voice did little to stop the tears that still fell from your eyes and you were certain that if you pulled your face up from his chest you would find his nightshirt a mess, and your face a puffy red disaster.

Hushing hands, designed to pacify, rubbed a slow and steady pathway down your back and he grew quiet as your weeping continued.

“Are you ready to tell me about it?” His patient whisper into the darkness above your head felt like a salve, ready to receive your every word and bring an end to your suffering once and for all. Yet when you finally forced yourself to pull back from the warmth of his chest, where the steady thrumming of his beating heart reminded you of his safety, you felt the mess on your face. You were still sniffling too much to bring your voice under enough control to speak and you felt him reaching for his blanket to wipe at the mess of tears on your face.

“Goodness, you’ll be the end of me,” he said, mostly to himself as he wiped at the moisture. You could feel the hiccups inside your chest as your diaphragm constricted involuntarily and a brief upset in your stomach surged for a moment.

It was time to calm yourself. This was no way to act in front of your king. The slow steady breathing you forced inside your lungs helped some and with your eyes closed you could feel the tension inside your chest beginning to settle.

“Come now, I hate seeing you so upset. Will you at least tell me how I died?” You looked into his imploring face, with eyebrows lifted in the way he did when asking you a question, not demanding for your obedience but merely asking. His face was well beyond the stages of sleep, the corners of his lips pouted down. Exaggerated and adorable. Beseeching and nonjudgmental. You’d do anything for this face.

“There was a war. You were shot, my lord.” You blinked into the words, finding their explanation lacking the more you considered the strange metal contraption tucked into the commander’s belt. “With a gun.”

“A gun?” His eyebrows screwed together with the strange word, shaking his head.

“It explodes with a loud booming sound and a projectile shoots out,” you explained softly, surprised at just how many details you remembered from the dream about the strange weapon that caused his demise.

“Ahh, like a hand cannon? Big cumbersome thing, about this big?” His hands extended as far out as they could go and you looked from one hand to the other before shaking your head.

“Small enough to fit in one hand,” you said, making a fist and sticking your pointed finger out toward him. You mouthed a pop and his serious expression faltered along with your confidence to explain the details of your dream. With your confidence that fell so did your focus. His eyes always seemed to see too much of you too easily.

His warm hand wrapped around your hand, bringing your eyes back up into his and he pulled, using your surprise to rest your hand over his warm chest. You caught tiny smile on his lips as the pounding of his heart reverberated through the palm of your hand.

“Your imagination is admirable.”

Imagination.

Something that felt so real, so devastatingly tangible had been nothing more than the make believe workings of your sleeping mind.

You had been so certain of it, yet the evidence of the contrary sat in front of you, striking eyes, half open and watching your face too closely as only he could.

“I dreamt of you, as well,” his eyes took on a distant look with his words and you inhaled a slow breath that hitched once when your insides hiccuped lazily, only half hearted remnants of being so upset lingering inside your heart.

“Not nearly as tragic as yours; although, with the direction it was headed, I do believe the interruption itself might count as a great tragedy.”

The vagueness of his tongue brought a smile to your lips which he mirrored in an instant and his hands moved the blankets that surrounded him as he pulled you closer. The magnetic pull of his body felt even stronger than his searching hands and you molded against him, letting him pull the warm covers over you as you occupied the king’s bed, your silk robe falling open, your bare legs a tangle with his, nearly impossible to extricate.

“Now that I recall,” he spoke against your forehead, close enough to feel the movement of his jaw and brush of soft lips along your eyebrow when he spoke. “It was a very strange dream. You were not present at the start, it was--” the sudden pause in his easy speech made your mind sharpen as you braced your heart.

He felt you stiffen of course, he often caught on to microscopic changes in your mood and you felt his arms tighten their hold on you as he brushed against your back, rubbing his reassuring warmth into you. “--it was her, the queen. Only in this phantom land I had made the decision to break our union.” As soon as he spoke the words, you felt the vibration of a small laugh from the center of his chest.

You did not laugh. Your heart felt the giddiness of the prospect that he would have some control over who he had married, but you absolutely did not dare to dream of such foolishness. You definitely didn't revel in it. It was a sin. It was treason. To dream of breaking the union of the king and queen, yet as he spoke of such villainous topics, he laughed, deep inside his chest, he laughed at the very thought.

Oh to be so free.

“Decision?” You said, simply unable to help yourself. Since when had any of his life ever been his decision?

“Right? Preposterous. I merely decided that I didn't wish to have her as my wife--unadorned by my royal crest, or scribed in my own blood, but merely with a quill and ink...I endorsed with my own hand, onto a ledger.”

Your disbelief matched his.

“War did not erupt. I was not struck down by the heavens. The nation did not dissolve. I did not lose my head. I merely removed a ornament from around my finger and I shared a drink with commoners.”

You pulled your face back, to better catch sight of his and he turned to face you. He knew too much. The slack of your jaw, as you worked the tip of your tongue along the inside of your cheek, his eyes caught it all. You knew better than to give any real consideration to fantasies such as this. They were just that, impossible dreams that would have no place in your head.

Whatever he had seen on your face took his eyes away from you for a moment. His chest rose and fell with a deep breath as he forced the wicked fantasy far away. Tossed far off over the horizon to be long buried below a thousand years.

“You appeared shortly after that, looking--” These pauses he took always meant something was coming and you sat up straighter, pulling your chin higher to watch his face as he spoke. “--positively odd. Strange hair. Articles of clothing not meant for a woman, yet somehow feminine and just--” he looked into your face, losing the nerve to continue with the scathing review of your appearance in his dream. You felt the small pout of your bottom lip, somehow disappointment that your appearance was so poorly received.

“--and just beautiful.”

You watched him closely for signs of deception. Any clues in his eyes that might tell you that he was merely pacifying you with the compliment, despite what you knew about the king and his near inability to pacify anyone merely for the sake of their ego, you still searched those eyes. He blinked slowly and seemed to be watching your face with something going on behind those eyes.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered and his hands were moving below the blankets. You always felt too affected by his touch. You liked to think of yourself as a strong person, yet he could always make you crumble with a single touch of his fingertips against your bare skin.

“I do have to say,” the softness of his lips pressed against your neck as his arms wrapped around your waist and he squeezed you into his warmth. “You felt a bit different in my dream than you do now.”

“How so, my lord?”

He pushed the blankets away now, pulling slowly at the tie of the robe you wore before peeling it away from your frame.

The night shirt you wore below was far from your finest garment, and normally an evening with the king wouldn't be as plain as this. But you hadn't exactly planned to be in his bed tonight. He had just been with you the evening before, surely he had been satiated enough. You found it difficult to believe that he could want you just as intensely as you did him.

“You seemed harder somehow. Cautious and cold. Almost battle-worn.” His words were spoken through quick puffs of breath as he explored new bits of your skin.

“And you were so very bold in your actions. You did some things with your mouth that I have never experienced before… I--” Your eyes were closed as he spoke and try as you might you couldn't quite comprehend the events he was vaguely referring to from his dream. “--I do believe something like that would land you in the dungeons here.”

“But this,” he spoke into the softness of your belly and a coldness flashed over your head as if someone splashed you with water. You stiffened, your eyes widened as you sat up on your elbows. You could hear your heart pounding inside your ear drums and you were certain the increase in your breathing was detectable in the quietude of this bed chamber.

Could he tell? Had your belly finally swollen to the point where he noticed you carried the child of his love within your bones? Did he know?

His hand laid flat over the bare spot of skin just below your navel and his eyes opened to look up into yours for a moment as he stilled his movements entirely. It was at least ten seconds before he spoke again. You knew, because you held your breath and kept time in your head. He watched your face the entire time. Did he see the heat that coated your face with truth burning a fiery pathway from your cheeks down your neck to your chest.

“My love feels soft and warm here.” His eyes did not leave yours and despite the scrutiny, his lips only occupied themselves with kisses. There were no accusations or interrogations made from that mouth. He was patient for you.

The love was slow, and generous. The sleepiness of the morning drawing out his every movement at a near maddening pace and in the afterglow of his love he held you tighter than he had in the past.

With his head laid against your chest, he listened to the sound of your heart beating for him. It's only tune was his name. It's only rhythm was your love.

“What do you keep from me, my love?”

You had found yourself drifting some, cocooned in the comfort of his arms, his question floated over your head and settled lazily against your closed eyelids. The sweetness you heard in his voice was a gentle coaxing, begging you to open your eyes and your lips and tell him exactly what your secret was.

When you opened your eyes you could see the beginnings of light filtering through the windows.

“Is it something wonderful?” He sang in a slow yet playful melody. “Something precious and something new?”

You could feel the slow movement of his hand as he traveled from between your breasts down, trailing lightly over your belly and you puffed out a tiny laugh.

It must have sounded like relief to his ears.

He could always read you too easily.

“Yes, it is something wonderful, my lord.” You laid a hand over his and you felt him stiffen when you touched him. He moved to get a look at you and you rolled onto your back from your side, his eyes were suddenly wide on your face. Lips hung open and slowly, you saw a crooked gummy smile take over his face.

“Truly?” His eyes were everywhere, dancing from your face down to your belly and up again as if he couldn't decide where to look first. His gentle hands touched you in wonder and your chest swelled with a sudden burst of emotion as you covered your face with both hands to hide the wide smile there. “You are giving me a child.”

His quiet only lasted for a second, before you heard an anxious tension in his voice with his next question.

“Are you alright? Are you feeling ill, or is the baby--” his speech was fast, pausing mid question to throw his head back and focus his attention on the ceiling above him with a wide grin.

“A baby.” The quiet was back again and you couldn't hold the elation that brought your laughter into this room.

“I need to call the doctor. You must be checked thoroughly-- I will call my personal physician right away.” He was standing now, rushing out of the bed, still completely naked as he moved with purpose. You gasped mid laughter as you leapt from the sanctity of the covers to catch him before he gave a handmaid a heart attack out in the hallway.

“Clothing, my lord.” You chased after him, quickly reaching for the robes you saw carefully set out on a dressing stool at the foot of his bed. You opened the garment and tossed it over his shoulders just in time to see him release the brass handle of his bedroom door and look down with an adorably surprised look on his face.

You hastily tied your own robe closed mere moments before the big heavy door swung open and he burst into the hallway with determination directing his actions.

The sun was up, shining bright light into the well manicured courtyard visible through windows in the hallway. You could practically hear the morning birds singing their songs through the clear glass and feel the cool breeze floating through your hair. The sight was beautiful and you caught rested your palm over your stomach; amazed that you could find so much beauty in the world in a single place.

He was making a fuss now. Speaking loudly and with a grand voice that echoed through the hallway, demanding his physician; no, the best physicians in the land be bought to his room at once as scurrying staff ran off in a panic, most likely thinking the worst.

“What is this about needing a physician...Is the king ill?” A voice called out from the opposite end of the hallway, chilling your back with her shrill voice, you dropped your head and pulled your robe closed as tightly as you could to fight the cold you felt all over your body.

The warmth from the courtyard was no match for this cold that took coated your mood with its foulness.

He spun on his heels, eyes wide and surprised, as if he had merely forgotten that the marriage vows he had taken were actually not with you, but with the woman doing her best to hide the scowl on her face at the sight of you in the king’s presence.

“I assure you, I am quite well.” His voice paled along with his cheeks.

“Then why all the fuss for a physician, your majesty? Don't tell me you have done so for a concubine.” Her words felt sharp and pointed and you noticed the small step he took in your direction, standing in between the two of you, perhaps to absorb some of their effects in your stead.

Your hands balled into tight fists at your side and you tried to ignore the steady stream of air that escaped where her talons had poked tiny holes in your good mood. The longer you stood, the more you felt your shoulders beginning to sag as gravity wanted to pull you down. Collapsing in on yourself. Whatever happiness had filled you so, gone, poof...deflated and dull.

“You may return to your quarters,” the king was speaking to you, his face still not looking in your direction as he kept a well trained eye on the queen, yet his voice tossed the order over his shoulder.

“Yes, run along, child.” The misplaced brevity in her voice hardly covered the contempt you heard.

You dipped your head and pivoted your heels to leave as you had been told. Your feet felt sticky, as if each step away from him required more physical exertion than should be needed. Yet your legs moved. It was the king’s order after all.

“I trust you have not forgotten about our sacred union this evening, my lord.” The serpentine shrillness of her voice crawled against your back as she spoke quickly and at a volume designed to reach your retreating ears. Each step felt heavier when she was speaking to him in that voice and a risked glance you look back at the pair, showed the undeniable tension in his face. He had a hard set to his jaw and had taken a step back and away from the woman whom he had been promised to since he was just old enough to walk.

“Of course,” he said in so low a voice that left you wondering if he kept his words low for your sake, or for his own. As if mere denial had any power at all.

“How fortuitous for the doctor to be arriving soon, for I am sure I will be feeling quite sick by the end of today.” His volume had lifted and with the insult, you saw her physically recoil with a hand over her mouth and eyes wide with shock. The look in her eyes was merely a flash. Shock changed quickly into anger and you saw it take hold of her face and twist it into something menacing. Something threatening and something in your gut told wanted to shout. Wanted to scream and rush to him, telling him to watch himself, watch this woman, watch the games he was playing and to stop underestimating the dangers that lingered around him.

Instead your hallway was nearing. Your legs carried you away from the exchange between a husband and a wife who united nations with their sacred union and whose citizens prayed with all of their existence for an heir to be born of.

The day dragged into evening and your room was quiet. Your meal was warm and too fragrant, turning your stomach as you pushed the plate away. Even your tea felt too bitter on your tongue tonight. Your bed, usually so ready to receive your tired body felt stiff and cold. Your tossing only annoyed you further until you were certain no sleep would come to you tonight.

The quiet knock on your door was a welcome distraction from your own mind and you found a maid of the king calling.

Calling for you.

On a sacred union night.

“The king calls for you,” she said with eyes cast down.

“How could he possibly--” you shook your head, unable to fully understand how you could dare to join him in his bed chamber, tonight of all nights. The night designated by God himself, or so the church had declared in their doctrine, to be the most fruitful.

“He is in the baths.” Her voice was minuscule and you felt a sinking in your belly. 

You were quick for your outer robes and out the door in an instant. Having only witnessed his bath the evening after a union once, you knew-- you knew that he called for you out of desperation.

How long had he been in? Your feet moved as quietly as you could manage on the marble floor.

Would his skin be rubbed raw? Red and weeping from his efforts to cleanse himself? Would he hear your voice and stop at once or would you have to pull the pumice stone from his hands with force.

The door was closed and a maid with worry on her face let you in without a breath of hesitation. The sound of water splashing on the inside, steam rising up from the scalding water and the king somewhere within the haze.

“My lord?”

There was a soft grunting sound. The sounds of effort and the scent of heated lye soap filled your nose. The grunting did not stop, but changed with small whimpers and whiney complaints.

“It doesn't come off,” he said in annoyance. “I can still smell her.”

His skin was red and angry. Pruned fingertips gripped the white bar and rubbed roughly along his arms, his legs, his chest and abdomen. You could see the milky white haze in the water that surrounded him. The water was thick with dissolved soap already used, yet he reached for more, desperate to rid himself of the action itself from his recent memory.

“My lord,” you said again a bit louder but he could not hear you.

You didn't see any blood yet and felt instantly thankful that the rough pumice stone laid just out of his reach.

“My lord,” you repeated again, hoping to break the spell so he could look into your face and stop this assault on his skin. The soap dropped and sunk into the water below and he reached for the tray that held the others.

You extended your hand, touching his soaked fingers before he could grab it.

“My love,” you said softly, feeling the affection your felt inside your soul take over your mind and your tongue as you spoke the word. The word that lived deep within your heart and threatened to consume you with every breath you took of every single day. With every glance of his eyes and touch of his lips against yours, you felt positively enslaved to it.

Yet you never dared to speak to him in such an intimate way. He was your lord. Your king, your commander, your ruler. To speak to your king without his title was unheard of.

He was motionless as the word danced around his head. Having already exited your lips you couldn't push it back inside of your parted lips even if you wanted to. It already existed. There was simply no going back from existence.

His wet fingers twitched within your hand for a second before he moved, slipping them between your own fingers he closed his hand within yours and he pulled. A tiny tug, begging you to step closer to the edge of the bath.

He was reaching. Wet arms attached to wet hands, he pulled harder, wrapping his arms tightly around your waist, you stumbled into him as his head met your belly and his arms constricted tighter.

“Say it again,” he whined quietly against your wet night shirt. Your head fell back and your eyes closed as he clung to you. “Say it again, I order you to.” He pleaded into your belly.

“My love, you are clean. It's time to get out of the bath now and come into my arms.” It came so naturally from your lips, the sweet nurturing words for him. He was raising himself, braced with shaking legs and holding on to your arms. Within his eyes you saw exhaustion and the absence of the hot water made him shake and tremble as he stepped away from it.

You reached for his robe, held back by his hands that reached only for you, you couldn't quite grasp the dry garment.

“I don't want that,” he complained, pulling at the tie around your waist that held your own outer garment in place. It fell open his arms slipped inside, sliding along the thin fabric of your night shirt, you felt fingertips pushing the fabric away as he sought out the warmth of your dry skin. Your own clothing would have to do for both of you. You used your robe to wrap around his back and dry his skin and warm him through.

Despite his exhaustion and the temporary slip into madness as he tried to rid himself of the ghosts that haunted him once a month, you could still feel the strength well inside his muscles as he gripped you tightly and buried his face in your neck. Each deep breath he took filled his nose with only the smell of you. He seemed to be coming back into himself the tighter he clung to you and you found yourself lifted off of your feet. You wrapped your legs around his waist and allowed him to carry you as he moved out of his washing rooms further into the room that you knew connected to his bed chamber.

His bed was unmessed, untouched, and unslept. You knew the monthly unions did not take place in here. He would never allow such a thing. This was your space and this was your man.

“Make me smell like you,” he whispered into your parted lips with just a tinge of residual madness in his eyes as he pressed himself into you and you complied. Erasing the memory of her touch with your entire being as you called out the sweet words and love notes you had pulled straight from your heart just for him.

You weren't satisfied until he was smiling again. Looking at you through sleepy eyelids as he giggled and whispered gentle promises into your ear.  

“If it’s a boy, he will be king. I promise you, our son will be king.” He was sleepy now, talking slower with his hands rubbing small circles along your belly and you hummed in agreement.

“And if it’s a girl?”

“She will have your smile. Oh, she will be my life.” His words were a mumble of sleep, although you didn't believe his promises were any less true because of it.

As the months passed, your belly grew and soon the maids who observed your closely weren’t the only ones to notice the concubine who was carrying the king’s child in her belly. The queen’s threatening glares and followed you it seemed, at every opportunity she had to glimpse your growing waistline.

The king ordered physicians, a whole slew of them checked on you regularly, giving careful instructions about foods and herbs you were forbidden to eat, the kinds of physical activity you were allowed to participate in, and your chambers were moved into a part of the castle that was much closer to the king himself. Whether this was for your benefit or for his, you weren't quite sure.

His visits to your room in the middle of the night, when all others were asleep and the night terrors had kept him awake, told you that perhaps the king’s dependence on you had reached new levels. Sometimes all he wanted was simply for you to stroke his back as he drifted off in your arms, or run your fingertips through his black hair while his breathing evened out. You wondered how he ever slept at all when your room had been so far away from him. You also wondered how you had ever managed to breath freely when he wasn’t the source of the warmth you held in your arms at night.

It was not a half a year later, during the months when your belly had grown enough to pull you down roughly into your bed, making it hard to do simple things like getting back up without assistance, or putting on your stockings, when you noticed a shift in the dynamic around you. You had new maids who rushed to your side instantly. Fed you warm luxuries and brought you tea around the clock to help with the aches and pains involved with the creation of life. Faces that blurred together and shoved things into your hands, into your mouth, putting garments around you when you were cold and taking them off when you were hot. All the while a presence in the back of the room lingered. Higher level maids who you had seen only lingering around the queen. Were they here for your baby? They scarcely interacted with you directly, yet their presence left you feeling slightly unsettled.

The months blurred together. There was some occurrence outside of the palace that required the king to be gone too often and for weeks at a time. Your room would grow too cold and too dark without him home, and when he would return he was always too stressed and too tired for much of anything besides sleep.

