#i wish we had seen more berenice </3

[berenicehernandez15]

Blog 3

Berenice Hernandez UNST- 242A

Who has a stake or interest in this problem? 

People who want to make a change. People who accept everyone in this world no matter the color of their skin. Treating them like their own even though they don’t all come from the same places, growing up differently than them. 

What are their positions or views of the problem? 

They’re views on this, they believe that it interrupts the advancement of race because people can’t seem to work together. It’s a problem for both the harasser and the victim. The hate aspect problem should in a way be treated as a mental issue. 

How are different stakeholders impacted differently by this problem?

People look for opportunities, and because of racial discrimination they tend to feel discouraged and not even bother to make an attempt. People of color are pushed away and in a way thrown towards the back because their capacities and education are not as high as a white individual. Their self- esteem is crushed causing them to lose hope and not feel mentally prepared for the world and opportunities.  

Interview Questions

To Interviewee:

Thank you for taking the time to meet with me. This interview consists of a number of questions in relation to your ethnicity/ race. I understand that this may be a sensitive topic for some, but would be greatly appreciated if you could answer the questions to the best of your ability. 

How do you think racism has affected your life? 

What are some names or ways people have harassed you verbally because of your skin color? 

Do you think that if you were “white” people would treat you differently? 

How does it make you feel when you see other’s getting better treatment than you because of the color of your skin?

Has anyone/ anyplace refused to give you service? 

Have you been accused wrongly for something you didn’t do due to your skin complexion? 

Do you have a job? 

Have you had a hard time keeping a job because you’re “non-white”? 

Has work ever treated you differently? 

Do you think people’s salaries are based more so on skin color and class than capacities? 

Do you and another co-worker have the same time and capacity/ skills at your job? 

Are you both the same ethnicity/ race? 

Do you know if they have a higher salary than you?

If yes:

How does this make you feel?

 Do you think that if you were “white” you’d be at the same pay?

If no: 

Would you be upset if they do? 

Do you think your job would do something like this? 

What are some ways you think we can better society so that racial discrimination in all aspects is minimized? 

 “Be proud of your roots, always remember the blood that runs in your veins”. My grand-mother always reminded me of this when she was with me. Racism has always been a tough topic, due to the fact that I am half black, half hispanic. It’s taught me all the bad aspects of being a person of color, not being easy to get opportunities I wish I had. People have called me “Ni**er”, “cotton picker”, “slave worker” and many more names. If I were white feel like I would have more leeway for doing certain things because I feel like a lot of the time I get seen as a threat or delinquent.  Seeing others get better treatment because I am non-white is a bit frustrating and upsetting because I am just like them, I am not different. Does the color of my skin really have that much of an impact? As of right now no, I have not had an experience where someone has refused service to me. I am hoping that I don’t have to go through anything like it. Once, I went into a little market near my house… the store clerk kept looking at me weirdly. As I was leaving his store he accused me of stealing. He was on the verge of searching me, as he said “ I have a suspicion you stole a candy bar.” I looked at him and in anger and shock said “suspicion? Really? Call the police, have them come and I’ll press charges for harassment.” Fortunately he let me go and apologized because he was in the wrong. I do have a job, I am a cashier for Express in Clackamas Town Center. All of my jobs have been great with me, I have never had a hard time keeping a job. I feel like my job does give more of a privilege to white people, I won’t lie, I do see it often. Some of the other girls ask for a day off whilst the girls of color tend to have a harder time getting them. Well I mean, yeah. I feel like all the time an individual's salaries are more so based on race and skin color than skills. Yes, actually there is one of them who became a good friend of mine. She came in about 2 weeks after I did, and both have been working there since. We have discussed our salaries before, it may not be the smartest thing to do but it so happened to come up. She did mention her pay rate and is $0.50 higher than me. It’s upsetting, but now that I am here answering these questions I understand why. She’s white… meaning she had more leverage on a higher pay. I feel like if I were white I would also have a higher pay and even more advantage at my job, much more opportunities. Racism is never going to end, there will always be individuals who won't accept people of color. But we can in a way learn to work together to become a better world. We can show people that we aren’t “bad” like they think we are, that in reality we are great individuals who live in fear of getting harassed, oppressed, or even killed. Racism isn’t stopping me, I’m proud of who I am, proud of my roots. I will work for what I want, even if the color of my skin is a barrier.