It was during the dark stillness of the night that it happened. The bitter tea you had to plug your nose to drink down at dinner left you feeling nauseated, making your stomach feel too full, too unsteady and the uncomfortable feeling within your chest shifted into a sharp pain that coursed through your belly, making it go hard and rigid as it took your breath straight from within your lungs and flung it across the room along with whatever bit of restraint you had in your mind to keep from screaming out.

The pains would come and your screams would bring in the maids who shoved something into your hands, forcing it down your throat, making you swallow down the bitter taste that would eventually make your mind go fuzzy and the pain would subside some. You’d complained to the maids that brought it with the glances behind them toward the older women in charge who merely clicked their tongues. “It’s good for the baby,” they would say and the bitter tonic was shoved into your hands again. How many days of this must you withstand?

But the pain persisted, making you think that perhaps this was the time when this child would finally emerge into the world and quit it’s assault onto you from the inside.  

With the physicians came exams and hushed whispers that never quite reached your ears and you called out for him. For the king, for your love who should be here by now. He had told you, promised you that he would be here, yet your cries were hushed as the pain took over your body and the old women in the back of the room smirked into their sleeves to hide the satisfaction on their faces. That same uneasiness that you felt for weeks lingered, pulsed and grew as it crept up your spine slowly. Your mind dizzied itself, unable to make up from down and you vomited up every bit of the bitter taste you had been fed. Yet it lingered in the back of your throat, deep within your belly, and somewhere in the base of your spine came the kind of pain that ripped and clawed and gnashed hard enough to seize your entire body and shake it like a tiny lamb caught in the jaws of a ferocious lion.

You were done for. You could feel it coming for you and the words that peppered out of the head physician’s lips reached your ears at last.

“Too soon.” 

“She won't survive this.”

“I’ve never seen this happen, something is wrong.”

“The king will have our heads.”

Despite the hushed conversations amongst themselves, no one was telling you anything and the dread was beginning to take over. Your eyes searched. You felt the sweat beading along your skin as the waves took over again and again.

Pain, so much pain. It wasn't supposed to be this way. You had heard plenty of stories of childbirth from the older women in the palace, yet this pain surged up hot deep inside, near the small of your back it radiated and you tried desperately to breathe through it. Through your desperate search for someone who would give you some answers, you searched the faces of your maids, your hands reaching out from the bed you were trapped in for the one closest to you and you found her fingers as you pulled.

“Please, w-where is the king?” You pleaded through gritted teeth and she gasped before she quickly took a step away from you, pulling her hand free from your grasp in an instant. Her eyes avoided yours and when you searched the other faces, the ones who had been the newest arrivals, the ones who had been surrounding you all along this recent week, not a single one of them would look in your eyes.

The panic was growing inside of your chest and you tried to sit up, only to be pushed back down by another maid as the older doctor, the one who seemed to be in charge began barking out questions. Demanding answers while mixing something in a small bowl.

“T-The king...he will come,” you spoke out loud to no one, yet to everyone. Knowing deep inside your heart that he would not stand for this for one second. The old man’s hand rested over your forehead and he leaned down close to your face.

“We have sent word. He is coming as quickly as he can. You must drink this now if we are to save the child. Please there is no time.”

There was something in his eyes that made you want to believe him. Something deep inside of his face that spoke the truth to you, yet the room had grown strangely quiet as one of the maids at your side began to weep into her hands.

The old man with the believable eyes ordered everyone out of the room and you found yourself sitting up as your muscles cramped and seized around you.

“Something has gone terribly wrong and I am afraid, barring some miracle from the heavens, you will die. The king’s child could die. You must drink this to stop the labor. There is nothing more we can do.”

You could feel a fogginess beginning to take over your mind and as he spoke, an echoing sounded out inside your eardrums, taking every word he said through a hollow tube and you struggled to comprehend what you were being told as every bit of strength left in your body called for him, begged for him, pleaded for him to come to you.

You felt the cold ceramic dish against your mouth and your lips parted as the first bits of a sour liquid hit your tongue. You coughed as your stomach retched and fought against the taste. You felt a wave of nausea hit you and you gagged against the taste that seemed to burn as it went down. The old man cradled your head, shushing over your ears as he tried to get you to swallow.

There was a commotion at the doorway and the rest of the sour liquid sloshed over the side of the bowl when a shouting in the distance broke out.

“Where is she?” The voice was significant and vibrated against your heart with such a force you sat up further, opening your eyes as you sought out his face.

His face would be your cure. His eyes would see through you and pull out every ailment that afflicted you and you would be saved if you could only see his face.

“Your majesty,” the old man stood tall, pivoting his body away from you and blocking your view of the man who pushed through the door. The face you so desperately wanted to see.

“What happened? She was fine when I left…what could have changed so suddenly?” He was shouting, his voice too high pitched. The panic had taken hold inside of his chest and the trembling in his voice ripped at your heart. You felt a surge of pain course through your back, making you cry out.

Through the pain, you could hear the doctor’s words to the king. His reasons, his explanations, his questions as to how things could go so terribly wrong in such a short time. The theories did nothing for you. His suggestions to the king of saving the child through a procedure he knew of flew past your head, taking no foot hold in your mind. You were too overcome. The facts of your imminent demise hit you hard and fast like a splash of water in the face and your mind raced as your heart prayed for a swift end. This pain simply could not go on forever could it?

You felt warm hands reaching for yours, pulling open against your closed fists, emptying the blankets that you held on to so tightly.  Instead of the cloth was his touch and when you opened your eyes he was really there.

Worried, distraught, and yet still so unimaginably beautiful, was the face of your love. You felt like you could weep simply from the relief of looking into those eyes. The pain faded and you felt your own lips pull into a smile.

“I'm here,” he said close enough for his breath to warm your skin. With him here you could do this. You could do anything with his hands around yours and his eyes blanketing yours with love.

“T-They are saying something is wrong.” He whispered against your face, his voice trembled despite the amazing strength you could read within his words as he kept his voice clear and level and you watched his lips moving as you tried to process the words. Even now as he held your hands, the fog in your mind was spreading, making your eyes want to close and making you want to give in to the darkness you could feel teetering around the edges of your vision.

Your eyes flew open suddenly when a scream echoed out within your room and a young woman was flung through the door, she landed on her knees with a smack against the floor and the king turned to face the man who had pushed her into his view.

“Tell him,” he shouted at the young girl who shrieked and cowered away from the loud scary man. You groaned and turned your head trying to escape the sounds. The unbelievable pain has finally faded some as your limbs felt heavy like downed tree limbs.

“What is the meaning of this?” The king demanded answers and the loud man did something that made the young girl cry out.

“Tell him what you told me.” He said and she was stuttering through some sort of a confession. Something involving moonflowers. Something designed to kill while the king was away. The baby would die after the mother did. On order of the queen.

The kind eyed old man gasped and the blood left the cheeks of the man you loved as he dropped your hand, his body went stiff and his breathing seemed to have stopped entirely as he stared down at the woman who wept on the floor.

You closed your eyes, suddenly much too tired to keep them open any longer. The darkness around your eyes was so burdensome and you could feel your body being pulled down into the bed. The skin on your face tickled but you didn't care anymore. You were sinking too far down to care.

Something had changed around you and the room had gone quiet. No more weeping in the corner by scared little girls, no more shouting men, no more kind believable eyes or bitter tastes on your tongue that burned when they hit your stomach.

There was one sound though and it bothered your sleep. This sound was desolation. This sound was something that had once been so beautiful but now was forsaken. A waste. The sound was desperate, frantic and it pleaded and prayed. It cried and wept and pulled at you, begged you to open your eyes, begged for you to return, not to leave him and your mind shifted toward the sound.

You squeezed your hand. It took a great deal of effort for those fingers to move, but they did and the weeping sound gasped for breath.

“D-Don’t cry, my love,” you said through ragged thick vocal cords. Your tongue wasn't easy to move any more. Your love, so filling and all consuming within your chest, was not so easily declared, but his face was there. “--we will meet again one day.”

And he was so close, you could practically kiss him if only you could move. Why couldn't you just move? The world which you once walked freely through had grown big anchoring roots into the ground; so dark and so heavy.

His lips peppered wet kisses along your hand and his eyes besought yours. The tears on his face dripped down his chin and washed a path down to wet your shirt sleeves.

“Please, don’t go. Please don't leave me,” the pain in his voice felt like too much to bear. But how could you possibly stay when you were so tired. You wanted nothing more than to give in to the darkness that had it’s claws deep in your spine and enticed you.

The oxygen you pulled into your lungs fought for a path through the brambles and the thorns and you opened your lips to speak again. Something important, something that you had to tell him. Something he must promise you.

“Take our baby -- tell them to save our baby, h-hurry -- promise me.” The words felt like sand on your tongue and he gasped in another breath as more wetness slipped from his eyes down his face. You witnessed the nod of his head. His promise to you was made. He would keep the promise and your child stood a chance.

The room’s lights were fading now. The darkness surrounded his eyes completely and you blinked once..twice...the third time you lost the strength to open them again and you pulled in more air. It barely made a dent, but it was enough.

“Kiss me before I go,” you managed, and you felt the warmth of soft lips, a stark contrast to you own tepid and dry lips, and you drifted further into the darkness as you were swallowed up by it completely.

23 August,1457

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ACT III

23 August 2017

The rumors were flying at work. The office buzzed with them as the worried men and women hunched closely together at their desks, whispering about the state of the company...or more so, the current state of the acting CEO of the company and how the recent upheaval might affect their jobs. You were a temp, so the threat of impending unemployment was more of a steady countdown with and end date, rather than the swift and surprising chop of the guillotine. Your contract would be up in six months, so while you secretly hoped the supervisors who fed you busy work would see the enormous potential in you and some day make you a permanent employee, you weren't exactly holding your breath for it to happen. This was a big company with an enormous work force and one somewhat competent temp amongst the dozens of other contract workers scattered throughout the building didn't exactly stand out.

“I hear his wife is leaving him.” Jangmi from accounting’s thoroughly scandalized voice broke through the steady din of your floor.

“I heard that the reason he has been gone so much is because he checked himself into a mental hospital.” Alba, the woman who sat directly behind you peeked her head over the partition to share the rumors she heard. “He’s suffering from delusions and has been spending thousands of dollars on private detectives.”

“No no, the real reason he was gone was because he’s a model and was doing a photoshoot in Bali, and he was so handsome in all of the pictures that the director begged him to stay on as a permanent fashion model but he declined.” Jangmi countered and you sighed into your computer screen as quietly as you could, not wanting to let on that you were eavesdropping on their conversation and found their gossip just bothersome enough to distract you from sorting your morning emails.

Your inbox was mostly full of memos from the subject of their discussion. The acting CEO of XiuUnlimited, Director Kim Minseok, who it seemed, had spent the last 12 hours filling the inboxes of his subordinates with reminders on policies that, given the numerous times you had read through these policy reminder emails over and over again, not a single person in this building was likely to forget any time soon.

“Is he really that handsome?” Alba dropped her voice some, as if the rumors of his good looks were supposedly a secret. Hell, even you had heard the tales of his good looks.

Reminder to all staff: The microwaves in the break rooms are to be wiped down with the antibacterial cleaning wipes provided free of charge by the company. Wipe what sticks, don't get sick!

Jangmi shrugged into her morning latte, “I've never seen him. Lana from my department saw him once and she went on for days about how handsome he is.”

Reminder to all staff: Used paper towels in the bathrooms belong in the trash can, not on the floor. Excess mess leads to excess stress!

You scrolled through to the bottom of each email, searching for the delete icon at the bottom of the page. It was quite easy to see that the man had some issues if he spent his entire evening thinking of lame rhymes to use to micromanage his employees instead of figuring out how to fix the problems he had in his relationship with his wife.

“I heard,” Alba dropped her voice even further this time and your ears caught the sudden change as you tried not to make it obvious that you tilted your head ever so slightly to catch what she was about to drop. “That when the divorce is final, the temps are getting --” you heard the clicking sound she made with her tongue and you turned to see her making an ax motion across her neck.

This one sent your heart racing just a touch faster and you quickly turned away to look at your computer screen when she looked back at you, not wanting her to know you had heard what she said, although you knew, you just knew it had to be baseless. There was no way your contract would be terminated early just because of a little turmoil in a marriage up at the top.

The man couldn't be that insensitive to his employees could he? There had to be a hundred temps in this place. Surely the company couldn't survive losing such a huge amount of support staff suddenly and not suffer at least their bottom line, right? It just didn't make sense.

Your mind flashed back to when you were hired and the sickening false smile of the woman who sat behind the large mahogany desk as you were shuffled through. It was the only time you had been upstairs and it felt more like a parade of products on a conveyor belt as she chose the ones that caught her eye. You knew she was important by the way she looked down her nose at you, and when you learned later that she was the wife of the CEO you couldn’t find yourself to be the least bit surprised.

“It was an arranged marriage wasn't it? Rich people really are strange sometimes. What did they think would happen if they marry without even knowing the person.” Jangmi rattled on over your busy mind as you briefly daydreamed about just what it would be like to be thrust into a life like that. Married to a stranger simply because your parents had struck some sort of fortuitous business deal. A life of excess and privilege but with none of the freedom to do what you wanted with it all.

Reminder to all staff: Driving faster than 10MPH in the parking garage leaves unsightly black marks on the floor. Drive slow so it won't show!

You supposed a life like that would make anyone a little bit crazy.

Your day was suspiciously quiet. You’d caught up with every deadline you had received from the week prior and found yourself searching for menial tasks to fill your day. Yet when you asked your supervisor for some new material to work on she shrugged and passed you a stack of papers that needed copying, or short lists of documents for data entry. Tasks that were easily completed in less than one hour and required almost no brainpower to do.

You tried not to be paranoid.

You tried not to let the rumors from this morning get to you, yet as you completed yet another stack of mindless copies, you couldn't help but notice how the other employees, the ones who weren't temps seemed genuinely swamped with work. Things that would last them weeks, while you were handed the short term tasks that had no strings attached. Nothing that would hold you to it, or keep you busy for long enough to be considered a valued asset to the company.

It was within the last ten minutes of the day, when you were sorting through your paperclips, choosing the bent ones to throw into the trash can between your legs (Reminder to all staff: Discard broken or warped paper clips, as they can damage reports and require documents to be reprinted. Untidy supplies are not okay guys!) when you heard a loud gasp from across the office. Followed shortly by the sound of someone cursing at mid volume from a desk behind you. You looked up in alarm at the sudden ruckus that seemed to be breaking out inside the building and when you turned behind you, Alba sat facing you and Jangmi stood with her head over the partition watching, with their mouths open and wide eyes.

It only took a moment for your eyes to zero in on her open computer screen, on the latest email from CEO Kim Minseok, that was opened there for you to see.

Attention all staff, Effective immediately all Temporary Workers will no longer be employees of XiuUnlimited. Contracts that have not yet expired will be terminated and former employees will receive severance pay in their accounts within 3-5 business days. Please remember to take all of your personal belongings with you when you leave. A security officer will escort you out of the building. Things left behind, are no longer mine!

You stared at the email on your screen in disbelief. Well, mild disbelief that was turning into something else. Something like anger that something like this could really be happening to you. Somewhere in the office, a woman was crying and you scrolled down to the bottom of the email and hit delete, watching the animation on your screen as it flew away and vanished for the last time.

There was something dehumanizing about being singled out, watched, and escorted out of the building by a man wearing a uniform that only had a plastic badge and a flashlight. He stood a few feet behind you as you gathered the last bit of Polaroid pictures you had on the corkboard behind your cubicle and tossed them into the paper box Alba had handed you from below her desk.

“We’re really sorry,” Jangmi said softly at your back. “Yeah, sorry,” Alba chimed in agreement and you forced a tense smile that only lasted for a few seconds before you just couldn't do it any more.

You had just lost your job for seemingly no reason at all and they would just have to forgive you if couldn't fake being nice.

You had to turn in your ID badge on the sidewalk outside of the building. The one that worked the lock on front door and officially named you as an adult employee who received a paycheck and medical benefits in exchange for you spending 8 hours a day sitting behind a desk doing any and every task they presented you to the best of your ability. And for what? So you could be fired because some rich kid threw a tantrum and didn’t like the wife his parents bought for him?

You wanted to scream. You wanted to cry.

You wanted a drink.

That was something you could probably manage, despite the nagging voice in the back of your mind telling you that an unemployed person should not be wasting money at a bar when she would certainly have to eat again sometime soon.

Your mood moved your feet and you found your eyes searching the signs around you for something that would wet your throat and numb your mind for a few hours while you wallowed in a little good old fashioned self pity.

Perhaps on any other day you would have avoided the somewhat shady looking alley way lined with smelly dumpsters and probably a whole assortment of vermin, but today you merely wandered. You found yourself pleasantly surprised to find yourself walking upon what looked to be a hole in the wall bar with a sign above the door that simply read “The Commander.”

The name brought a warmth to your chest and you found yourself smiling for the first time today when you tried the door and found it open. Inside was peaceful, with smooth contemporary music filtering through overhead speakers and a warm decor that smelled clean and inviting.

A bell rang above the door when it closed and a man in a dress shirt, vest and bow tie looked up from his spot at the bar. The glass he was drying shined in the lights overhead and he nodded his head in your direction with a friendly smile.

“Anywhere you like, miss,” the bartender said with a slight accent and you looked around at the empty place. You really could sit anywhere you liked. As you rounded the corner you were surprised to see one other patron sitting on the far end of the bar, not visible from where you entered but you definitely weren't alone with your very own bartender on the day you were fired.

The man at the bar didn't look up when you entered, nor did he move at all it seemed, as he hunched over himself with his head angled down and his eyes closed. A drink sat in front of him, mostly gone, a small sliver of brown liquid, probably whiskey from the bottle you could see still left on the bar counter close to him and after a long moment in which you were nearly positive that he was sleeping, the man inhaled a gasping breath and reached for the glass, downed the rest of his drink quickly and tapped on the counter twice as soon as the glass was set down.

The bartender took slow strides toward the man, grabbed the glass and set it into the sink. In seconds a fresh glass with at least two fingers of whiskey sat in front of the man who was simply too enchanting to ignore at this point.

You chose your seat, a booth near the other end of the bar where you could watch him with plenty of cover should your spying be discovered.

This was just the kind of distraction you needed and when the bartender left his post to walk up to your table and retrieve your order, you hoped and prayed that the man at the bar would not notice, not follow the bartender, and not find you watching his every move this way.

The man didn't move and you had your drink and your distraction still very much intact.

After what felt like much too long for a person to be sitting with his eyes closed at a bar, although who were you to judge what a person should be allowed to do alone at a bar, the man lifted his head, pulled a brown envelope out of a briefcase that rested against his leg and set it down carefully onto the bar in front of him.

His head was lifted now, his eyes were open and focused on the envelope in front of him and you felt a jarring surge of something hit you as you watched him.

He was handsome, this you could tell instantly, but there was something more than just handsome happening on his face. His profile was sharp, his hair was dark and his skin light enough to create a positively luxurious contrast that sent a warmth spreading through your chest as you looked at him.

The longer you looked at him, the more at ease you felt with the voyeur inside of you, although that might just be the second dirty martini in your belly, and you found yourself craning your neck to see more clearly just what he was doing with that mysterious brown envelope in front of of him.

After another long moment, he flipped the parcel over, spun his fine fingertips around, gripping a string that held the flap closed, and opened it. Inside was a stack of papers that you were much too far away to read and you frowned at the idea that you couldn't sit next to him while he did this.

He lifted a hand to his chest and inhaled a deep breath before angling his head in your direction as he opened his coat and fished through for something and you caught a glimpse of his whole face.

You gasped out loud, and quickly covered your mouth with your hand to hide it while you prayed that he didn't hear.

Gorgeous. Radiating with beauty really, but more than that something about his face felt downright familiar.

Was he a celebrity? Was he someone you had seen before, maybe on television, or maybe a musician? Had you listened to his songs in your headphones as you fell asleep at night?

The sensation was stronger than anything you'd ever felt in your whole life and you searched your recent memory for an image of someone with a face that would floor you this easily. You swore your mind was playing tricks on you when the images of his shirtless muscular torso floated through your head. And how in the world could you be able to imagine what that face might look like pulled into a crooked smile as he lovingly stroked your face. As if someone like him would ever look at you that way. You found no reasons for the images despite how thoroughly you searched your memory.

You came up empty.

You didn't have a name to this face, you definitely didn't have a voice, or direct interaction to him and you shook your head in confusion as you watched him take a deep breath, turn to the back of the document with a pen in his hand and sign with a flourish and two dots.

The force of those two dots seemed strong enough to poke two holes in the paper and the pen thudded on the counter as he tossed the pen down in a huff, stuffed the stack of documents back inside the envelope and returned the whole mess to the crisp clean briefcase by his feet.

He then, grabbed the drink and downed it in a single go, coughing and sputtering (adorably) as it went down too hard. Why did he have to be so enticing? He wiped hastily at his lips with the back of his hand and pulled off a ring from his finger, holding it a good six inches from the countertop for ten second before opening his hand and letting the ring fall.

It fell with a clatter that rang out over the sound of the music and your mind showed you the image of the ring falling to the floor and rolling under a bed. These drinks were pretty strong. You liked this place. You liked that bartenders heavy hand and you really liked the name of this bar.

And to say you liked the handsome man sitting at the bar was an understatement. You were enchanted by him. Enthralled and enraptured and bewitched by his every movement as he stood up from the seat and turned swiftly away from you. His steps weren't as steady as the bartender who walked in the opposite direction as him and reached for the wad of cash he had left on the counter as he left and your mind scrambled and screamed very suddenly at you.

He was leaving. He was leaving? Just like that? Why was he leaving when you had only just found him?

But you didn't want him to leave. You jumped to your feet, wide eyed and probably drunk and caught the sight of a his crisp clean briefcase still leaning beside the barstool and your mind whirled in a panic.

In his drunken confusion he had left this important attaché behind and you had to, HAD to return it to him.

You had to witness his eyes on yours just once and that sweet crooked smile that showed an adorable amount of gums and he had to look into your face and say your name as you held on too tightly to the case and didn't want to let go. Oh how affected you would surely be. You craved everything about his face.

These drinks must really be strong. Yet, strangely the room wasn't spinning and you easily grasped the case in your hands without much trouble at all. But the strange feeling in your chest with the thought of seeing him again was overpowering you.

You bypassed the forgotten wedding ring on the bar. Even the bartender didn't touch it when he grabbed the cash and he knowingly watched as you picked up the case and followed the same path he had taken when he left with determination written all over your body.

Maybe he remained just outside, searching his pockets for his phone so he could call a driver or his mom to let her know that he had just seen the love of his life and she stole his briefcase.

The street just outside was dark now, and a light drizzle fell along the pavement as you peered through the opened door for any signs of him.

You knew the size of him, the shape of him, the look of his black hair as it fell just along his temples and the way he ticked his fingertips along his sharp cheekbones as he contemplated life.

Never in your life had you been this observant, but your memory was flooded with him now. You must have picked up quite a bit about his body language while you watched him having his drink and having his divorce party for one.

“Am I imagining things or did you just steal my briefcase?”

A voice, no, his voice, you were certain, reverberated against your ear drums and sent a jolt of something strange through your chest and you slowly turned around to face the man who stood in the dimly lit hallway at the entrance to this bar.

Once he spoke, you realized what must have happened. He had gone to the bathroom which must be just around the corner past the exit and you, being the rash, anxious, quick to act, slow to think, especially when drinking, you, that you are, had made a mistake.

You closed your eyes, inhaled a deep breath to settle the strange storm that was brewing inside of your chest, and opened your eyes to look at him head on, and mere feet away from you.

You turned to look into his face, with an apology and an excuse ready to fire off on the tip of your tongue.

You turned to look into his face, ready to speak. Ready to act. Ready to be normal and do the right thing.

Only that isn't what happened, because you turned to look into his face and the logical thinking part of your brain ceased to function in the way you had become accustomed to in all of your years of living on this earth.

His face.

His eyes.

His face, and his lips... and there was a strange stillness that washed over you where you stood in the entryway of that bar. It was an all consuming stillness that seized your heart inside of your chest and made it difficult to breath.

You felt frozen in your tracks because there was something strange happening inside of your fuzzy mind when you looked at his face.

“I’m sorry, I--” your own words were forcefully pulled from your lips as the logical part of your brain screamed at you to speak, to come up with an excuse for this situation but the pulsing inside of your chest burned when you breathed in and he was…

He was frozen. His lips were parted, hung open as if he had been poised to speak and interrupted by something that was profound enough to stop him in his tracks. To interrupt him so completely that he didn't even bother to snap his jaw back shut, but instead stood there, mouth gaping and eyes wide on your face as if some wizard had cast a spell on him and frozen him mid-thought.

“I’m sorry,” My Lord, you tried again but your own intrusive thoughts seemed to be pressing hard against you, nagging at you, trying to coax something from deep within your soul now and you shook your head at the absurdity of this feeling.

“I drank too much.” You finally heard him speak. It came out as the softest whisper, designed only for his own ears, “I must have drank too much this time. This is impossible.”

“I’m sorry?” You asked softly as your fingers wrapped tighter around the handle of his fancy briefcase. It felt like a lifeline, a small token from this world that served to keep you grounded and remind you of where you were and who you were. Keeping you from falling too deeply into those eyes that felt so tempting and easy to become lost in.

My Lord. 

There was a wetness in his eyes as he stared at your face, positively transfixed, his pretty eyes held onto yours with a desperation that you couldn't quite place. Yet the longer you looked at him the stronger the pulsing inside of your own chest grew. It burned like indigestion now and you rubbed a hand lightly over your breastplate, willing it to subside and give you some peace. 

“Or I’ve finally lost my mind for real,” he added and he lifted a trembling hand to rub roughly over his face once, before slipping his fingers through his black hair, combing it back in a single pass, it bounced effortlessly back into place and your fingers itched to feel the strands rushing through your own hands again.

Again. 

It was too strong. You had to close your eyes and so you did, for just a moment you had to look away from his face that was watching you with those wide pleading eyes. You sighed into the darkness your eyelids provided and leaned against the door frame for support.

My Love.

It was his face again, only this time the words coming from his mouth sounded ancient. The love though, it was timeless. It was the same love you’d shown again and again through your words, your touches and your actions. It was the love for the commander. The brave soldier who led his men into battle time and time again, returning with scars and traumas that would keep him up at night.

It was the softness of his lips against yours, and the warmth of fingertips sliding along your skin. Unlike the fantastical shifting sands of a dreamland, this felt solid enough to build a foundation on. This felt like a memory woven so deeply into your soul the mere glimpse of his face created a bond tight enough to hold ten thousand tons.

If a glimpse of his face had this strong of an effect what would a touch do?

Your eyes must have only been closed for a second. A fool could see that you could not keep from looking at his face for very long, not when he was there right in front of you, still frozen in place under some spell.

Your chest felt too heavy, the breaths you took in and out took more effort than you could comprehend, but the pulsing inside of your chest was engulfing you now. How long until you were swallowed up entirely?

You knew him.

You knew him. 

You knew this man who stood in front of you and you felt like you might possibly suffocate inside this doorway with two dirty martinis in your belly, a stolen briefcase in your hands and a tear running down your cheek.

You heard a soft exhale of breath from him, and he swayed on his feet as his eyes blinked quickly. Whatever conclusions he had been working out inside his mind seemed to have been reached and you could feel something changing in the way he was looking at you.

He let out a shuddering sigh before he crumbled, covering his open mouth with an open palm, he sagged against the wall of the hallway, opposite of your doorway and he closed his eyes.

You took a step forward and the briefcase thudded to the floor at your feet, forgotten and unnecessary. The confusion and distress on his face called to you and your feet moved on their own.

His breathing was labored, his hand moved from his face to his chest where he rubbed roughly, gasping in and out for breath you could see the wetness spill over his lashes and fall onto his cheeks. His eyes were frantic, searching for meaning in this, searching for something that made some fucking sense, yet the pull to him was strong and undeniable. You moved closer, with hands outstretched, you had to touch him.

His face was real, he was real, he was really here, leaning against the wall in this bar being consumed by something you couldn't comprehend and you had to help him.

The first contact of your fingertips along his cheek sent an electric buzz through your body and you pushed through it, moving in closer, you cupped his cheek with one hand, joining with your other on the other side and he swayed within your touch, eyes focusing again on you with furrowed brows, he breathed heavily through his parted lips.

The wetness you felt along his face was warm.

Sticky and warm, different from tears and when you pulled a hand away you saw red. So much red, coating your hand blood red and raw. You gasped into it, closing your eyes you shook your head to rid yourself of it, but it returned again and again, stronger and more painful. The pain wanted to destroy. It wanted to rob your love and your laughter and your hope. The pain was as powerful as a tsunami yet moved through your body like an unstoppable shadow spread slowly over the forest floor.

His eyes were held in yours, and you watched as their light faded. Your own tears clouded your vision and you blinked faster, trying to focus on his face, on his lips that spoke to you as the pain of losing this man you loved so completely surged through your chest and broke your heart into two jagged pieces that would never fit together the same again. No matter how many times your tried to mend it, no matter how many experts you saw, no matter how many therapies you attended, the shattered pieces of your heart sat crooked, cracked, and surely would leak with every meager pump of blood through your veins the organ tried to make.

The soldier was motionless. The light in his eyes had faded and he was taken from you and you sobbed and you begged and you pleaded as you cradled his face in your arms, but no one would listen. No one would bring him back to you. The medic never came and the strongest and bravest man you knew was gone from your life forever.

“Shhh...don’t cry, my love,” he said. The man in front of you, in this bar, spoke softly with his eyes closed and you felt the warmth from his face through the palms of your hands.

He was here. It was him. It was the commander, and he was here.

He was real and he was here and whatever twists of fate that happened to lead you into this bar on this day had found it in it’s cards to return him to you. You had your commander back. You had your king. And he was here.

“I told you we would meet again one day,” you said and when you opened your eyes again the blood was gone. Replaced by his face, cleaned with the tears on his skin and his ears caught your words and his heavy eyelids shoved open.

He watched you for a moment before he shifted, straightening his posture, he stood stronger onto his own two legs again, using the strength in his body and perhaps borrowing a little from your words.

“Do you remember me?” The question was more hopeful than any you had ever heard before and you wanted to laugh. You wanted to shout and dance and scream your response because yes. Yes! Yes of course you did! The heavens had given him back to you, the least you could do was remember the greatest love your soul had ever known.

“Yes,” You said. The exhale of relief from his chest pulled at eyelids down and pulled the corners of his lips up.

“It’s been a long time,” He said, his eyes full of wonder with each look, yet thick with the emotion he was now trying to reign in.

A long time indeed. His words felt like gospel yet completely absurd at the same time. This man was a stranger to you mere moments ago, yet your heart had given you lifetimes of him and all you had to do was listen and believe it.

The longer you looked at his face, the stronger the memories became. The more the memories began to overwhelm you all over again you watched him pull his bottom lip in between his teeth and bite down lightly as he rocked on his heels, his focus never once leaving your face for a second as the two of you seemed to settle into a strange silence where you just watched each other.

“Were you going to go back in?” It wasn't that the silence was uncomfortable, or even standing in this hallway watching ghosts fly through your mind as you stared across small space of the hallway in awe, but there was only so much time you two could spend here before the place closed for the night.

Your question broke him out of his quiet reverie and his eyes widened and focused again. The small smile on his lips persisted.

“I don't know,” he said through that crooked grin and there was something juvenile about the way he lifted his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders. “I wasn’t done looking at you yet.”

The quiet way he spoke felt like the warmth and comfort of coming home and you felt that warmth spread through your chest with each breath you took. Your heart thumped, strong and steady and each beat seemed to grow stronger, making your mood feel nearly manic with how well it worked. The cracks and missing pieces that had once weighed you down so seemed to be fitting into place better.

“Do you think, I could hug you?” Your own voice surprised you. How easily the words flew from your lips. How natural it felt to ask him such a question and how satisfying the look of surprise on his face was to hear it.

His dark eyebrows danced a quick two step, and he nodded his head. You leapt into him before he could change his mind. Before you had a chance to listen to the voice in your head that confirmed that you had lost whatever bit of sanity you had left in you.

Your arms flew around his waist. His arms wrapped tightly around your shoulders and he was warm and he was real.

The heat from his body surrounded you. The crisp clean smell that reached your nostrils filled you up to capacity and sent your brain into a tizzy. And when he squeezed down tighter and ducked his head down to rest his chin over your shoulder, you let your eyes drift closed.

“My name is Minseok, by the way. Kim Minseok.” He spoke softly beside your ear and his arms squeezed so tightly you wondered how you had an inch of space to breath in. You didn't care. He held onto you with a kind of soul altering desperation that mirrored the inflexible way you adhered to him. You smiled into the warmth of his chest and said your own name softly enough for the words to tickle against his neck.

He shifted his face suddenly and you could feel the warmth of his cheek as it brushed against your face. Your breath, fueled entirely by the smell of him, caught in your throat when you felt his lips against your earlobe. The warmth in your chest was changing, into a tickling hot heat that trailed its sinews down the back of your neck, between your shoulder blades and took a path along your spine. Positively affecting every inch of your skin and bringing a different kind of need along with it.

He said your name, ghosting its syllables within a low breath against your ear. It was unfair how glorious your name sounded on his lips and you were suddenly eternally grateful for the steadfast embrace that held you up.

He moved again, pulling up against the small of your back, his arms felt strong enough to lift you easily off your feet and the action made your grip around his shoulders tighten.

This was not a hug. This was a desperate embrace. You clung to him just as tightly as he did to you, suddenly physically unable to separate from this man whom you had already been away from for so many lifetimes.

“It's so nice to meet you,” he said against your ear and you felt the tip of his nose as he nuzzled against your neck, tickling your face with his clean black hair and making it damn near impossible to stop the small sound that escaped from the back of your throat as everything about him overwhelmed you.

Everything except for the nagging in the back of your mind...something downright humorous jumped out at you and a giggle rose up inside your chest that made him stiffen and pull his face away from your neck with curious eyes.

“Kim Minseok?” You said through your smiling lips and his lips pulled into a tiny pout as he nodded his head.

“Hmm?” Obviously he wouldn't find the humor, he didn't know a single thing about your life.

“My boss has the same name as you,” you said and you tried to ignore the way his hands around your waist relaxed some and trailed lightly over your back as he loosened his hold around you. His eyes widened and his mouth fell open in surprise at the coincidence.

“Or, I should say ‘my ex boss’ I suppose. I was fired today.”

You felt the cool air at your back as his hands fell and his shoulders pulled back straighter. His eyes were on still yours, only the smile was shrinking as he blinked slowly with your news.

A small pout eventually grew on his lips and you watched his face transform for a moment before you shook your head, ridding yourself of the dark cloud you had called back over your head.

“It’s okay, I was only a temp. I was going to be let go in six months anyway. I got a pretty sweet severance.”

You still stood against his body, and you definitely felt a stiffening in his muscles when you spoke.

He had always had an expressive face. You remember from the nights spent in the king's bed as he complained about the stress in his life, opening up honestly to you in ways that he wasn't able to with anyone else. You were still in tune with his moods, even centuries and lifetimes later.

It started with a tiny step back and a hand run swiftly through his straight hair. He cleared his throat softly and his eyes were blinking too quickly.

“T-Temp?” His lips hung open when he said the word and you watched as his lips pulled wide into a grimace that showed his white teeth. He inhaled sharply through those teeth before he spoke again.

But it had already been set into motion. The wheels turned frantically in your head as you put together the clues you had witnessed, along with the rumors that had followed your boss around. The good looks, which, experiencing this man’s face up close, you could not deny that Minseok had one of, if not the most handsome face you had ever had the privilege of seeing up close and in person. 

The wealth, which as you looked at the brand name clothing he wore, much more than something you could even buy off the rack at a high end department store, these were the kinds of clothes that were fitted and custom made. The watch itself must be close to $15k itself, not to mention the well manicured eyebrows that sat handsomely on his forehead just below the expert haircut that probably cost half of your monthly rent.

The rumors of trouble with his wife? What kind of husband sat alone at a bar doing things like drinking himself silly and dramatically pulling off his wedding ring, long after he should be home having dinner with his family?

“Please tell me it wasn't a mass termination of all temporary workers.” He softly begged and you felt a slight tugging against the hem of your shirt where his fingers played with the fabric there. The sheepish look in his eyes caught yours just once before he looked back down at his hand pulling at a lose thread.

Your eyes narrowed on him while the grimace on his face changed into another pout. Deeper and intentional this time he zipped his lips shut, puffed his cheeks with air and pushed his bottom lip way out, creating an expression so irresistibly adorable, and in a single play, that you scoffed right out loud, rolling your eyes so far into your head you felt the eye strain. How could his face hold so much power over you?

“Are you kidding me right now?”

“If I had known it was you--”

“You’re that Kim Minseok?” The pout had served to calm the incredulity in your voice some. He looked back at you, biting down on his lip as he watched you process the information you had just received.

“My boss?” You asked.

“Ex-boss,” he answered.

“You have a wife.” This didn't quite come out as a question because everything you know about Director Kim Minseok, Acting CEO of XiuUnlimited was flooding through your mind now.

“Ex-wife,” he supplied with a glance down at his unadorned left hand.

“You… went missing last year and lost your mind and checked into a mental hospital and hired private investigators … all to try and find--”

“I found her,” he interrupted where you were going with the rumors you had heard about him. Rumors that you thought were just the ramblings of people who had too much time on their hands and had seen way too many dramas.

“I found her, she showed up right in front of me. She tried to steal my briefcase.” You wanted to correct him, but he was talking now and something about the fiery look in his eyes stopped you.

“I found you. And I didn't lose my mind after all. I only thought I had. But I found you or you found me or maybe we were always meant to find each other, I don't know. But right now I'm looking into the eyes of the human being that I know better than the stranger that I had called my wife for three years, and I finally feel like I can breathe again.”

“And you are real.” A thickness was building in his voice as he spoke. “And that love was real. I wasn't crazy, or imagining it, or --” he swallowed hard as he blinked his eyes faster and the distance between you seemed too great.

He must have felt the same because he took a step closer to you, his hands reached forward, fingertips light along your cheek until you felt the warmth of his palms on your face.

The year might have changed outside. The countries, the settings, even the small details about your life. But as you looked into his eyes in this dark hallway of an empty bar, you knew, with absolution that the man who stood in front of you was the same man who your heart had loved.  

He had stopped speaking, with his thumbs rubbing delicate circles along your jawline and his eyes half closing as his eyelids trembled. Emotion or maybe the sheer gravity of your history together pulling at them and he fought through to get a glimpse of you. Your own focus had drifted from his striking eyes, down his straight nose, to the curve of his upper lip that sat plump, pink, perfectly moisturized despite the desperate way he breathed through his parted lips and the light touches the tip of his tongue made against the flesh.

“Will you come with me?” He whispered against your skin now. The gravity between your hearts was too strong and had unknowingly pulled you closer to him. You only noticed the change when the warmth of his chest against yours made you want to wrap your arms around him again.

“Well, we can't stay here,” you agreed with a shrug because you’d be damned if you were going to let him walk out that door without you by his side. Not after it took so long for you to finally find him again.

“I don't just mean right now,” he said, “I mean, tonight, tomorrow, next month and next year, and forever.”

“I wouldn't dream of leaving you ever again, Kim Minseok.” The sight of his lips, close up and moving closer to you blurred as your eyes lost sight of them and gave up the view as you closed your eyes and felt the first softness of his kiss. A kiss that brought with it a flood of muscle memory, desire, and need. A kiss that brought with it years of love and longing. A kiss that soothed every ache you had inside of your chest where the wounded and scarred heart muscle struggled to heal from the wounds of the past.

The relief was instantaneous and complete.

When you finally left that bar, it was hand in hand with the man your soul had been destined to love forever.

And it was with a promise to do just that for the rest of time.

THE END.

[riveires]

liminal spaces

@toauz

HYEJIN

It’s a sign of the times, so they say. Or more accurately, how they like to say it. Language is fickle like that—the right shape, the right angles; all that precision for naught the second it’s wedged in where it shouldn’t.

Case in point: the two men at table 3, the only ones in this diner brave enough to carry their voices as loud and open as they do. Hyejin in her half-attentive state catches on in threadbare snippets, tail-ends and ribbon strands cut too hastily. Without context, they loop around the same idea: for every counted misery, there’s always the shelling out of some small dime-a-dozen wisdom.