[littlenekosfan]

berenice...........

usually i would post this on my priv, but hey, i will indulge a little since nobody talks about them

i already made a little summary of their bg on discord and i have some brainworms rn for some reason... like quincy brainworms, but him especially and jugram’s aide too (but this time, no sapphic, only berenice bg)

ill make it short, i realized that ritters are all pure blood quincies, so berenice cant have mixed parents... unless, i make one of them (lets say the dad) be like jugram case, jugram isnt an unique case and im not really sure about how much a quincy is self aware about being one (they never tackled that with jugram unfortunately) but lets say their dad was one of the “defectives” one but never knew he had quincy heritage in the first place, as for their mom, she is aware about her powers, but deems them as curse (thanks to the church) so she pretends she doesnt know about them (i can even go and say berenice parents unconsciously meet and were compatible from the fact they are quincies but never knew lmao) berenice is an only child, but she would have step/half siblings who were “better” than her bc they would do what the church says to do (the mother didnt have other children, the dad did but he didnt give “proper” quincies bc he’s not a “normal” one anyways), berenice is the type to question.. a bit too much, but for the good reasons.. anyways, at some point she kinda snaps and makes enough noise to be not only kicked out from the church but also considered as a witch, and so, they would exclude themselves from the village, living alone wasnt so bad, but its no fun to be fearful that someone finds you and wants your head.,, one day some kids (just two,, like juazz :) ) would wander too close from berenice’s shack and one of them would trip and hurt themselves.. berenice hearing the crying, he hides and see the kid, he uses his quincy powers to heal, the kids were really apprehensive at first (i mean, seeing glowing hands that looks like fire... yeah) but they were amazed by berenice skills who was still learning.. anyways, the kids leave and would sometimes visit them to offer something as thank you, they always kept the secret since berenice told them to, few months passes by and one of the kid would discover they also have quincy powers, berenice shocked and worried, tells the kid everything they need to know, the kid learning more about their heritage would come more and more often to practice their powers bc they didnt consider them as a curse since berenice only shown it as a good thing, and so, they became berenice first “apprentice” (the other kid would also come to assist and cheer their friend) but that didnt last long when yhwach found them, berenice didnt want to join at first, she thought it was some kind of trap to kill her for “converting kids” but yhwach was able to gain berenice trust pretty quick by proving he’s the quincy king and this and that (not to pull another juazz moment, but lets say the kids didnt join bc they were too young, yhwach was only taking strong quincies, not all of them)

its just some rambling for fun, i like to imagine some scenarios but i figured id share with you guys if you want, im not really good with fics and art takes a LOT of time... so yeah :)

[snesdudes]

28 dates with Unit Bravo

Day 3: DATE

Pairing: Nate x f!Detective (Berenice Bailey)

Warnings: None, this is just fluff. Berenice is freaking out because she has her first date with Nate, but Farah is there for her.

Words: ~1.2k

☾ 一一一一一一一一一 ☽

"That's it, Berry. That's the one."

Berenice rolled her eyes at Farah, eying the vampire comfortably spread on her bed while she looked at herself in the mirror.

"You've said that about the last five dresses!"

Farah huffed. "Because they all were perfect! Seriously, is this a human thing? You have to try on a hundred dresses before a date?"

The detective groaned, sitting down on the bed beside her friend, fingers getting lost in her black hair. "I know I'm being ridiculous. But it's our first date date."

"What about the carnival one?"

"That caught me off guard!" Berry turned her gaze towards the golden one of the vampire, and she could see her anxiety. "I didn't dress up or thought about what we were going to do, I was just there and suddenly we were on a date!" Farah put a comforting hand on her back. "I just want to look different than I normally do, I want tonight to be special for Nate."

Farah snickered and gained an outraged glance from the other woman. "Sorry, but Nate is over the moon since you two started dating. You could show up naked and I'm sure he'd be delighted. Though I guess you wouldn't make it to the restaurant then."

Berenice let out a laugh before swatting at her arm playfully. "You're as bad as Morgan."

The tension on her body seemed to ease as they laughed together.

"Seriously though…" Farah started, and was about to remind Berenice of the fact that Nate had seen her with her usual bright sundresses, as well as in her PJs, in training clothes, with no makeup, even bloodied and bruised, and he had fallen for her because she was more than the way she looked or the clothes she wore. But knowing Berenice, that would probably make her tear up and it had taken forever for her to do her eyeliner, so she just said: "The dark blue one."

The brunette perked up. "The strapless one? Isn't that one a little too… tight?"

"You gotta strut your stuff, babe." Farah winked at her. "Got any heels? I've always seen you in flats, and that way you won't look like a gnome beside Nate."

"I got the peep toe pumps I bought for my last blind date." She started taking off the dress and putting on the one Farah had said. "Which I canceled, so I spent a day walking on them through the apartment for nothing - wait, did you say I look like a gnome?!"

The vampire cocked a brow. "How long ago was that date?"

"Uh… two years, I think?"

"Damn, Berry."

"What? I was tired of trying to find someone, I thought if the right person was going to appear, they would find me." She finished zipping up her dress and turned to see a wistful smile on Farah's face. "What is it?"

"You and Nate are perfect for each other."