Pending divorce, a marriage on the rocks, it’s not over till it’s over.

Niece number two, stepmother one and only, stage 3 and 4 respectively, only the good die young.

Major corporate corruption, laid off just last week, a sign of the times.

They shake their heads in unison, in agreement; indeed, indeed, as if enlightenment is just that easy. As if putting it out there for the world already makes it all better. Maybe for them it isn’t about if it’s better, but whether or not it feels like it. Which in some ways it does, goes down the stomach bourbon smooth, but there’s something too casual about it, too stubborn. As stubborn as a bad habit.

Which is exactly what it is: a bad habit.

Leave it to language, really, to be full of them.

——

The night blurs, with the quality of flickering TV static; clarity, then disconnect. Moments where her hand doesn’t quite feel like her hand and neither does the reflection on the smudged window. Sometime along this dead crawl of the hour the men have left, their table empty. Hyejin’s eyes have been her plate for awhile now, dipped drowsy, cutting a long overdue meal into charred, bite-sized pieces.

Wandering doesn’t come as soon as she’d like it. The air stills, natural to this sort of 1 a.m., but there’s something pulling at her. Hyejin is slow to be compelled enough to look, but when she does, she can’t move.

Skeletons shut in the closet, burdens buried six feet under, confessions spilled without a single drop of blood. She’d been prepared before, as time had allowed for it. But not for this.

Never, ever, for this.

SEJIN

“Can I join you?”

Sejin’s already claimed her spot with the permission she knows she doesn’t ever really need. Hasn’t needed. Tense is nothing more than a continuous bond that sticks for years on end, nothing less than the woman’s stare from what seems like thousands of miles away. She only sits when she’s finished acknowledging the stillness in her eyes, a smile of her own crass enough for the other to decide, realize it’s nothing but a welcome home, darling.

(but only if you remember what that’s like,)

“I’m joining you.” This, an exhale. She pushes stray strands of hair away from her face, other hand occupied with a menu for distraction’s sake. A convenient occupation. Her lanyard hangs heavier than the burdens of this past week alone, an impending weight on her shoulders replacing it in purpose upon shifting her gaze at the not-stranger’s hands. Her neck next, cheeks after. She’s sullen, or so she won’t confirm out loud, and Sejin’s never been so disturbed at how much all of it is a sight for sore eyes.

Then again, she’s seen worse. Hopefully you have, too. My condolences while we’re at it.

Back against the cushion of the plastic-clad booth, Sejin looks at her with a full bottom lip. Had she desired to be less than sincere, said lip would be stretched, the corners of her mouth up and tight. But no, none of that. Not here anyway. It’s just them. Though, never really two. Since then.

since then, since then, since then,

“Seems you have no intention of choking to death even now.” Her smile pulls, disappears just as fast. “What a mighty fine record, that consistency.” I’ve had my hand at it, too. Silent punctuation. Time waltzes at the tip of her tongue when she can’t decide between prolonging her need to keep quiet and interrupting it with whatever folks deem a sign for I’m happy. 1, 2 3, 1, 2 3, 1, 2 3, 1 - inhale, sigh. Her chin’s on her palm, elbow on the table. Fondness on a whim. “Why are you one-upping me in looking this bothered over steak?”

HYEJIN

From a different angle, under a different set of hands, at a different time, they wouldn’t be two people but a single capture, frozen in some frame of space, the ink faint and fading.

They’d taken the pictures on a Thursday. The peak of autumn. The light pad through fallen leaves. Honeyed sky haze. A breath, the fresh taste of apple still lingering around the red of an open mouth. A day when the skin they lived in didn’t feel so tight. When she was a girl, and she was a girl—

(A girl, a girl, a girl, only a girl.)

A change in perspective is supposed to make all the difference. But what’s different?

(What difference does it make?)

The sensation that washes over is familiar, tepid and off-color, shell-shocked state drained out to the dullness of feeling underwhelmed.

Fanfare for reunions is only reserved to those she’d never given another thought to, wouldn’t care to. But then there’s her. There. Then. At the back of her mind, a snaking in, a total fallout. A pattern of comes and goes, like some phantom thing that can’t decide whether to stay or go.

To the surprise of no one, Sejin has already made up her mind.

It’s in her character to be quick in motion, anyway. A habit of hands picking things up then setting them down: the menu. That lazy, Cheshire drawl. This invisible pendulum placed in between, swaying for each lost second. Her expression says your turn, and she caves into the pull.

“You’re keeping count, that’s just as impressive.” The knife slows, but only marginally, only enough for her to see. Hyejin lifts her gaze, then locks it in full. It’s you never quite reaches completely. Instead: Hello again.

(And again, and again from the first hour to the last because this will always be here, lodged in too deep to dig out.)

“Because it looks like shit.” She skewers it up anyway by the fork, slides in a bite. Tastes like shit too.

Careful eyes flit to the column of her neck, the dangling strip of blue. “What are you, a nine-to-fiver? How professional.“

Another piece, chew and swallow. Affection rolls off of her curt and uninspired. “It’s so unlike you.”

SEJIN

But you’re still here anyway.

Sejin’s a defensive person by default. She’s known this before she’s even bothered to, and so much to her dismay, one look is all it takes for her to balance overdrive and the power of nonchalance in multiple places at a time. She scowls then, hooks her fingers around the lanyard and removes it up and over her head. Potential clatter is cushioned by the string when it lands on the table, hair swaying loosely when she leans back into the booth and crosses her arms.

“Because shit like retail and doing the dirty work is always professional, of course.” Her head’s situated on the top ledge for support, a harmful gaze shot at a ceiling that has no intention falling anytime soon. “What with all the mediocre-to-none tips and shitty customer reviews you get for breathing.” Said gaze is harmless now, back on Hyejin when she sits up. “I breathe just fine, you know?”

Right.

“None of that weird wheezing stalker-ish crap,” she clarifies. No one here deserves to sigh wistfully at anything, she could say. That would be hypocritical, however, for it’s the one thing she ends up doing when she glances at her ID once. Twice. Just in case it wasn’t herself she was seeing.

When will that be, by the way?

Sejin presses her lips into a thin line as she picks up the lanyard. It hangs from all four fingers, palm facing up to the ceiling. The bottom of the card barely reaches the tabletop, makes her place her elbow back on the surface so it feels strained no longer. Her expression remains straight. Almost never there, really.

What a metaphor, Ms. Hong. She only allows herself a quiver of a smile at this much.

“Meanwhile your life has come to what,” she says under her breath. Out loud, “Mai tais whenever you feel like it?” A quiet chuckle. “Whenever-to-whatever, victory in a cause or at least finding one.” The next one doesn’t happen. “That’s… all you’re responsible for today, huh?” Her brows raise slightly, pupils dilated more than they’d ever been in this past half hour.

Because, who gives a shit about what happens after?

You’re still here.

HYEJIN

I never said I’d leave.

This isn’t a first. Not this as in this moment: suspended, held by none other but the stale air of an afterthought. Neither is it the nature of the encounter in it of itself. By this it can only mean as in the sheer inevitability of it all, present, too present. Sharp-ticking-of-the-clock present.

She’s being too damn sensitive, or so she tells herself. Habit kicks in: don’t think, don’t think, don’t think. Her senses shift anyway, zeroing in shutter-speed: hands, card, oak of the table. Hands. Stray hair limp over the jut of her collarbone. Tinted buzzing of the light bulbs, the sign. Hands again. All that has been unsaid and stayed unsaid. Don’t. Think.

“Right,” she says, except it doesn’t sound like the noise of agreement that it’s intended for. “But you’re not.” Her fork is put down now. “Not in retail, I mean.”

Because that definitely isn’t right. Details are details, even if you’re too far to see them. Hyejin then sits up, the small of her back pressed against the worn skin of the diner booth. Turns out proximity can make you close enough to miss them. Either way, it doesn’t change the fact of the matter:

Hong Sejin and Lee Hyejin are sitting across from each other after far too long in the dead of the night.

Inevitably, at that.

“It’s something.” To the point, honest—or as honest as it can look, what with their time and place. Even if she wants to be less than so, say Mai tais? Are you hearing yourself? but restraint is one-part impulse control and one-part sentimental tendencies, and she owes that much. For everything. Despite everything.

So, as if to make it crystal-clear, she says it again:

“It’s something.“

Because isn’t everyone allowed that much? Even for the likes of them?

She shrugs, a wordless answer to a question that practically begs for it all at no cost. “It’s only been two hours. All I’ve done is sit here the whole time, with this steak.” And—maybe it’s the night holding on for too long, a trick of light, but there’s a split second of it—her expression darkens hard at the rim, then dissolves. Without a trace.

“And with you.“

You haven’t left either.

SEJIN

Sejin drops her ID.

“Two hours, hm.” Long, useless hours both with herself and yourself. Long time, no see. She still has yet to say that.

Lethargy doesn’t need to be blinked away. It was never really here to begin with; the weight on her shoulders and under her eyes isn’t that. And that, friends, will always go without saying. The ghosts of the past make it painfully clear that they’ve yet to cease.

She’s tongue-in-cheek when her eyes are laid on the card, a foreign kind of defeat etched on her face. Sharp inhale, an exhale that may as well have never happened. There’s a yawn that follows, goes unnoticed as her focus strays to the main counter, to the empty stools, zig-zagging from one end to another and back. Like a pendulum. This, her only freedom.

With a short-lived series of nods in acknowledgement to nothing and everything at once, she breaks the self-inflicted silence. Her hands fold together on the tabletop, gaze anywhere but somewhere with her back against the booth one last time. “We can cheer to that.” An inappropriate suggestion, like most other things out of her mouth alone, that really did not have to be said. Could or could not be done. Doesn’t have to be. Should. Not.

They’re hellbound regardless.

They could be, no matter what. And that’s no longer just a possibility. A conspiracy theory, a coping mechanism, anything. Never nothing.

It has, and will always be bigger than us.

Half of their lives have already been a test run.

HYEJIN

She ducks her head, both at a loss and too certain, all that and all at once. Something curls at the pit of her stomach, animal-like in the way that it lies in wait. Remorse isn’t it—premonition, her best guess. Evocative enough to make her halt, turn her line of sight back to the table.

Sometime ago, she’d had the uncanny ability to practically shear anything down to an immaterial state. Compact, disposable. Less to mull over when night falls.

It’d taken no more than a few hours for it all to turn to dust. Effort for effort for effort compounded by the year, and to end with what?

This time. A clearing for the next. Countless, daunting possibilities. She’ll have something to think about until then, whenever that’ll be. Insomnia tends to make those decisions without notice. Only serves her right, given back then. Given now.

“Why not?”

Menu in her grip, she opens it up to the page that reads off the beverage list. Draft beer. Chamiseul. No mimosas to be seen. Sarcasm in a gesture that’s as misplaced, too obvious as she is. Old habits die hard.

“Help yourself.”

Undoing what they’ve gotten away with already?

Fat chance.

Earlier on, she might’ve listed purgatory as her first choice, what with all that room to appease, to know repentance. But she’s no longer that age; older, wiser, the shift in realizations that’d come with. Her eyes begin to sting. She glances at the window again. All that endless dark to hold onto.

There’s nowhere for them to go, never has been. Not when there’s no destination for them to reach in the first place.

Not when they’re already here.

SEJIN

You, in the corner meanwhile, find yourself here on a workday and see:

There are two strangers in the dead of the night at a third-rate diner that Yelp has yet to know, the stares existing only between them. The concept of gazes can apply if and when they are lovers. Anyone else in the vicinity would vouch for this much, split into teams for no one else’s sake but their own. It’s… some game. It definitely exists.

At least it does that much, you know? Without the second-guessing part, too. It’s always the inanimate and the conceptual doing the fucking most, and she can’t seem to ever put a finger on why or what for.

Sejin’s eyes sting just as much, have been. Targeted towards a nowhere that isn’t outside nor within. They’re closed, that’s why, and if anyone else had still been watching at this point they’d be just as much of a fool as her in a parallel universe to think this is one or the other’s fault at a time. It’s a lovers’ quarrel, they will further assume. They will ride the tangent like this, and tears will be in vain if the bet was for guessing when they’d spill and not why.

But she doesn’t cry. Parallel universes exist in other lives. They exist in lives.

So she laughs instead, though not exactly dryly. You can’t do that anyways, but the sentiment doesn’t want to exist like that either if it doesn’t have to. It’s one instance, but it happens and makes her chest light enough for the parallel universe version of her to beg her to know heartbreak like she does.

With this, she gives her heart a break.

“I’ll have—” she hiccups. You, if you have me.

“—one of whatever she’s having.”

You, for the rest of your life.

——

“Haven’t seen you for ages, how are you?” “Burning.”

Sarah Kane, Phaedra’s Love

[FIN]

[necrowriter]

totality

Mal wasn't hard to carry.

The phrase skin and bones came to mind, somewhat tastelessly. It was true enough, though. Skin and bones was about all there was to Mal, really; presumably there were still some internal organs in there, but if so they certainly weren't doing anything notable. Siobhan had never really asked. It didn't seem entirely polite.

She had seen him bleed, once, but it wasn't really blood, just something thin and dark that had rapid-fire dried into gray dust and blown away as soon as the sun rose. Maybe that was all there was in Mal, after all. Dust. How very Biblical.

Siobhan reached the middle of the field, or thereabouts, and stopped, taking a moment to settle the limp, thin frame in her arms. Golden late-summer grass stretched out all around them, rustling gently in a tepid breeze. With a squint, she could just about make out the car parked on the road a long way off, but there were no other signs of civilization, and no other people, which was exactly as she wanted it. This was too rare and valuable an opportunity to waste any of it having to deal with people nosing around, asking awkward questions like “why are you carrying a corpse through my field?”

She checked her watch.

“You better be right about this, Mal,” she muttered. “If it turns out I had to smuggle your dead ass all the way out here and back for nothing you're not gonna hear the end of it for a long time.”

Mal said nothing. Of course he didn't. He was dead.

Siobhan sighed.

In actuality, of course, she would do no such thing. In actuality, if this didn't work...

There was no guarantee it would. They'd pored over it together, pooled all their collective knowledge, argued back and forth. She'd been dubious.

“I mean, they're not that rare, really,” she'd said. “It's just rare for them to occur in any one specific place. I'm aware of the world-thinning implications but they're just not that strong. If there were we'd have some serious problems-”

“Exactly,” he'd said, hunched over the table and fiddling with a pencil. It had been two in the morning and Siobhan had been relying on increasingly strong cups of coffee to keep going. Mal, of course, required none. “It's all about location. It doesn't matter to me if an eclipse occurs in China or Wales or Antarctica.” He paused thoughtfully. “I mean...in this specific sense. I'm sure it's very nice for them. But this one is happening where I lived and died.”

“But it isn't!” Siobhan had exclaimed in abject frustration. “You died in, like, New York! Totality isn't anywhere near that! The closest you're going to get is...South Carolina, I think. Did you ever even set foot in South Carolina when you were alive?”

“Not that I can recall,” Mal said, with the irritating calmness of someone who didn't experience sleep deprivation. “But no, it certainly isn't very close, that's why I'm not sure...But it's closer than any other one has been for a while. At least some of it will be over the place where I died. Things like that matter, you know.”

And Siobhan had sighed, because he was right. Things like that did matter. That was the irritating thing about magic, sometimes. It was so...unquantifiable.

Anyway, what was she going to do? Not try it?

But it was a lot of pressure. There was very little room for experimentation. If they got this wrong, another chance wouldn't come around for a while.

Siobhan stood in the field and watched the sky slowly darken, and waited.

It was a simple enough idea, really. Mal was a vampire. He was dead during the day. At night he was...something else.

If you put the two together, you might get something like life.

She had no fear of being tempted to risk her eyes watching the moon cover the sun. She was watching Mal, his pale face in slack repose, waiting for the barest sign, the faintest twitch of life.

Probably this wasn't going to work.

“You've really never tried this before?” she'd asked him.

“The opportunity never really arose,” he'd said.

“There have been other eclipses touching America since you died.”

“Maybe,” he'd said. “But not any other witches I could ask to do this for me.”

The principle was simple, alright. She didn't really even have to do anything. To be a witch was to be a connection, a bridge between different worlds. Everything else was just prestidigitation, for the most part.

The air was cooling noticeably now.

“C'mon, Mal,” she whispered.

The moon blotted out the sun...and something moved under her fingers.

Mal opened his eyes.

Siobhan was so surprised to see this actually work that she almost ruined the moment entirely by dropping him then and there. But she didn't.

“Hey,” she said. “Look at you, awake in the middle of the afternoon.”

He blinked at her a few times, and a slow grin spread across his face. “It worked.”

“Appears so.”

She set him down, gently, and opened the camera bag. Mal looked up.

“You're not supposed to do that,” she said, turning the camera on and fiddling with the settings. “Hurts your eyes.”

“It doesn't hurt mine,” Mal said.

They took a lot of pictures, with several different cameras; no reason to put all their eggs in one basket. Mal kept staring up at the sun with a rapt expression on his face.

“Listen,” he said as she tucked the cameras away. “Even if the pictures don't work. This was worth it.”

Siobhan hefted the bag onto her shoulder and moved over to stand beside him, ready to catch him when he fell. The eclipse was already ending; Mal's cheated time among the living was short. “Well, I'm glad for that, but...it is just a dark field. It's not really anything you couldn't have seen anyway, I wouldn't think-”

“No, no,” Mal said, still looking up. “This is the first time I've seen the sun in two hundred and forty years.”

Mal didn't show up in photographs.

Not in mirrors, either, or in standing water or anything that cast a reflection. Even his shadow tended to be faint and distorted. The world objected to Mal's continued presence in it in defiance of the usual rules, and made its dissatisfaction known through a continual series of quiet, grumbling protests.

Siobhan drove to a motel, laid Mal out on one of the beds, and spent the rest of the afternoon looking through the results of their experiment. Most of the photos hadn't come out any better than any other effort to capture Mal on film; at best they showed a blurry shape that could maybe be interpreted as a human if you already had that in mind.

As the sun set, Mal rose from the dead with very little fanfare and padded over to the desk where Siobhan was sitting with her laptop. “Any luck?”

“Well, the instant film didn't work real well,” she said, showing him the photographs scattered across the desk. “I don't have high hopes for the rest of the film, to be honest.”

“That doesn't surprise me,” Mal said. “Film has too much silver in it. What about the digital?”

“Most of those didn't come back real well either.”

“Ah,” Mal said, then paused. “Most?”

Siobhan opened one of the tabs on the laptop.

It probably wouldn't have qualified as a very good photograph under any circumstances. It was dark, and a bit blurry, and definitely not framed in any kind of professional way. She'd held the camera in one hand and Mal's hand in the other. They'd thought that might be worth a try, an aid in bridging the distance, pulling Mal into the world of the living for just a moment.

The man in the photograph had a sharp, pale face, but not too sharp or too pale. There was a faint blush of color in his cheeks, a softening around the bony edges of his jaw. His hair was pale but not white-blond, and his eyes were a strong, clear blue. He was grinning from ear to ear.

Mal stared at the photograph for a long time.

“That's me,” he said at last.

“It's not just you,” Siobhan said. “It's you alive.”

Mal sat down on the edge of the bed, still looking at the computer. “Have you, uh...is that...the only copy?”

“I have this backed up to fifteen different places so far,” Siobhan said.

“Good. That's...that's good.” Mal shook his head slowly. “But I don't...I might have been up and moving, but I'm pretty sure I would've noticed if I was actually alive, as such, when you took that.”

Siobhan shrugged. “Well,” she said. “Cameras are weird.”

Mal snorted. “Complex thaumaturgical analysis, that.”

“You're right. I should've said, magic is weird.” Siobhan stood up and began repacking the camera bag. “You're driving us back, by the way. I'm beat.”

Mal shook himself and gently closed the laptop lid. “Yeah...yeah, of course.”

“And you're doing it carefully, because I am not dealing with you having to do a breathalyzer test. Not again.”

“That was not my fault,” Mal said haughtily. “That officer was out for blood. So to speak. Anyway, I couldn't help it that my eyes were red.”

They bickered amiably all the way to the car.

“You know,” Siobhan said as Mal fussed with the seat, “there's supposed to be another one in six years. We could study this, figure out what worked. Do it again.”

“Yeah. Yeah, could do,” Mal said. “Definitely worth a shot.”

He paused. “Siobhan?”

“Yeah?”

Mal looked at her, emotions struggling all over his face. “I...I can't really begin to express-”

“Oh, shut up and drive,” she told him.

Mal smiled and started the car.

[jcdevinejr]

Take the Charles Krauthammer Road

The recent news on Charles Krauthammer’s terminal cancer is a reminder of the chasm between the snarling debates we hear every day and the reasoned, respectful and constructive commentary we could always count on from him. Godspeed, Mr. K.  / jcd 

It’s hard to imagine the level of our political discourse in the US sinking any lower. Today’s conversations on political matters are not spoken, they are shouted. Obscenity is commonplace. Insults are hurled in all directions – toward people who post on Facebook, toward TV panelists with opposing views, toward the President of the United States.

More and more, the term “civil discourse” seems like an oxymoron.

Every bit as depressing as the vile language is the way it is perceived by public and media. Whether behavior is applauded or condemned seems to depend solely on the political orientation of the individual passing judgment.

A few examples:

Roseanne Barr, a TV sitcom personality whose well-worn routine is to demean just about everyone, became the darling of the right when she took on the role of ardent Trump supporter. But that ended with her notoriously racist tweet targeting former Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett. Within hours, she was summarily fired by ABC.

At about the same time, relatively obscure cable TV comic Samantha Bee opened her weekly show with an obscene and misogynistic smear of the president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump. Unlike Barr’s Twitter outburst, Bee’s words were scripted, vetted, pre-recorded and televised – clearly a premeditated verbal assault.  She subsequently offered a tepid apology and is now back on the air, unscathed and better known.

Wade through the wall-to-wall commentary about these unseemly eruptions and you find two entirely different viewpoints. Progressive Democrats assert that because Barr’s comments were racist, her firing was completely appropriate; and they maintain that Bee’s comments, while tasteless, were not really that shocking for an ‘edgy’ comic and had been intended to call attention to an important issue.

Conservative Republicans come down on exactly the opposite corner – they are appalled by the double standard and they find nothing remotely redeeming about Bee’s tirade.

Shift to the sporting world. Before the NBA finals, both the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers announced with great fanfare that if invited to the White House they would never accept - as Cav superstar Lebron James explained, “while he (Donald Trump) is there”. The president’s rejoinder: no problem, I won’t invite you.

The Philadelphia Eagles, reigning Super Bowl champs, had accepted their White House invitation and planned to attend with a full contingent of players, coaches and staff - but last week they reversed field and advised that only a few individuals would attend. Trump’s rejoinder on that one: I invited the team; if the team doesn’t want to come, that’s OK – invitation withdrawn.

Both exchanges triggered firestorms of reaction, politically aligned as usual. Conservatives applauded: that’ll teach those overpaid ingrates.  Democrats were outraged: Trump once again shows that he’s arrogant, egotistical, uncaring.

Not to be outdone, actor Robert De Niro unleashed a series of F-epithets at President Trump at Sunday evening’s nationally televised Tony Awards – to a standing ovation from the adoring theater crowd and shoulder shrug from most media.

These episodes are just fragments of a steadily deteriorating discourse – angry, ugly, insulting language, met with wholly polarized response. In each case, while the offensive comments may have been engendered by heartfelt concerns (e.g., immigration policy, police brutality), the ensuing uproars largely ignored those issues and served only to cement the partisan divide. Nothing constructive was achieved, by anyone, on either side.

There is a far better model for us all to follow, recently called to our attention by a sad turn of events. A few days ago we learned that conservative political commentator Charles Krauthammer is in the final stages of his losing battle with terminal cancer. For decades Krauthammer has been respected by all sides for his thoughtful commentary on current events.

Charles Krauthammer is an intellectual heavyweight who writes and speaks with uncommon clarity. He never preaches, he doesn’t wave his arms or try to yell louder. He just lays out facts and offers cogent analysis. And he consistently takes the high road.

Krauthammer revealed his dire medical situation in an extraordinarily candid, dignified open letter. In it he stated: 

“I believe that the pursuit of truth and right ideas through honest debate and rigorous argument is a noble undertaking. I am grateful to have played a small role in the conversations that have helped guide this extraordinary nation’s destiny”.

Let’s follow his lead. Can we notpass up the obscenity and snarling insults, and in their place confront the critical issues of our time with Krauthammer’s “honest debate and rigorous argument”?

What a difference that would make.

Jack DeVine

June 2018

[torreygazette]

Waiting in Bleakness

Our household loves music. It doesn't help that I routinely play music or live concert videos through our surround sound system at whatever the daily allotted limit is. Singing is a part of our family worship. So naturally, the kids are often heard singing a jingle, tune, or entire song. This is particularly true about Christmas music during the Advent and Christmas season. We have no fast rule about when the music starts, but the first tune to grace our speakers is typically something from Sufjan Stevens. Something from Sinatra, Nat King Cole, or Harry Connick Jr is typically second in the rotation. We are predictable.

In the last few years, however, we have tried to delineate certain artists or albums for the season of Advent and kept the others for the actual season of Christmas. This has led to discussions about lyrics, then track lists, and the possibility of elaborate playlists for better seasonal distinctions. Attempts are made to play the songs and albums that are more fluently “Advent-ish” (emphasis on attempt) as we are inoculated by the commercial Christmas season. As part of this effort, I stumbled upon the Christmas song “In the Bleak Midwinter” a few years ago and was immediately enraptured with the lyrics.

Originally a poem entitled “A Christmas Carol” by Christina Rossetti, the lyrics performed in modern renditions differs from take to take. But the song’s bleak opening lines always stay the same and they instantly struck me as pertinent and beautiful—particularly as an Advent song. As the poem described the nativity night, the song does eventually describe the Nativity of Christ, but Rossetti’s poem starts with the following lines:

In the bleak mid-winter

Frosty wind made moan;

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

Snow on snow,        

In the bleak mid-winter

Long ago.

The vivid cold and despair echo loudly. The simplistic “snow on snow, snow on snow” provides the visual completeness of the bleak condition for the poem’s setting. But the entirety of the opening stanza can only be summarized as "bleak." Rossetti’s intent was to open with a depiction of Bethlehem before the birth of Christ. This is very unlike "Away in a Manger" or "Silent Night." Those songs see creation anticipating the coming Christ just as one might await family with a cup full of hot cocoa and a thick blanket. There is a pleasant snow falling but not uncomfortable.

Rossetti's poem is dramatically different. Everything is briskly unpleasant. Bringing her English winter into the context of Bethlehem, Rossetti provides a historic and visual element to what can only be described as the spiritual bleakness that belonged to creation before the birth of Christ. Though perhaps unfamiliar to our ears in this context, Paul does say creation “has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now” (Rom. 8:22). If Paul could say that after the incarnation, imagine the cold groaning before the glorious Advent! There is a unique perspective to "In the Bleak Mid-winter" that provides material for meditation during Advent. Because the time of Advent is the "waiting" in this bleakness before the dawning of our Savior Jesus Christ.

When we turn to Scripture, we see that the vivid bleakness of the Rossetti’s artful fancy is not restricted to Bethlehem in the days leading up to Christ’s birth. No, in fact, it describes all of creation under the fall. The bleak imagery and coldness stretches all the way back to the Garden of Eden in the interaction of Adam and Ever with their Creator. For instance, Genesis 3:8 could be interpreted as God arriving in the “storm of the evening” (e.g. Exo. 15:10; Jon. 1:4) and not the tepid “cool of the day” which we are familiar. To put it another way, Adam and Eve are not cowering from a gentle “And He Walks with Me” version of God Almighty. They are already aware their future is bleak. They are hiding from the God whose voice is “like the roar of many waters” (Rev. 1:15):

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” — Genesis 3:8-11

As a father, I have been guilty of barging in on my kids in a similar manner. As a child, I was routinely told I was loud—oft sounding angrier or harsh than my intent. Judah has inherited my loudness.  In either case, the scattering of my kids when guilt is to be distributed is on a Biblical scale. Despite my poor representation of Divine judgment, my example helps provide imagery for this situation. Adam and Eve are not cowering at mere whispering in the wind.

Like in Rossetti’s poem, the wind that blew through the garden was likely a “Frosty wind made moan.” And though God provides a balm in the form of a sacrifice, this is merely clothes to endure the cold. The sacrifice points ahead to the day of the Infant child's birth and subsequent death. The history of humanity in between resides in this persistent hiding from the storm of God’s presence. Though perhaps lacking actual snow, the coldness of Adam and Eve walking out of the Garden was probably more attuned to an earth “hard as iron” and “water like stone” as Rossetti depicts and less like a Precious Moments decoration. This is the bleak condition of the human race.

This is the baggage we carry into the season of Advent which begins the church calendar. "Ordinary Time"—the time of the church—is left behind. The re-creation of the world begins anew in the Advent of Jesus Christ. The season of our redemption starts anew with a reminder of this coldness and isolation. This is our coldness and isolation. It is this Biblical period of waiting on the Messiah that is reflected in Advent and ultimately realized at Christmas.

A Sliver of Hope

All of this emphasis on how God comes to the Garden is important. Not merely for overthrowing nostalgia but for the parallel promise that this story delivers. It is worth noting that God comes into the Garden with a Spirit of judgment since God does not actually make a gospel promise to Adam or Eve:

The Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,

    cursed are you above all livestock

    and above all beasts of the field;

on your belly you shall go,

    and dust you shall eat

    all the days of your life.

I will put enmity between you and the woman,

    and between your offspring and her offspring;

he shall bruise your head,

    and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:14-15) [Emphasis added]

It is this overlooked fact that might explain why Adam and Eve are not listed in Hebrews 11 among the people of faith—they did not receive an actual promise from God. The early hints of the Gospel are not a promise to Adam and Eve. They remain in the bleakness of God’s judgment as God pronounces judgment upon the serpent. The sliver of hope comes in the promised destruction of the evil one and the clothing they take with them into the wilderness. Adam and Eve have received the judgment of death. They have also heard promise a loud, resounding “No” to the final victory of death. They go out of the garden awaiting the fulfillment of God's judgment against the serpent.

The season of Advent begins anew the travels of the church from the garden to the nativity and finally to the cross. We look ahead to God's judgment in Christ that reconciles the world to Himself (2 Cor. 5:19). We begin though by casting our eyes on this moment in the garden. The darkness has set in and for mankind was to stay for millennia. This is how our story enters in the story of redemption. Our story begins with Advent in this darkness and waiting.

Yet, we cannot fully stay there, can we? Though this time for Advent is good for “waiting on Christ,” we have seen the fulfillment of the cross. In a greater sense, we wait as those who have seen the hope of the Messiah revealed. Our days of waiting are numbered, and we know their end. The nativity and the bright Star of David await us in the near future.

The second verse of Rossetti’s poem sees the Savior break into the lives of Mary and Joseph in no less dramatic way than God’s entrance to the Garden. The only response to the bleakness of God banishing Adam and Eve is for God to burst forth into the bleakness with a shining and radiant light:

Our God, heaven cannot hold Him

Nor earth sustain,

Heaven and earth shall flee away

When He comes to reign:

In the bleak mid-winter

A stable-place sufficed

The Lord God Almighty —

Jesus Christ.

So while the church meditates in the coldness during Advent, it also recognizes the season of Advent as the last of this coldness. "Heaven and earth shall flee away" indeed. The King is coming with His Spirit to bring a good word of judgment to redeem His people. The ice and snow are beginning to melt just as in C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Christ "comes to reign." And yet, still, Jesus Christ does not arrive to fanfare or jubilation. He arrives in the midst of “the bleak mid-winter.” He does not come to a throne but to a stable. And on that night particular night, Rossetti says “Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow.”

We should hesitate to rush from meditating on this bleakness. Because it is here that the Infant Holy was born. Instead, for these few and precious weeks of Advent, let us sit here in the bleak midwinter and remember—this is where Christ comes to meet and redeem us.

[ramialkarmi]

Apple insiders describe the tech giant's TV show ambitions, which just ramped up in a major way

Last week, Apple finally hired a head of video programming — actually two — in a moment that Hollywood had been waiting for since Netflix and Amazon crashed into Los Angeles with billions of dollars to spend on TV shows and movies.

By hiring veteran Sony Pictures Television execs Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, who were responsible for hits like “Breaking Bad” and “The Crown,” Apple sent a signal that it’s looking to become a major player in the market. The pair of execs will be Apple’s equivalent of Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, or Amazon’s Roy Price, and oversee “all aspects of video programming,” reporting to Apple services boss Eddy Cue.

These hires help clarify a video strategy that was murky to people both inside and outside of Apple.

Up until now, Apple had been taking a bunch of meetings, and had a few TV-quality projects in development, including its “Shark Tank”-style show “Planet of the Apps,” which debuted this month on Apple Music. But in conversations with half a dozen people who worked for Apple or on Apple productions, there was a lack of clarity about who was spearheading Apple's overall video efforts.

Cue, along with music industry legend Jimmy Iovine, VP of content and media apps Robert Kondrk, and Apple Music content boss Larry Jackson, were all involved in ways that varied between projects. And Apple’s participation in the production of the shows varied as well, with the company sometimes being almost completely hands-off, while at other times taking a more active role in a show's creation.

Put plainly: Apple’s first forays into TV didn’t feel like part of a cohesive strategy to disrupt the industry. What we’ve seen over the past few months have been a handful of TV projects tied to Apple Music, some of which have been delayed or re-shot, and the first of which was walloped by critics.

Apple wasn’t trying to become Netflix, yet.

“The idea that Apple is chasing Netflix, that’s the wrong way to think about it,” a former Apple Music manager told Business Insider when describing its video efforts and the upcoming “Carpool Karaoke” in particular. “They are not. No one gives a sh-- … I think what is happening is that Jimmy [Iovine] sees a way to, not just within music, connect to the brand promise of Apple.”

Iovine, the Interscope Records cofounder who became involved in Apple when it purchased Beats for $3 billion in 2014, has been preaching the marriage of technology and pop culture for years, the former Apple manager said. Video was one piece of that.

But by hiring Sony veterans Erlicht and Van Amburg, Apple has taken a step in a more expansive direction, and looks to be marshaling for a video effort that transcends music.

The Apple way or the highway

Apple’s TV saga didn’t start with Iovine or Apple Music; it's been a hot topic in tech and entertainment for the better part of a decade.

For years, Apple has tried intermittently to get together its own TV bundle, particularly a so-called “skinny bundle" which would give customers a small number of marquee channels for a lower price. But Apple’s plans never quite came together. One reason multiple Apple insiders cited was Apple’s tendency to negotiate in a way TV execs didn’t like.

“Eddy [Cue] is extremely smart,“ a former Apple Music staffer said, but Cue is “very aggressive” in negotiations with people outside Apple. “In that area [video], Eddy negotiates like they need Apple. Not everybody is on board that they need Apple.” With the music industry, Apple had a lot more leverage than with TV, this person explained.

“They were trying TV stuff, but things would always fall through with networks,” another former Apple Music employee said. This person said that everyone in Apple Music had a great deal of respect for Cue, and that he was a smart guy, but that he could be overbearing in negotiations (“like a dictator” was the exact phrasing).

With the entrance of Iovine in 2014, another exec was added into the TV mix. But though Iovine has deep connections in the entertainment industry and has been the catalyst for some Apple TV-style projects, he’s not a TV producer. He comes from music. Until last week, Apple didn't have a TV big-shot to guide its programming strategy.

Still, Iovine has been a shot of energy in getting projects done.

“Jimmy is not a normal person, he is extraordinary,” one former Apple Music employee said. “A typical Silicon Valley person would underestimate him,” but Iovine moves seamlessly in the world of entertainment, something Apple has lacked.

Iovine sparked the conversations that led to “Planet of the Apps” and “Carpool Karaoke,” Apple Music’s first two big shows, he told Bloomberg in a recent interview. That spark and finesse in Los Angeles is probably something Apple is looking to get more of with Erlicht and Van Amburg.

Where is ‘Vital Signs?’

One big question mark around Apple’s TV-style efforts on Apple Music has been the whereabouts of “Vital Signs,” helmed by Dr. Dre, who, like Iovine, came into Apple’s orbit with the acquisition of Beats in 2014. “Vital Signs” was meant to be Apple’s first scripted show, in the form of a six-part semi-autobiographical series about Dre’s life.

“Vital Signs” began shooting back in February, 2016, a person who worked on the production told Business Insider. But it still hasn’t arrived, or gotten a firm release date from Apple.

“American Gods” and “Deadwood” star Ian McShane, who is in the series, talked about the show recently on "Late Night with Seth Meyers."

“Dre was great, this was an Apple project, by him,” McShane said. “It’s about his sort of story … There’s three of us … We play parts of Dre’s imagination who actually come to life at various points in this … Sam Rockwell plays ego, who’s very funny, and Michael K. Williams, the charismatic Omar the gay assassin from ‘The Wire,’ plays negativity, and I play vengeance.”

At the time “Vital Signs” was shot, there didn’t seem to be much Apple involvement on the ground, according to sources close to the production.

“From my experience, and what I saw on-set and in-office, Apple was almost completely hands-off,” a person on the “Vital Signs” production told Business Insider. “My guess would be that Apple was a bit green around the ears in terms of film production and may not have realized the importance of a studio or financial backer in their position to be invested with eyes and ears on the ground, especially when they have final approval on the product,” that person continued.

Even beyond Apple input, Dre wasn’t satisfied with the product. Multiple sources said that there were reshoots on “Vital Signs” after the initial filming. A source close to the production characterized the reshoots as part of Dre's creative process, and "Vital Signs" as his passion project.

Ian McShane said during his Seth Meyers appearance that “Vital Signs” will be out in August, but Apple hasn’t said anything, and other Apple insiders aren’t clear about a time frame. It’s also good to note that Dr. Dre fans had to wait over a decade for him to release his last album, and when it arrived it wasn’t called “Detox.”

Apple doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to get “Vital Signs” out the door until it’s happy with it, and that may continue to an even greater extent in the era of Erlicht and Van Amburg, since it’s not their project.

More delays

“Vital Signs” isn’t the only Apple Music series to have had timeline hiccups.

“Carpool Karaoke,” Apple’s spinoff of the popular sketch on the “Late Late Show with James Corden,” was delayed four months, though Apple did not specify why.

Late last month, Eddy Cue announced that the show would be airing on Apple Music starting August 8. This announcement came after a premiere party in March, and then a launch party in April, were both cancelled.

Enter the critics

The Apple Music show that has already arrived, “Planet of the Apps,” has not exactly been greeted with fanfare.

You can think of “Planet of the Apps” as a “Shark Tank” for app developers. App makers get help from celebrity mentors like Jessica Alba and Will.i.am, and then pitch venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners, hoping they’ll invest some of the $10 million Lightspeed promised to the show.

Variety’s critic slammed the show’s first episode as a “bland, tepid, barely competent knock-off of ‘Shark Tank.’” My colleague Avery Hartmans followed suit.

Apple appears to have been more involved with “Planet of the Apps” than with other projects, which makes sense given the topic. Apple’s VP of content and media apps, Robert Kondrk, is not listed as an executive producer on the show, but essentially played that role. Apple also collaborated on building the set, which involves an escalator from which contestants pitch their app ideas.

But Apple was still hands-off in some ways. Gwyneth Paltrow, one of the celebrity judges, told The Hollywood Reporter that Apple wasn’t that involved in the creative process. "They were pretty hands off," Paltrow said, though she did add that Apple execs were more involved with how the show would be distributed. The 10-episode series is available on Apple Music, for subscribers only, with a new episode debuting at 9 p.m. PST every Tuesday (from June 6).

The poor critical reception for the first “Planet of the Apps” episode means that Erlicht and Van Amburg’s hiring comes at an opportune time, since they bring firm hands with proven TV programming chops to Apple.

And with that in place, along with Apple’s pile of over $250 billion in cash, Apple has the opportunity to make compelling video that might not be possible other places.

One former Apple Music staffer mentioned “808: The Movie,” which shows the impact of Roland’s TR-808 drum machine, as a special moment that’s happened already, without Erlicht and Van Amburg.

“That’s a really remarkable piece of work,” the former staffer said. “It only could be created at a place like Apple.”