The smile spreading on Berenice's face quickly turned into a panicked expression at the sound of a knocking on the door. "He's here! Eeek!" She jumped on the spot, trying to find the shoes on her wardrobe but only managing to make a box of sandals fall on her forehead. "Not the time!" She said through gritted teeth.

"Whoa. Please, chill. I'll get the door."

Berenice threw her a grateful smile as Farah walked out of the bedroom, shaking her head with amusement. She opened the door to find a smiling Nate. Farah looked at him up and down, he was wearing a light grey shirt with a dark blue tie, the same color of his fitting jeans.

"Damn, Natey, don't you look nice for our dear detective." She teased, but the smile on her face was genuine. "Nervous?"

Nate smoothed some inexistent wrinkles from his shirt, but his grin was the brightest she had ever seen. "More like excited. Incredibly so."

Berenice stepped into the living room walking steadier on her high heels than Farah had thought she would, but when she looked down her legs she realized she was wearing a pair of black flat booties.

She needed to feel comfortable - and also be able to keep in pace with Nate's strides - if they were going to take a walk after dinner. She needed to feel she was prepared for everything, and she could not feel in control wearing 5 inches heels.

But the knots inside her stomach melted into butterflies when she met those chocolate eyes. They were slightly widened, his lips parted as he exhaled a deep breath, and she was suddenly glad she had listened to Farah's advice about the dress.

"Berenice." He practically sighed, stepping inside the apartment, and she met him halfway, looking up at him. "I'm afraid you've rendered me speechless." He chuckled, a hand rubbing the back of his neck. She was staring at him with fascination, taking in how different he looked without his usual layers of warm colors, and how beautifully the silvery grey of his shirt complimented his tawny skin.

Without knowing how, their hands had found each other, and they both looked down at their intertwined fingers, Nate giving her a soft squeeze.

"Well, I'll leave you two lovebirds to it." Farah grinned widely, stepping outside the door. "Remember you have a reservation, you will miss it if you stay there looking at each other all night."

Nate almost rolled his eyes at the interruption of their tender moment, but Berenice looked back to Farah.

"Thank you for everything. See you soon?"

The vampire winked at her. "Maybe tomorrow morning if you don't sleep in your apartment tonight." And with that, she was gone, only the sound of her giggling behind her.

Berenice snorted a laugh and looked up to Nate's flushed face, and it was her turn to squeeze his hand. "You look so handsome." She said softly, and his demeanor relaxed. He tugged her hand and brought her closer, leaning down to her until he could place a kiss on her cheek. The thunderous drumming of her heart the best soundtrack he could wish for.

"You look absolutely lovely tonight, Berry." He kissed her forehead next, his eyes falling to a red spot. "Did you hit your head?" He carefully caressed the area as he heard her snort a laugh before covering her mouth with her hand.

"My wardrobe attacked me." She vaguely explained, and he wanted to ask more, but she was on her tiptoes and her hand was tugging him down by his tie.

He obliged happily, lips finding each other softly, a welcome kiss to mark the start of their first night going out together as a couple. He had everything planned, but all his thoughts were lost at the soft insistence of her tongue against his lips, searching his own, and soon the kiss was deeper and he groaned into her mouth before straightening up, pecking her lips one last time.

"We should go if we want to make it on time." But the way his half hooded eyes stared at her parted lips let her know how reluctant he was to stop kissing her. She nodded, half entranced by those deep eyes and his half smile.

When he offered his hand, she took it without a second thought, fingers intertwining as if they had been doing this for ages.

"Shall we?"

"Let's go."

And so started the first date of the countless they would share.

[jghouse-asia-pacific]

New Post has been published on https://www.jg-house.com/2021/02/09/old-man-friend-paris/

An Old Man and His Friend in Paris

“Watch where you’re going, Little Man,” Sylvere said, speaking in Kikongo and placing his hand on the head of the small boy. Sylvere stood next to the open drawer of his desk inside the room he used as an office at his modest but comfortable two-story house in the old section, built in the ’70s, of Combs-la-Ville not far from the municipal swimming pool. He had been looking for some documents which he never did find. The boy, Charles, who was five years old, had burst through the open door of the room, kicking a small soccer ball with one foot and running head first into the older man’s legs.

“Désolé, Papy,” Charles said, picking up the ball with both hands and running back through the open door into the hallway toward the kitchen. Sylvere watched the boy disappear. The light in the room, which came from the sunlight entering a narrow window in the western wall, was growing weaker as the sun set.

“He spends more time here than in his own house,” Sylvere said to himself, wondering if his grandson, the son of his oldest daughter, Sylvie, and her husband, Richard, was going to spend the night again. It was almost 7:00 on a Sunday evening, the day before Bastille Day, France’s most important holiday. Probably his daughter and son-in-law would be going out somewhere to celebrate, not that they needed a special occasion to dump their son on his grandparents.