If you know anything more about Apple’s original TV plans, tip the author at nmcalone@businessinsider.com.

SEE ALSO: 'Game of Thrones' fans picked their favorite villains, heroes, seasons — and which deaths were most satisfying

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: RICHARD GREENFIELD: I am bullish on Twitter and would be shocked if it wasn't bought within two years

[honeycreekgcc]

Monday Scramble: Something old, something new

Busy week in golf: Tiger has successful back surgery, Rory gets married, Kevin Chappell gets 1st win, to name a few..

With all due respect to the fine folks in San Antonio, the biggest golf news of the week came on Thursday and it did not involve Kevin Chappell.

Tiger Woods has once again gone under the knife, this time for what seems like a much more significant procedure than his previous three surgeries since 2014. An Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion brings with it plenty of medical jargon, but it prompts a single question: What now?

By lying down on the operating table, Woods basically chalked up 2017 as his second straight lost season. When he next hits the course, he’ll either be 42 years old or close to it, and essentially two-plus years removed from being competitive on the PGA Tour.

That assumes, of course, that there will be a next time. Woods’ news release was somber enough, but the consistent harping by him and his agent that the procedure addressed “quality of life” concerns indicates that playing competitive golf probably isn’t his top priority right now.

It’s another sad chapter in a book that hasn’t had many highlights since the summer of 2013.

1. News of Woods’ surgery made his appearance earlier in the week in Missouri to announce a new course he’s building – and his participation in a two-swing PR stunt – all the more surprising.

Woods sat next to Johnny Morris, owner of Bass Pro Shops, for nearly an hour answering questions about his latest project, Payne’s Valley, which is expected to open in 2019. He then popped out of his chair and hit a pair of wedges in a “contest” with one of Morris’ young relatives.

The stunt was lighthearted, but it did evoke awkward flashbacks to last year’s Quicken Loans National media day once Woods rinsed his first shot. The second one, though, safely found the green.

But given the fact that Woods knew at the time that he was going under the knife the following day, it’s amazing he even picked up a club.

2. While Woods’ surgery got the brunt of the attention by week’s end, his plans for a new course in Missouri show promise.

Woods spoke at length about his vision as an architect, and it’s a well-crafted one even with only a handful of courses under his belt. He favors playability, creativity around the greens, manageable rough and a layout that keeps lost ball searches to a minimum.

Woods has hit on all those notes in a big way at Bluejack National outside Houston, which I can attest is a treat. If his first public project turns out anything close to that, folks will be flocking to the Ozarks in a few short years.

3. Unfortunately for Woods, his fashion sense hasn’t come along quite as quickly as his design acumen, as evidenced by Tuesday’s ensemble:

Granted, I am far from a fashionista. But the Twittersphere let Woods have it for his…questionable pants selection. But after news of his surgery surfaced later in the week, those same social media accounts were suddenly left to wonder when we’ll even see Woods again.

4. Hats off to Chappell, who finally managed to work his way into the winner’s circle at the Valero Texas Open.

Chappell’s stock has been on the rise for quite some time, as he notably racked up four runner-up finishes last season, including a playoff loss at the Tour Championship. But the titles proved elusive until Sunday, when he won just as all players envision it: by sinking a putt on the 72nd hole. He also added a nice, primal scream for good measure.

“Did you see that?” Chappell wrote on Instagram. “The monkey jumping off my back.”

Chappell played his way onto the Ryder Cup bubble last year, a considerable feat given his lack of hardware. But you should expect that he’ll make his red, white and blue debut this fall on Steve Stricker’s Presidents Cup squad.

5. One of the best aspects Chappell’s breakthrough win? His crunch-time interactions with caddie Joe Greiner.

The two had lengthy consultations over club choice and strategy throughout the final round, many of which were captured by the CBS audio team. It provided welcome insight into the mind of a player trying to close out his first win, as well as that of the man hoping to guide him to victory.

The discussion went all the way up until the final hole, when Greiner was vocal about how to plot Chappell’s par-5 layup options and offered some last-minute swing thoughts. Watching them celebrate the win a few minutes later, it was clearly a team victory.

6. With Chappell’s victory, the highest-ranked American without a PGA Tour win is now … Daniel Summerhays.

Summerhays is ranked No. 88 in the world and has been playing the Tour regularly since 2011. During that time he has compiled a pair of runner-ups and a solo third at last year’s PGA Championship that got him into the Masters.

Next on the list would be No. 92 Roberto Castro and No. 97 Jamie Lovemark, who lost playoffs last year at the Wells Fargo Championship and Zurich Classic, respectively.

7. Brooks Koepka may not have gotten the win in San Antonio, but he’s clearly on the rise.

Koepka struggled out of the gates in 2017, missing four out of his first six cuts without registering a top-40 result. But he won his group at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, finished T-11 at the Masters and nearly chased down Chappell in Texas.

Koepka is coming off a banner season that included his Ryder Cup debut, and he has one of the highest ceilings on Tour. He also has an understandable attitude about this week’s Zurich Classic, where he’ll pair with his brother Chase, who will make his PGA Tour debut.

“It could be interesting,” Koepka said Sunday. “We could kill each other on the second hole, or it could be awesome.”

8. Speaking of Zurich, the NOLA event gets a makeover this year with a new team format that has attracted an unusually strong field to TPC Louisiana. While the big names will get the early attention, here are a few under-the-radar duos worth the price of admission:

Daniel Berger/Thomas Pieters

Patrick Reed/Patrick Cantlay

Branden Grace/Louis Oosthuizen

Kevin Kisner/Scott Brown

Justin Thomas/Bud Cauley

Conversely, here are a few head-scratching combinations – one of which surely will wind up on the leaderboard come Sunday:

Spencer Levin/Rocco Mediate

Bryson DeChambeau/Rory Sabbatini

Jamie Lovemark/Luke Donald

Kyle Reifers/Andrew Johnston

Whee Kim/Greg Owen

9. Ian Poulter lost his full-time PGA Tour status when he missed the cut at Valero in the last start of his medical extension. But that doesn’t mean the Englishman is heading for the unemployment line.

Poulter has become a polarizing figure in recent years, leading some to bask in the schadenfreude of a former Ryder Cup assassin losing his card by 30 grand. But Poulter still has conditional status, both based on his previous tournament wins and his FedEx Cup standing, and he’s eligible to accept sponsor invites.

Poulter will likely be able to get several starts this summer off those bona fides, beginning this week at Zurich when he teams up with Geoff Ogilvy.

The real test will come in September, when he may have to head to Web.com Tour Finals to regain his card. It’s a scenario he can avoid only by turning his tepid game around in a hurry.

10. Jimmy Walker finally has a cause for the severe fatigue he has felt for months, but unfortunately it’s no easy fix.

The PGA champ revealed this week that he has been diagnosed with Lyme disease, a bacterial infection that comes from tick bites and can have chronic symptoms that are often hard to treat. Walker originally thought he had mono, but received his Lyme test results on the eve of the Masters.

While he refused to chalk up any bad play to his diagnosis, the news does shed some light on Walker’s sluggish performance in the wake of his triumph at Baltusrol. But he has turned things around recently, with five top-25s in his last seven starts, and hopefully is now on the road to recovery.

Get well, Jimmy.

It’s never good when you have to dodge golf balls at the breakfast table.

News broke over the weekend that McCain Foods had started a massive voluntary recall for frozen hash browns that “may be contaminated with extraneous golf ball materials.”

At this point no one has been hurt, which is always good. But we might need to get a Grill Room correspondent on the case to figure out how golf balls end up mixed with breakfast potatoes.

Is the farm next door to a driving range? Did the workers fine-tune their short games while on break? How big was the first “golf ball material” that sparked the recall? Questions abound.

Happy Birthday, We Got You A Caddie: Lydia Ko turned 20 Monday, putting a cap on her teen years that included 14 LPGA wins and two majors. She also announced the hiring of Pete Godfrey as her caddie, the 10th looper she has used since turning pro. They’ll debut together this week in Texas, where a little consistency on the bag could go a long way for the birthday girl.

Rocky Start: Curtis Luck. The top-ranked amateur turned pro last week and signed with Callaway, only to bogey his first three holes and ultimately miss the cut by a shot. No one said it’d be easy, but Luck will have plenty more opportunities – starting with the Dean & DeLuca Invitational next month.

Still Rolling: Bernd Wiesberger. The Austrian has played some great golf with little fanfare in recent months, but he finally broke through to win the Shenzhen International in a playoff over Tommy Fleetwood. Wiesberger now has eight (!) top-5 finishes since his last worldwide missed cut at the PGA Championship in July.

Still Searching: Bubba Watson. Watson made his annual pilgrimage to China for the Shenzhen event, and while he held the early lead, he couldn’t string four rounds together and ultimately tied for 26th. It continues to be a struggle for the two-time Masters champ, who hasn’t registered a top-10 finish in a full-field, stroke-play event in over a year.

Off The Market: Rory McIlroy, who tied the knot with Erica Stoll over the weekend in Ireland. The ceremony was spread across multiple days, held at an Irish castle and reportedly featured performances from Stevie Wonder and Ed Sheeran. Proof, once again, that it’s good to be Rory.

Job Well Done: McIlroy’s team. It’s hard in this day and age to keep anything truly private, but Team McIlroy managed to keep the wedding at Ashford Castle entirely under wraps, with strict security and few information leaks. Even celebrities are entitled to a little privacy on their big day should they so choose, and it’s nice to see that McIlroy got it.

El Campeon: Sergio Garcia, who put his green jacket on display Sunday when he kicked off the soccer match between Real Madrid and Barcelona. As a Madrid fan, Garcia likely wasn’t pleased by Lionel Messi’s last-second goal to give Barca the win.

It’s the Arrow, Not the Indian: Patrick Reed. On the eve of his opener in San Antonio, Reed attributed his recent struggles to the lies and lofts being off in his irons. He declared the issue largely resolved, then missed his third straight cut after a second-round 77.

Game Matching the Hair: Ollie Schniederjans. After contending at Harbour Town, the rookie put up a solid T-18 finish at Valero to crack the OWGR top 100 for the first time in his career. A breakthrough like Chappell and Wesley Bryan had in consecutive weeks may not be far behind.

Blown Fantasy Pick of the Week: Charley Hoffman. After seven straight years as the Can’t-Miss Kid in San Antonio, Hoffman put up a pedestrian T-40 finish with no score lower than his opening-round 71.

Source:  Golf Channel

The post Monday Scramble: Something old, something new appeared first on Honeycreek Golf & Country Club - GA.

[mccormickcreek]

Monday Scramble: Something old, something new

Busy week in golf: Tiger has successful back surgery, Rory gets married, Kevin Chappell gets 1st win, to name a few..

With all due respect to the fine folks in San Antonio, the biggest golf news of the week came on Thursday and it did not involve Kevin Chappell.

Tiger Woods has once again gone under the knife, this time for what seems like a much more significant procedure than his previous three surgeries since 2014. An Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion brings with it plenty of medical jargon, but it prompts a single question: What now?

By lying down on the operating table, Woods basically chalked up 2017 as his second straight lost season. When he next hits the course, he’ll either be 42 years old or close to it, and essentially two-plus years removed from being competitive on the PGA Tour.

That assumes, of course, that there will be a next time. Woods’ news release was somber enough, but the consistent harping by him and his agent that the procedure addressed “quality of life” concerns indicates that playing competitive golf probably isn’t his top priority right now.

It’s another sad chapter in a book that hasn’t had many highlights since the summer of 2013.

1. News of Woods’ surgery made his appearance earlier in the week in Missouri to announce a new course he’s building – and his participation in a two-swing PR stunt – all the more surprising.

Woods sat next to Johnny Morris, owner of Bass Pro Shops, for nearly an hour answering questions about his latest project, Payne’s Valley, which is expected to open in 2019. He then popped out of his chair and hit a pair of wedges in a “contest” with one of Morris’ young relatives.

The stunt was lighthearted, but it did evoke awkward flashbacks to last year’s Quicken Loans National media day once Woods rinsed his first shot. The second one, though, safely found the green.

But given the fact that Woods knew at the time that he was going under the knife the following day, it’s amazing he even picked up a club.

2. While Woods’ surgery got the brunt of the attention by week’s end, his plans for a new course in Missouri show promise.

Woods spoke at length about his vision as an architect, and it’s a well-crafted one even with only a handful of courses under his belt. He favors playability, creativity around the greens, manageable rough and a layout that keeps lost ball searches to a minimum.

Woods has hit on all those notes in a big way at Bluejack National outside Houston, which I can attest is a treat. If his first public project turns out anything close to that, folks will be flocking to the Ozarks in a few short years.

3. Unfortunately for Woods, his fashion sense hasn’t come along quite as quickly as his design acumen, as evidenced by Tuesday’s ensemble:

Granted, I am far from a fashionista. But the Twittersphere let Woods have it for his…questionable pants selection. But after news of his surgery surfaced later in the week, those same social media accounts were suddenly left to wonder when we’ll even see Woods again.

4. Hats off to Chappell, who finally managed to work his way into the winner’s circle at the Valero Texas Open.

Chappell’s stock has been on the rise for quite some time, as he notably racked up four runner-up finishes last season, including a playoff loss at the Tour Championship. But the titles proved elusive until Sunday, when he won just as all players envision it: by sinking a putt on the 72nd hole. He also added a nice, primal scream for good measure.

“Did you see that?” Chappell wrote on Instagram. “The monkey jumping off my back.”

Chappell played his way onto the Ryder Cup bubble last year, a considerable feat given his lack of hardware. But you should expect that he’ll make his red, white and blue debut this fall on Steve Stricker’s Presidents Cup squad.

5. One of the best aspects Chappell’s breakthrough win? His crunch-time interactions with caddie Joe Greiner.

The two had lengthy consultations over club choice and strategy throughout the final round, many of which were captured by the CBS audio team. It provided welcome insight into the mind of a player trying to close out his first win, as well as that of the man hoping to guide him to victory.

The discussion went all the way up until the final hole, when Greiner was vocal about how to plot Chappell’s par-5 layup options and offered some last-minute swing thoughts. Watching them celebrate the win a few minutes later, it was clearly a team victory.

6. With Chappell’s victory, the highest-ranked American without a PGA Tour win is now … Daniel Summerhays.

Summerhays is ranked No. 88 in the world and has been playing the Tour regularly since 2011. During that time he has compiled a pair of runner-ups and a solo third at last year’s PGA Championship that got him into the Masters.

Next on the list would be No. 92 Roberto Castro and No. 97 Jamie Lovemark, who lost playoffs last year at the Wells Fargo Championship and Zurich Classic, respectively.

7. Brooks Koepka may not have gotten the win in San Antonio, but he’s clearly on the rise.

Koepka struggled out of the gates in 2017, missing four out of his first six cuts without registering a top-40 result. But he won his group at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, finished T-11 at the Masters and nearly chased down Chappell in Texas.

Koepka is coming off a banner season that included his Ryder Cup debut, and he has one of the highest ceilings on Tour. He also has an understandable attitude about this week’s Zurich Classic, where he’ll pair with his brother Chase, who will make his PGA Tour debut.

“It could be interesting,” Koepka said Sunday. “We could kill each other on the second hole, or it could be awesome.”

8. Speaking of Zurich, the NOLA event gets a makeover this year with a new team format that has attracted an unusually strong field to TPC Louisiana. While the big names will get the early attention, here are a few under-the-radar duos worth the price of admission:

Daniel Berger/Thomas Pieters

Patrick Reed/Patrick Cantlay

Branden Grace/Louis Oosthuizen

Kevin Kisner/Scott Brown

Justin Thomas/Bud Cauley

Conversely, here are a few head-scratching combinations – one of which surely will wind up on the leaderboard come Sunday:

Spencer Levin/Rocco Mediate

Bryson DeChambeau/Rory Sabbatini

Jamie Lovemark/Luke Donald

Kyle Reifers/Andrew Johnston

Whee Kim/Greg Owen

9. Ian Poulter lost his full-time PGA Tour status when he missed the cut at Valero in the last start of his medical extension. But that doesn’t mean the Englishman is heading for the unemployment line.

Poulter has become a polarizing figure in recent years, leading some to bask in the schadenfreude of a former Ryder Cup assassin losing his card by 30 grand. But Poulter still has conditional status, both based on his previous tournament wins and his FedEx Cup standing, and he’s eligible to accept sponsor invites.

Poulter will likely be able to get several starts this summer off those bona fides, beginning this week at Zurich when he teams up with Geoff Ogilvy.

The real test will come in September, when he may have to head to Web.com Tour Finals to regain his card. It’s a scenario he can avoid only by turning his tepid game around in a hurry.

10. Jimmy Walker finally has a cause for the severe fatigue he has felt for months, but unfortunately it’s no easy fix.

The PGA champ revealed this week that he has been diagnosed with Lyme disease, a bacterial infection that comes from tick bites and can have chronic symptoms that are often hard to treat. Walker originally thought he had mono, but received his Lyme test results on the eve of the Masters.

While he refused to chalk up any bad play to his diagnosis, the news does shed some light on Walker’s sluggish performance in the wake of his triumph at Baltusrol. But he has turned things around recently, with five top-25s in his last seven starts, and hopefully is now on the road to recovery.

Get well, Jimmy.

It’s never good when you have to dodge golf balls at the breakfast table.

News broke over the weekend that McCain Foods had started a massive voluntary recall for frozen hash browns that “may be contaminated with extraneous golf ball materials.”

At this point no one has been hurt, which is always good. But we might need to get a Grill Room correspondent on the case to figure out how golf balls end up mixed with breakfast potatoes.

Is the farm next door to a driving range? Did the workers fine-tune their short games while on break? How big was the first “golf ball material” that sparked the recall? Questions abound.

Happy Birthday, We Got You A Caddie: Lydia Ko turned 20 Monday, putting a cap on her teen years that included 14 LPGA wins and two majors. She also announced the hiring of Pete Godfrey as her caddie, the 10th looper she has used since turning pro. They’ll debut together this week in Texas, where a little consistency on the bag could go a long way for the birthday girl.

Rocky Start: Curtis Luck. The top-ranked amateur turned pro last week and signed with Callaway, only to bogey his first three holes and ultimately miss the cut by a shot. No one said it’d be easy, but Luck will have plenty more opportunities – starting with the Dean & DeLuca Invitational next month.

Still Rolling: Bernd Wiesberger. The Austrian has played some great golf with little fanfare in recent months, but he finally broke through to win the Shenzhen International in a playoff over Tommy Fleetwood. Wiesberger now has eight (!) top-5 finishes since his last worldwide missed cut at the PGA Championship in July.

Still Searching: Bubba Watson. Watson made his annual pilgrimage to China for the Shenzhen event, and while he held the early lead, he couldn’t string four rounds together and ultimately tied for 26th. It continues to be a struggle for the two-time Masters champ, who hasn’t registered a top-10 finish in a full-field, stroke-play event in over a year.

Off The Market: Rory McIlroy, who tied the knot with Erica Stoll over the weekend in Ireland. The ceremony was spread across multiple days, held at an Irish castle and reportedly featured performances from Stevie Wonder and Ed Sheeran. Proof, once again, that it’s good to be Rory.

Job Well Done: McIlroy’s team. It’s hard in this day and age to keep anything truly private, but Team McIlroy managed to keep the wedding at Ashford Castle entirely under wraps, with strict security and few information leaks. Even celebrities are entitled to a little privacy on their big day should they so choose, and it’s nice to see that McIlroy got it.

El Campeon: Sergio Garcia, who put his green jacket on display Sunday when he kicked off the soccer match between Real Madrid and Barcelona. As a Madrid fan, Garcia likely wasn’t pleased by Lionel Messi’s last-second goal to give Barca the win.

It’s the Arrow, Not the Indian: Patrick Reed. On the eve of his opener in San Antonio, Reed attributed his recent struggles to the lies and lofts being off in his irons. He declared the issue largely resolved, then missed his third straight cut after a second-round 77.

Game Matching the Hair: Ollie Schniederjans. After contending at Harbour Town, the rookie put up a solid T-18 finish at Valero to crack the OWGR top 100 for the first time in his career. A breakthrough like Chappell and Wesley Bryan had in consecutive weeks may not be far behind.

Blown Fantasy Pick of the Week: Charley Hoffman. After seven straight years as the Can’t-Miss Kid in San Antonio, Hoffman put up a pedestrian T-40 finish with no score lower than his opening-round 71.

Source:  Golf Channel

The post Monday Scramble: Something old, something new appeared first on McCormick Creek Golf Course.

[golftamekawoods]

Monday Scramble: Something old, something new

Busy week in golf: Tiger has successful back surgery, Rory gets married, Kevin Chappell gets 1st win, to name a few..

With all due respect to the fine folks in San Antonio, the biggest golf news of the week came on Thursday and it did not involve Kevin Chappell.

Tiger Woods has once again gone under the knife, this time for what seems like a much more significant procedure than his previous three surgeries since 2014. An Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion brings with it plenty of medical jargon, but it prompts a single question: What now?

By lying down on the operating table, Woods basically chalked up 2017 as his second straight lost season. When he next hits the course, he’ll either be 42 years old or close to it, and essentially two-plus years removed from being competitive on the PGA Tour.

That assumes, of course, that there will be a next time. Woods’ news release was somber enough, but the consistent harping by him and his agent that the procedure addressed “quality of life” concerns indicates that playing competitive golf probably isn’t his top priority right now.

It’s another sad chapter in a book that hasn’t had many highlights since the summer of 2013.

1. News of Woods’ surgery made his appearance earlier in the week in Missouri to announce a new course he’s building – and his participation in a two-swing PR stunt – all the more surprising.

Woods sat next to Johnny Morris, owner of Bass Pro Shops, for nearly an hour answering questions about his latest project, Payne’s Valley, which is expected to open in 2019. He then popped out of his chair and hit a pair of wedges in a “contest” with one of Morris’ young relatives.

The stunt was lighthearted, but it did evoke awkward flashbacks to last year’s Quicken Loans National media day once Woods rinsed his first shot. The second one, though, safely found the green.

But given the fact that Woods knew at the time that he was going under the knife the following day, it’s amazing he even picked up a club.

2. While Woods’ surgery got the brunt of the attention by week’s end, his plans for a new course in Missouri show promise.

Woods spoke at length about his vision as an architect, and it’s a well-crafted one even with only a handful of courses under his belt. He favors playability, creativity around the greens, manageable rough and a layout that keeps lost ball searches to a minimum.

Woods has hit on all those notes in a big way at Bluejack National outside Houston, which I can attest is a treat. If his first public project turns out anything close to that, folks will be flocking to the Ozarks in a few short years.

3. Unfortunately for Woods, his fashion sense hasn’t come along quite as quickly as his design acumen, as evidenced by Tuesday’s ensemble:

Granted, I am far from a fashionista. But the Twittersphere let Woods have it for his…questionable pants selection. But after news of his surgery surfaced later in the week, those same social media accounts were suddenly left to wonder when we’ll even see Woods again.

4. Hats off to Chappell, who finally managed to work his way into the winner’s circle at the Valero Texas Open.

Chappell’s stock has been on the rise for quite some time, as he notably racked up four runner-up finishes last season, including a playoff loss at the Tour Championship. But the titles proved elusive until Sunday, when he won just as all players envision it: by sinking a putt on the 72nd hole. He also added a nice, primal scream for good measure.

“Did you see that?” Chappell wrote on Instagram. “The monkey jumping off my back.”

Chappell played his way onto the Ryder Cup bubble last year, a considerable feat given his lack of hardware. But you should expect that he’ll make his red, white and blue debut this fall on Steve Stricker’s Presidents Cup squad.

5. One of the best aspects Chappell’s breakthrough win? His crunch-time interactions with caddie Joe Greiner.

The two had lengthy consultations over club choice and strategy throughout the final round, many of which were captured by the CBS audio team. It provided welcome insight into the mind of a player trying to close out his first win, as well as that of the man hoping to guide him to victory.

The discussion went all the way up until the final hole, when Greiner was vocal about how to plot Chappell’s par-5 layup options and offered some last-minute swing thoughts. Watching them celebrate the win a few minutes later, it was clearly a team victory.

6. With Chappell’s victory, the highest-ranked American without a PGA Tour win is now … Daniel Summerhays.

Summerhays is ranked No. 88 in the world and has been playing the Tour regularly since 2011. During that time he has compiled a pair of runner-ups and a solo third at last year’s PGA Championship that got him into the Masters.

Next on the list would be No. 92 Roberto Castro and No. 97 Jamie Lovemark, who lost playoffs last year at the Wells Fargo Championship and Zurich Classic, respectively.

7. Brooks Koepka may not have gotten the win in San Antonio, but he’s clearly on the rise.

Koepka struggled out of the gates in 2017, missing four out of his first six cuts without registering a top-40 result. But he won his group at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, finished T-11 at the Masters and nearly chased down Chappell in Texas.

Koepka is coming off a banner season that included his Ryder Cup debut, and he has one of the highest ceilings on Tour. He also has an understandable attitude about this week’s Zurich Classic, where he’ll pair with his brother Chase, who will make his PGA Tour debut.

“It could be interesting,” Koepka said Sunday. “We could kill each other on the second hole, or it could be awesome.”

8. Speaking of Zurich, the NOLA event gets a makeover this year with a new team format that has attracted an unusually strong field to TPC Louisiana. While the big names will get the early attention, here are a few under-the-radar duos worth the price of admission:

Daniel Berger/Thomas Pieters

Patrick Reed/Patrick Cantlay

Branden Grace/Louis Oosthuizen

Kevin Kisner/Scott Brown

Justin Thomas/Bud Cauley

Conversely, here are a few head-scratching combinations – one of which surely will wind up on the leaderboard come Sunday:

Spencer Levin/Rocco Mediate

Bryson DeChambeau/Rory Sabbatini

Jamie Lovemark/Luke Donald

Kyle Reifers/Andrew Johnston

Whee Kim/Greg Owen

9. Ian Poulter lost his full-time PGA Tour status when he missed the cut at Valero in the last start of his medical extension. But that doesn’t mean the Englishman is heading for the unemployment line.

Poulter has become a polarizing figure in recent years, leading some to bask in the schadenfreude of a former Ryder Cup assassin losing his card by 30 grand. But Poulter still has conditional status, both based on his previous tournament wins and his FedEx Cup standing, and he’s eligible to accept sponsor invites.

Poulter will likely be able to get several starts this summer off those bona fides, beginning this week at Zurich when he teams up with Geoff Ogilvy.

The real test will come in September, when he may have to head to Web.com Tour Finals to regain his card. It’s a scenario he can avoid only by turning his tepid game around in a hurry.

10. Jimmy Walker finally has a cause for the severe fatigue he has felt for months, but unfortunately it’s no easy fix.

The PGA champ revealed this week that he has been diagnosed with Lyme disease, a bacterial infection that comes from tick bites and can have chronic symptoms that are often hard to treat. Walker originally thought he had mono, but received his Lyme test results on the eve of the Masters.

While he refused to chalk up any bad play to his diagnosis, the news does shed some light on Walker’s sluggish performance in the wake of his triumph at Baltusrol. But he has turned things around recently, with five top-25s in his last seven starts, and hopefully is now on the road to recovery.

Get well, Jimmy.

It’s never good when you have to dodge golf balls at the breakfast table.

News broke over the weekend that McCain Foods had started a massive voluntary recall for frozen hash browns that “may be contaminated with extraneous golf ball materials.”

At this point no one has been hurt, which is always good. But we might need to get a Grill Room correspondent on the case to figure out how golf balls end up mixed with breakfast potatoes.

Is the farm next door to a driving range? Did the workers fine-tune their short games while on break? How big was the first “golf ball material” that sparked the recall? Questions abound.

Happy Birthday, We Got You A Caddie: Lydia Ko turned 20 Monday, putting a cap on her teen years that included 14 LPGA wins and two majors. She also announced the hiring of Pete Godfrey as her caddie, the 10th looper she has used since turning pro. They’ll debut together this week in Texas, where a little consistency on the bag could go a long way for the birthday girl.

Rocky Start: Curtis Luck. The top-ranked amateur turned pro last week and signed with Callaway, only to bogey his first three holes and ultimately miss the cut by a shot. No one said it’d be easy, but Luck will have plenty more opportunities – starting with the Dean & DeLuca Invitational next month.

Still Rolling: Bernd Wiesberger. The Austrian has played some great golf with little fanfare in recent months, but he finally broke through to win the Shenzhen International in a playoff over Tommy Fleetwood. Wiesberger now has eight (!) top-5 finishes since his last worldwide missed cut at the PGA Championship in July.

Still Searching: Bubba Watson. Watson made his annual pilgrimage to China for the Shenzhen event, and while he held the early lead, he couldn’t string four rounds together and ultimately tied for 26th. It continues to be a struggle for the two-time Masters champ, who hasn’t registered a top-10 finish in a full-field, stroke-play event in over a year.

Off The Market: Rory McIlroy, who tied the knot with Erica Stoll over the weekend in Ireland. The ceremony was spread across multiple days, held at an Irish castle and reportedly featured performances from Stevie Wonder and Ed Sheeran. Proof, once again, that it’s good to be Rory.

Job Well Done: McIlroy’s team. It’s hard in this day and age to keep anything truly private, but Team McIlroy managed to keep the wedding at Ashford Castle entirely under wraps, with strict security and few information leaks. Even celebrities are entitled to a little privacy on their big day should they so choose, and it’s nice to see that McIlroy got it.

El Campeon: Sergio Garcia, who put his green jacket on display Sunday when he kicked off the soccer match between Real Madrid and Barcelona. As a Madrid fan, Garcia likely wasn’t pleased by Lionel Messi’s last-second goal to give Barca the win.

It’s the Arrow, Not the Indian: Patrick Reed. On the eve of his opener in San Antonio, Reed attributed his recent struggles to the lies and lofts being off in his irons. He declared the issue largely resolved, then missed his third straight cut after a second-round 77.

Game Matching the Hair: Ollie Schniederjans. After contending at Harbour Town, the rookie put up a solid T-18 finish at Valero to crack the OWGR top 100 for the first time in his career. A breakthrough like Chappell and Wesley Bryan had in consecutive weeks may not be far behind.

Blown Fantasy Pick of the Week: Charley Hoffman. After seven straight years as the Can’t-Miss Kid in San Antonio, Hoffman put up a pedestrian T-40 finish with no score lower than his opening-round 71.

Source:  Golf Channel

The post Monday Scramble: Something old, something new appeared first on Tameka Woods Golf Course.

[mystichillsgc]

Monday Scramble: Something old, something new

Busy week in golf: Tiger has successful back surgery, Rory gets married, Kevin Chappell gets 1st win, to name a few..

With all due respect to the fine folks in San Antonio, the biggest golf news of the week came on Thursday and it did not involve Kevin Chappell.

Tiger Woods has once again gone under the knife, this time for what seems like a much more significant procedure than his previous three surgeries since 2014. An Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion brings with it plenty of medical jargon, but it prompts a single question: What now?

By lying down on the operating table, Woods basically chalked up 2017 as his second straight lost season. When he next hits the course, he’ll either be 42 years old or close to it, and essentially two-plus years removed from being competitive on the PGA Tour.

That assumes, of course, that there will be a next time. Woods’ news release was somber enough, but the consistent harping by him and his agent that the procedure addressed “quality of life” concerns indicates that playing competitive golf probably isn’t his top priority right now.

It’s another sad chapter in a book that hasn’t had many highlights since the summer of 2013.

1. News of Woods’ surgery made his appearance earlier in the week in Missouri to announce a new course he’s building – and his participation in a two-swing PR stunt – all the more surprising.

Woods sat next to Johnny Morris, owner of Bass Pro Shops, for nearly an hour answering questions about his latest project, Payne’s Valley, which is expected to open in 2019. He then popped out of his chair and hit a pair of wedges in a “contest” with one of Morris’ young relatives.

The stunt was lighthearted, but it did evoke awkward flashbacks to last year’s Quicken Loans National media day once Woods rinsed his first shot. The second one, though, safely found the green.

But given the fact that Woods knew at the time that he was going under the knife the following day, it’s amazing he even picked up a club.

2. While Woods’ surgery got the brunt of the attention by week’s end, his plans for a new course in Missouri show promise.

Woods spoke at length about his vision as an architect, and it’s a well-crafted one even with only a handful of courses under his belt. He favors playability, creativity around the greens, manageable rough and a layout that keeps lost ball searches to a minimum.

Woods has hit on all those notes in a big way at Bluejack National outside Houston, which I can attest is a treat. If his first public project turns out anything close to that, folks will be flocking to the Ozarks in a few short years.

3. Unfortunately for Woods, his fashion sense hasn’t come along quite as quickly as his design acumen, as evidenced by Tuesday’s ensemble:

Granted, I am far from a fashionista. But the Twittersphere let Woods have it for his…questionable pants selection. But after news of his surgery surfaced later in the week, those same social media accounts were suddenly left to wonder when we’ll even see Woods again.

4. Hats off to Chappell, who finally managed to work his way into the winner’s circle at the Valero Texas Open.

Chappell’s stock has been on the rise for quite some time, as he notably racked up four runner-up finishes last season, including a playoff loss at the Tour Championship. But the titles proved elusive until Sunday, when he won just as all players envision it: by sinking a putt on the 72nd hole. He also added a nice, primal scream for good measure.

“Did you see that?” Chappell wrote on Instagram. “The monkey jumping off my back.”

Chappell played his way onto the Ryder Cup bubble last year, a considerable feat given his lack of hardware. But you should expect that he’ll make his red, white and blue debut this fall on Steve Stricker’s Presidents Cup squad.

5. One of the best aspects Chappell’s breakthrough win? His crunch-time interactions with caddie Joe Greiner.

The two had lengthy consultations over club choice and strategy throughout the final round, many of which were captured by the CBS audio team. It provided welcome insight into the mind of a player trying to close out his first win, as well as that of the man hoping to guide him to victory.

The discussion went all the way up until the final hole, when Greiner was vocal about how to plot Chappell’s par-5 layup options and offered some last-minute swing thoughts. Watching them celebrate the win a few minutes later, it was clearly a team victory.

6. With Chappell’s victory, the highest-ranked American without a PGA Tour win is now … Daniel Summerhays.

Summerhays is ranked No. 88 in the world and has been playing the Tour regularly since 2011. During that time he has compiled a pair of runner-ups and a solo third at last year’s PGA Championship that got him into the Masters.

Next on the list would be No. 92 Roberto Castro and No. 97 Jamie Lovemark, who lost playoffs last year at the Wells Fargo Championship and Zurich Classic, respectively.

7. Brooks Koepka may not have gotten the win in San Antonio, but he’s clearly on the rise.

Koepka struggled out of the gates in 2017, missing four out of his first six cuts without registering a top-40 result. But he won his group at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, finished T-11 at the Masters and nearly chased down Chappell in Texas.

Koepka is coming off a banner season that included his Ryder Cup debut, and he has one of the highest ceilings on Tour. He also has an understandable attitude about this week’s Zurich Classic, where he’ll pair with his brother Chase, who will make his PGA Tour debut.

“It could be interesting,” Koepka said Sunday. “We could kill each other on the second hole, or it could be awesome.”

8. Speaking of Zurich, the NOLA event gets a makeover this year with a new team format that has attracted an unusually strong field to TPC Louisiana. While the big names will get the early attention, here are a few under-the-radar duos worth the price of admission:

Daniel Berger/Thomas Pieters

Patrick Reed/Patrick Cantlay

Branden Grace/Louis Oosthuizen

Kevin Kisner/Scott Brown

Justin Thomas/Bud Cauley

Conversely, here are a few head-scratching combinations – one of which surely will wind up on the leaderboard come Sunday:

Spencer Levin/Rocco Mediate

Bryson DeChambeau/Rory Sabbatini

Jamie Lovemark/Luke Donald

Kyle Reifers/Andrew Johnston

Whee Kim/Greg Owen

9. Ian Poulter lost his full-time PGA Tour status when he missed the cut at Valero in the last start of his medical extension. But that doesn’t mean the Englishman is heading for the unemployment line.

Poulter has become a polarizing figure in recent years, leading some to bask in the schadenfreude of a former Ryder Cup assassin losing his card by 30 grand. But Poulter still has conditional status, both based on his previous tournament wins and his FedEx Cup standing, and he’s eligible to accept sponsor invites.

Poulter will likely be able to get several starts this summer off those bona fides, beginning this week at Zurich when he teams up with Geoff Ogilvy.

The real test will come in September, when he may have to head to Web.com Tour Finals to regain his card. It’s a scenario he can avoid only by turning his tepid game around in a hurry.

10. Jimmy Walker finally has a cause for the severe fatigue he has felt for months, but unfortunately it’s no easy fix.

The PGA champ revealed this week that he has been diagnosed with Lyme disease, a bacterial infection that comes from tick bites and can have chronic symptoms that are often hard to treat. Walker originally thought he had mono, but received his Lyme test results on the eve of the Masters.

While he refused to chalk up any bad play to his diagnosis, the news does shed some light on Walker’s sluggish performance in the wake of his triumph at Baltusrol. But he has turned things around recently, with five top-25s in his last seven starts, and hopefully is now on the road to recovery.

Get well, Jimmy.

It’s never good when you have to dodge golf balls at the breakfast table.

News broke over the weekend that McCain Foods had started a massive voluntary recall for frozen hash browns that “may be contaminated with extraneous golf ball materials.”

At this point no one has been hurt, which is always good. But we might need to get a Grill Room correspondent on the case to figure out how golf balls end up mixed with breakfast potatoes.

Is the farm next door to a driving range? Did the workers fine-tune their short games while on break? How big was the first “golf ball material” that sparked the recall? Questions abound.

Happy Birthday, We Got You A Caddie: Lydia Ko turned 20 Monday, putting a cap on her teen years that included 14 LPGA wins and two majors. She also announced the hiring of Pete Godfrey as her caddie, the 10th looper she has used since turning pro. They’ll debut together this week in Texas, where a little consistency on the bag could go a long way for the birthday girl.

Rocky Start: Curtis Luck. The top-ranked amateur turned pro last week and signed with Callaway, only to bogey his first three holes and ultimately miss the cut by a shot. No one said it’d be easy, but Luck will have plenty more opportunities – starting with the Dean & DeLuca Invitational next month.

Still Rolling: Bernd Wiesberger. The Austrian has played some great golf with little fanfare in recent months, but he finally broke through to win the Shenzhen International in a playoff over Tommy Fleetwood. Wiesberger now has eight (!) top-5 finishes since his last worldwide missed cut at the PGA Championship in July.

Still Searching: Bubba Watson. Watson made his annual pilgrimage to China for the Shenzhen event, and while he held the early lead, he couldn’t string four rounds together and ultimately tied for 26th. It continues to be a struggle for the two-time Masters champ, who hasn’t registered a top-10 finish in a full-field, stroke-play event in over a year.

Off The Market: Rory McIlroy, who tied the knot with Erica Stoll over the weekend in Ireland. The ceremony was spread across multiple days, held at an Irish castle and reportedly featured performances from Stevie Wonder and Ed Sheeran. Proof, once again, that it’s good to be Rory.

Job Well Done: McIlroy’s team. It’s hard in this day and age to keep anything truly private, but Team McIlroy managed to keep the wedding at Ashford Castle entirely under wraps, with strict security and few information leaks. Even celebrities are entitled to a little privacy on their big day should they so choose, and it’s nice to see that McIlroy got it.

El Campeon: Sergio Garcia, who put his green jacket on display Sunday when he kicked off the soccer match between Real Madrid and Barcelona. As a Madrid fan, Garcia likely wasn’t pleased by Lionel Messi’s last-second goal to give Barca the win.

It’s the Arrow, Not the Indian: Patrick Reed. On the eve of his opener in San Antonio, Reed attributed his recent struggles to the lies and lofts being off in his irons. He declared the issue largely resolved, then missed his third straight cut after a second-round 77.

Game Matching the Hair: Ollie Schniederjans. After contending at Harbour Town, the rookie put up a solid T-18 finish at Valero to crack the OWGR top 100 for the first time in his career. A breakthrough like Chappell and Wesley Bryan had in consecutive weeks may not be far behind.

Blown Fantasy Pick of the Week: Charley Hoffman. After seven straight years as the Can’t-Miss Kid in San Antonio, Hoffman put up a pedestrian T-40 finish with no score lower than his opening-round 71.

Source:  Golf Channel

The post Monday Scramble: Something old, something new appeared first on Mystic Hills Golf Club.

[hawkstailgc]

Monday Scramble: Something old, something new

Busy week in golf: Tiger has successful back surgery, Rory gets married, Kevin Chappell gets 1st win, to name a few..

With all due respect to the fine folks in San Antonio, the biggest golf news of the week came on Thursday and it did not involve Kevin Chappell.

Tiger Woods has once again gone under the knife, this time for what seems like a much more significant procedure than his previous three surgeries since 2014. An Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion brings with it plenty of medical jargon, but it prompts a single question: What now?

By lying down on the operating table, Woods basically chalked up 2017 as his second straight lost season. When he next hits the course, he’ll either be 42 years old or close to it, and essentially two-plus years removed from being competitive on the PGA Tour.

That assumes, of course, that there will be a next time. Woods’ news release was somber enough, but the consistent harping by him and his agent that the procedure addressed “quality of life” concerns indicates that playing competitive golf probably isn’t his top priority right now.

It’s another sad chapter in a book that hasn’t had many highlights since the summer of 2013.

1. News of Woods’ surgery made his appearance earlier in the week in Missouri to announce a new course he’s building – and his participation in a two-swing PR stunt – all the more surprising.

Woods sat next to Johnny Morris, owner of Bass Pro Shops, for nearly an hour answering questions about his latest project, Payne’s Valley, which is expected to open in 2019. He then popped out of his chair and hit a pair of wedges in a “contest” with one of Morris’ young relatives.

The stunt was lighthearted, but it did evoke awkward flashbacks to last year’s Quicken Loans National media day once Woods rinsed his first shot. The second one, though, safely found the green.

But given the fact that Woods knew at the time that he was going under the knife the following day, it’s amazing he even picked up a club.

2. While Woods’ surgery got the brunt of the attention by week’s end, his plans for a new course in Missouri show promise.

Woods spoke at length about his vision as an architect, and it’s a well-crafted one even with only a handful of courses under his belt. He favors playability, creativity around the greens, manageable rough and a layout that keeps lost ball searches to a minimum.

Woods has hit on all those notes in a big way at Bluejack National outside Houston, which I can attest is a treat. If his first public project turns out anything close to that, folks will be flocking to the Ozarks in a few short years.

3. Unfortunately for Woods, his fashion sense hasn’t come along quite as quickly as his design acumen, as evidenced by Tuesday’s ensemble:

Granted, I am far from a fashionista. But the Twittersphere let Woods have it for his…questionable pants selection. But after news of his surgery surfaced later in the week, those same social media accounts were suddenly left to wonder when we’ll even see Woods again.

4. Hats off to Chappell, who finally managed to work his way into the winner’s circle at the Valero Texas Open.

Chappell’s stock has been on the rise for quite some time, as he notably racked up four runner-up finishes last season, including a playoff loss at the Tour Championship. But the titles proved elusive until Sunday, when he won just as all players envision it: by sinking a putt on the 72nd hole. He also added a nice, primal scream for good measure.

“Did you see that?” Chappell wrote on Instagram. “The monkey jumping off my back.”

Chappell played his way onto the Ryder Cup bubble last year, a considerable feat given his lack of hardware. But you should expect that he’ll make his red, white and blue debut this fall on Steve Stricker’s Presidents Cup squad.

5. One of the best aspects Chappell’s breakthrough win? His crunch-time interactions with caddie Joe Greiner.

The two had lengthy consultations over club choice and strategy throughout the final round, many of which were captured by the CBS audio team. It provided welcome insight into the mind of a player trying to close out his first win, as well as that of the man hoping to guide him to victory.

The discussion went all the way up until the final hole, when Greiner was vocal about how to plot Chappell’s par-5 layup options and offered some last-minute swing thoughts. Watching them celebrate the win a few minutes later, it was clearly a team victory.

6. With Chappell’s victory, the highest-ranked American without a PGA Tour win is now … Daniel Summerhays.

Summerhays is ranked No. 88 in the world and has been playing the Tour regularly since 2011. During that time he has compiled a pair of runner-ups and a solo third at last year’s PGA Championship that got him into the Masters.

Next on the list would be No. 92 Roberto Castro and No. 97 Jamie Lovemark, who lost playoffs last year at the Wells Fargo Championship and Zurich Classic, respectively.

7. Brooks Koepka may not have gotten the win in San Antonio, but he’s clearly on the rise.

Koepka struggled out of the gates in 2017, missing four out of his first six cuts without registering a top-40 result. But he won his group at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, finished T-11 at the Masters and nearly chased down Chappell in Texas.

Koepka is coming off a banner season that included his Ryder Cup debut, and he has one of the highest ceilings on Tour. He also has an understandable attitude about this week’s Zurich Classic, where he’ll pair with his brother Chase, who will make his PGA Tour debut.

“It could be interesting,” Koepka said Sunday. “We could kill each other on the second hole, or it could be awesome.”

8. Speaking of Zurich, the NOLA event gets a makeover this year with a new team format that has attracted an unusually strong field to TPC Louisiana. While the big names will get the early attention, here are a few under-the-radar duos worth the price of admission:

Daniel Berger/Thomas Pieters

Patrick Reed/Patrick Cantlay

Branden Grace/Louis Oosthuizen

Kevin Kisner/Scott Brown

Justin Thomas/Bud Cauley

Conversely, here are a few head-scratching combinations – one of which surely will wind up on the leaderboard come Sunday:

Spencer Levin/Rocco Mediate

Bryson DeChambeau/Rory Sabbatini

Jamie Lovemark/Luke Donald

Kyle Reifers/Andrew Johnston

Whee Kim/Greg Owen

9. Ian Poulter lost his full-time PGA Tour status when he missed the cut at Valero in the last start of his medical extension. But that doesn’t mean the Englishman is heading for the unemployment line.

Poulter has become a polarizing figure in recent years, leading some to bask in the schadenfreude of a former Ryder Cup assassin losing his card by 30 grand. But Poulter still has conditional status, both based on his previous tournament wins and his FedEx Cup standing, and he’s eligible to accept sponsor invites.

Poulter will likely be able to get several starts this summer off those bona fides, beginning this week at Zurich when he teams up with Geoff Ogilvy.

The real test will come in September, when he may have to head to Web.com Tour Finals to regain his card. It’s a scenario he can avoid only by turning his tepid game around in a hurry.

10. Jimmy Walker finally has a cause for the severe fatigue he has felt for months, but unfortunately it’s no easy fix.

The PGA champ revealed this week that he has been diagnosed with Lyme disease, a bacterial infection that comes from tick bites and can have chronic symptoms that are often hard to treat. Walker originally thought he had mono, but received his Lyme test results on the eve of the Masters.

While he refused to chalk up any bad play to his diagnosis, the news does shed some light on Walker’s sluggish performance in the wake of his triumph at Baltusrol. But he has turned things around recently, with five top-25s in his last seven starts, and hopefully is now on the road to recovery.

Get well, Jimmy.

It’s never good when you have to dodge golf balls at the breakfast table.

News broke over the weekend that McCain Foods had started a massive voluntary recall for frozen hash browns that “may be contaminated with extraneous golf ball materials.”

At this point no one has been hurt, which is always good. But we might need to get a Grill Room correspondent on the case to figure out how golf balls end up mixed with breakfast potatoes.

Is the farm next door to a driving range? Did the workers fine-tune their short games while on break? How big was the first “golf ball material” that sparked the recall? Questions abound.

Happy Birthday, We Got You A Caddie: Lydia Ko turned 20 Monday, putting a cap on her teen years that included 14 LPGA wins and two majors. She also announced the hiring of Pete Godfrey as her caddie, the 10th looper she has used since turning pro. They’ll debut together this week in Texas, where a little consistency on the bag could go a long way for the birthday girl.

Rocky Start: Curtis Luck. The top-ranked amateur turned pro last week and signed with Callaway, only to bogey his first three holes and ultimately miss the cut by a shot. No one said it’d be easy, but Luck will have plenty more opportunities – starting with the Dean & DeLuca Invitational next month.

Still Rolling: Bernd Wiesberger. The Austrian has played some great golf with little fanfare in recent months, but he finally broke through to win the Shenzhen International in a playoff over Tommy Fleetwood. Wiesberger now has eight (!) top-5 finishes since his last worldwide missed cut at the PGA Championship in July.

Still Searching: Bubba Watson. Watson made his annual pilgrimage to China for the Shenzhen event, and while he held the early lead, he couldn’t string four rounds together and ultimately tied for 26th. It continues to be a struggle for the two-time Masters champ, who hasn’t registered a top-10 finish in a full-field, stroke-play event in over a year.

Off The Market: Rory McIlroy, who tied the knot with Erica Stoll over the weekend in Ireland. The ceremony was spread across multiple days, held at an Irish castle and reportedly featured performances from Stevie Wonder and Ed Sheeran. Proof, once again, that it’s good to be Rory.

Job Well Done: McIlroy’s team. It’s hard in this day and age to keep anything truly private, but Team McIlroy managed to keep the wedding at Ashford Castle entirely under wraps, with strict security and few information leaks. Even celebrities are entitled to a little privacy on their big day should they so choose, and it’s nice to see that McIlroy got it.

El Campeon: Sergio Garcia, who put his green jacket on display Sunday when he kicked off the soccer match between Real Madrid and Barcelona. As a Madrid fan, Garcia likely wasn’t pleased by Lionel Messi’s last-second goal to give Barca the win.

It’s the Arrow, Not the Indian: Patrick Reed. On the eve of his opener in San Antonio, Reed attributed his recent struggles to the lies and lofts being off in his irons. He declared the issue largely resolved, then missed his third straight cut after a second-round 77.

Game Matching the Hair: Ollie Schniederjans. After contending at Harbour Town, the rookie put up a solid T-18 finish at Valero to crack the OWGR top 100 for the first time in his career. A breakthrough like Chappell and Wesley Bryan had in consecutive weeks may not be far behind.

Blown Fantasy Pick of the Week: Charley Hoffman. After seven straight years as the Can’t-Miss Kid in San Antonio, Hoffman put up a pedestrian T-40 finish with no score lower than his opening-round 71.

Source:  Golf Channel

The post Monday Scramble: Something old, something new appeared first on Hawks Tail Golf Club.

[rockhollowgolf]

Monday Scramble: Something old, something new

Busy week in golf: Tiger has successful back surgery, Rory gets married, Kevin Chappell gets 1st win, to name a few..

With all due respect to the fine folks in San Antonio, the biggest golf news of the week came on Thursday and it did not involve Kevin Chappell.

Tiger Woods has once again gone under the knife, this time for what seems like a much more significant procedure than his previous three surgeries since 2014. An Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion brings with it plenty of medical jargon, but it prompts a single question: What now?

By lying down on the operating table, Woods basically chalked up 2017 as his second straight lost season. When he next hits the course, he’ll either be 42 years old or close to it, and essentially two-plus years removed from being competitive on the PGA Tour.

That assumes, of course, that there will be a next time. Woods’ news release was somber enough, but the consistent harping by him and his agent that the procedure addressed “quality of life” concerns indicates that playing competitive golf probably isn’t his top priority right now.

It’s another sad chapter in a book that hasn’t had many highlights since the summer of 2013.

1. News of Woods’ surgery made his appearance earlier in the week in Missouri to announce a new course he’s building – and his participation in a two-swing PR stunt – all the more surprising.

Woods sat next to Johnny Morris, owner of Bass Pro Shops, for nearly an hour answering questions about his latest project, Payne’s Valley, which is expected to open in 2019. He then popped out of his chair and hit a pair of wedges in a “contest” with one of Morris’ young relatives.

The stunt was lighthearted, but it did evoke awkward flashbacks to last year’s Quicken Loans National media day once Woods rinsed his first shot. The second one, though, safely found the green.

But given the fact that Woods knew at the time that he was going under the knife the following day, it’s amazing he even picked up a club.

2. While Woods’ surgery got the brunt of the attention by week’s end, his plans for a new course in Missouri show promise.

Woods spoke at length about his vision as an architect, and it’s a well-crafted one even with only a handful of courses under his belt. He favors playability, creativity around the greens, manageable rough and a layout that keeps lost ball searches to a minimum.

Woods has hit on all those notes in a big way at Bluejack National outside Houston, which I can attest is a treat. If his first public project turns out anything close to that, folks will be flocking to the Ozarks in a few short years.

3. Unfortunately for Woods, his fashion sense hasn’t come along quite as quickly as his design acumen, as evidenced by Tuesday’s ensemble:

Granted, I am far from a fashionista. But the Twittersphere let Woods have it for his…questionable pants selection. But after news of his surgery surfaced later in the week, those same social media accounts were suddenly left to wonder when we’ll even see Woods again.

4. Hats off to Chappell, who finally managed to work his way into the winner’s circle at the Valero Texas Open.

Chappell’s stock has been on the rise for quite some time, as he notably racked up four runner-up finishes last season, including a playoff loss at the Tour Championship. But the titles proved elusive until Sunday, when he won just as all players envision it: by sinking a putt on the 72nd hole. He also added a nice, primal scream for good measure.

“Did you see that?” Chappell wrote on Instagram. “The monkey jumping off my back.”

Chappell played his way onto the Ryder Cup bubble last year, a considerable feat given his lack of hardware. But you should expect that he’ll make his red, white and blue debut this fall on Steve Stricker’s Presidents Cup squad.

5. One of the best aspects Chappell’s breakthrough win? His crunch-time interactions with caddie Joe Greiner.

The two had lengthy consultations over club choice and strategy throughout the final round, many of which were captured by the CBS audio team. It provided welcome insight into the mind of a player trying to close out his first win, as well as that of the man hoping to guide him to victory.

The discussion went all the way up until the final hole, when Greiner was vocal about how to plot Chappell’s par-5 layup options and offered some last-minute swing thoughts. Watching them celebrate the win a few minutes later, it was clearly a team victory.

6. With Chappell’s victory, the highest-ranked American without a PGA Tour win is now … Daniel Summerhays.

Summerhays is ranked No. 88 in the world and has been playing the Tour regularly since 2011. During that time he has compiled a pair of runner-ups and a solo third at last year’s PGA Championship that got him into the Masters.

Next on the list would be No. 92 Roberto Castro and No. 97 Jamie Lovemark, who lost playoffs last year at the Wells Fargo Championship and Zurich Classic, respectively.

7. Brooks Koepka may not have gotten the win in San Antonio, but he’s clearly on the rise.

Koepka struggled out of the gates in 2017, missing four out of his first six cuts without registering a top-40 result. But he won his group at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, finished T-11 at the Masters and nearly chased down Chappell in Texas.

Koepka is coming off a banner season that included his Ryder Cup debut, and he has one of the highest ceilings on Tour. He also has an understandable attitude about this week’s Zurich Classic, where he’ll pair with his brother Chase, who will make his PGA Tour debut.

“It could be interesting,” Koepka said Sunday. “We could kill each other on the second hole, or it could be awesome.”

8. Speaking of Zurich, the NOLA event gets a makeover this year with a new team format that has attracted an unusually strong field to TPC Louisiana. While the big names will get the early attention, here are a few under-the-radar duos worth the price of admission:

Daniel Berger/Thomas Pieters

Patrick Reed/Patrick Cantlay

Branden Grace/Louis Oosthuizen

Kevin Kisner/Scott Brown

Justin Thomas/Bud Cauley

Conversely, here are a few head-scratching combinations – one of which surely will wind up on the leaderboard come Sunday:

Spencer Levin/Rocco Mediate

Bryson DeChambeau/Rory Sabbatini

Jamie Lovemark/Luke Donald

Kyle Reifers/Andrew Johnston

Whee Kim/Greg Owen

9. Ian Poulter lost his full-time PGA Tour status when he missed the cut at Valero in the last start of his medical extension. But that doesn’t mean the Englishman is heading for the unemployment line.

Poulter has become a polarizing figure in recent years, leading some to bask in the schadenfreude of a former Ryder Cup assassin losing his card by 30 grand. But Poulter still has conditional status, both based on his previous tournament wins and his FedEx Cup standing, and he’s eligible to accept sponsor invites.

Poulter will likely be able to get several starts this summer off those bona fides, beginning this week at Zurich when he teams up with Geoff Ogilvy.

The real test will come in September, when he may have to head to Web.com Tour Finals to regain his card. It’s a scenario he can avoid only by turning his tepid game around in a hurry.

10. Jimmy Walker finally has a cause for the severe fatigue he has felt for months, but unfortunately it’s no easy fix.

The PGA champ revealed this week that he has been diagnosed with Lyme disease, a bacterial infection that comes from tick bites and can have chronic symptoms that are often hard to treat. Walker originally thought he had mono, but received his Lyme test results on the eve of the Masters.

While he refused to chalk up any bad play to his diagnosis, the news does shed some light on Walker’s sluggish performance in the wake of his triumph at Baltusrol. But he has turned things around recently, with five top-25s in his last seven starts, and hopefully is now on the road to recovery.

Get well, Jimmy.

It’s never good when you have to dodge golf balls at the breakfast table.

News broke over the weekend that McCain Foods had started a massive voluntary recall for frozen hash browns that “may be contaminated with extraneous golf ball materials.”

At this point no one has been hurt, which is always good. But we might need to get a Grill Room correspondent on the case to figure out how golf balls end up mixed with breakfast potatoes.

Is the farm next door to a driving range? Did the workers fine-tune their short games while on break? How big was the first “golf ball material” that sparked the recall? Questions abound.

Happy Birthday, We Got You A Caddie: Lydia Ko turned 20 Monday, putting a cap on her teen years that included 14 LPGA wins and two majors. She also announced the hiring of Pete Godfrey as her caddie, the 10th looper she has used since turning pro. They’ll debut together this week in Texas, where a little consistency on the bag could go a long way for the birthday girl.

Rocky Start: Curtis Luck. The top-ranked amateur turned pro last week and signed with Callaway, only to bogey his first three holes and ultimately miss the cut by a shot. No one said it’d be easy, but Luck will have plenty more opportunities – starting with the Dean & DeLuca Invitational next month.

Still Rolling: Bernd Wiesberger. The Austrian has played some great golf with little fanfare in recent months, but he finally broke through to win the Shenzhen International in a playoff over Tommy Fleetwood. Wiesberger now has eight (!) top-5 finishes since his last worldwide missed cut at the PGA Championship in July.

Still Searching: Bubba Watson. Watson made his annual pilgrimage to China for the Shenzhen event, and while he held the early lead, he couldn’t string four rounds together and ultimately tied for 26th. It continues to be a struggle for the two-time Masters champ, who hasn’t registered a top-10 finish in a full-field, stroke-play event in over a year.

Off The Market: Rory McIlroy, who tied the knot with Erica Stoll over the weekend in Ireland. The ceremony was spread across multiple days, held at an Irish castle and reportedly featured performances from Stevie Wonder and Ed Sheeran. Proof, once again, that it’s good to be Rory.

Job Well Done: McIlroy’s team. It’s hard in this day and age to keep anything truly private, but Team McIlroy managed to keep the wedding at Ashford Castle entirely under wraps, with strict security and few information leaks. Even celebrities are entitled to a little privacy on their big day should they so choose, and it’s nice to see that McIlroy got it.

El Campeon: Sergio Garcia, who put his green jacket on display Sunday when he kicked off the soccer match between Real Madrid and Barcelona. As a Madrid fan, Garcia likely wasn’t pleased by Lionel Messi’s last-second goal to give Barca the win.

It’s the Arrow, Not the Indian: Patrick Reed. On the eve of his opener in San Antonio, Reed attributed his recent struggles to the lies and lofts being off in his irons. He declared the issue largely resolved, then missed his third straight cut after a second-round 77.

Game Matching the Hair: Ollie Schniederjans. After contending at Harbour Town, the rookie put up a solid T-18 finish at Valero to crack the OWGR top 100 for the first time in his career. A breakthrough like Chappell and Wesley Bryan had in consecutive weeks may not be far behind.

Blown Fantasy Pick of the Week: Charley Hoffman. After seven straight years as the Can’t-Miss Kid in San Antonio, Hoffman put up a pedestrian T-40 finish with no score lower than his opening-round 71.

Source:  Golf Channel

The post Monday Scramble: Something old, something new appeared first on Rock Hollow Golf Club.