“Papy!” the boy yelled from the kitchen. “Grandma says your dinner is ready!” The boy’s French was improving every day.

Sylvere realized he was hungry. He grasped the handle of the drawer and was pushing it back into the wooden desk frame when he thought he saw a flash of red light. He opened the drawer again, pulling it out as far as it would go. This time he was certain. He saw a flash of red light at the back of the drawer. He hadn’t noticed it earlier because the light of the day still predominated. He removed all of the contents from the drawer. There, lying against the bare wood at the back, he saw it. How did it get there?

The sight of a mobile phone in that location perplexed Sylvere. Then he recognized the device. It was the one he used when, upon retiring from IBM where he had worked for almost 40 years as an electrical engineer, he worked on occasion as a consultant, accepting small projects from clients in France and other countries of Europe. After another few moments, Sylvere recalled he had used the phone perhaps two weeks before to make a single short call because the contact information of the former colleague he had wanted to reach was stored inside the device.

Two Boys on a Boat

Sylvere grasped the phone. Immediately, he noticed the battery was dying. It very well might die at any moment, he realized. But also, he saw that he had missed three calls. Each one was from the same phone number. The number was not one Sylvere recognized, although he did recognize the first part, +243, the country code of Congo.

Then Sylvere noticed three new voice-mail messages waiting for him. Realizing the battery of the phone could die at any moment, he attempted to listen to the messages. He was able to listen to the first one. Next, he was able to move to the second one. Finally, he listened to the third one. The battery died.

Sylvere placed the phone on top of the desk, turned around, walked through the open door of his office, turned to the left, and entered the kitchen. He walked to one side of the kitchen. It was the side opposite the operational part of the room with its stove, oven, sink, and other appliances. It was in this part that his wife, Josephine, and his daughters seemed to cook and clean at all hours of the day and night, but here too he sometimes prepared a special Congolese recipe of white beans just for himself.

Now a plate with a piece of fish and a portion of vegetables from which steam still rose awaited Sylvere at the table. He sat down before the plate.

“Will you want anything else?” Josephine asked, speaking in Lingala, the predominant language among residents of Kinshasa, where she and Sylvere had met each other many years before. “I want to go into the living room and watch the television for a little while.”

“No, merci,” Sylvere replied, smiling at his wife, who left the room. The boy was nowhere to be seen. Probably he already was in the other room watching cartoons. But Sylvere was thinking about his childhood friend, Ronald. Sylvere had been thinking of Ronald since hearing a few minutes before the three voice-mail messages which the doctor in Kabare had left for Sylvere over the course of the previous two weeks.

Now Ronald was dead. Now Claudette, Ronald’s daughter, was in desperate need of Sylvere’s help. Sylvere knew he had to honor the wishes of his friend, who in his final message just a few days before he was killed by militia members had issued an urgent appeal to Sylvere: Please rescue my daughter from Congo and take her to France.

***

Charles jerked his hand free of Josephine’s hand and ran toward the other boy, who held a half-full bottle of orange soda in one hand and with the other was waving a toy robot in the face of a small girl. Josephine and Sylvere, moving more slowly, followed their grandson through the open front door of the house into a large, high-ceilinged room, where in addition to children a group of adults sat in chairs or stood around a long table covered in a white embroidered cloth and laden with dishes displaying a variety of foods. Music came from a speaker placed on one end of a bar which divided the front room from the kitchen and a backyard beyond.

The music wasn’t too loud. It mixed easily with voices, laughter, and sounds of children playing in the hot, still air of the room. Sylvere recognized the song. It was a famous ballad, called Wapi Yo, by the singer and song writer Lokua Kanza, who came from the town of Bukavu in eastern Congo just west of the border with Rwanda.

Young Woman

“We won’t stay long,” Josephine said to her husband. “I know you don’t like these parties.” She was speaking in Lingala. “Anyway, we can’t stay long,” she continued. “Sylvie and Richard will be at our house at 5:30 to pick up Charles. Sylvie has the early shift at the airport tomorrow.” Josephine waved at a woman across the room. “But I want a chance to talk with my friend, Berenice,” Josephine added, starting to walk away. “I haven’t seen her for over a month.”

“She’s right,” Sylvere said to himself, watching his wife as she greeted people in the room. “I don’t like these parties, either to celebrate Bastille Day or any other day.”

Sylvere wanted a chance to talk with his friend too. He had an urgent matter to discuss with him in fact. Sylvere glanced at his watch. It was almost 3:00. The afternoon was passing quickly. He knew it wouldn’t be easy to have a moment in private with his friend, Pinto, though. Even if Sylvere didn’t want to celebrate the holiday, Pinto had no choice. As the owner of the house and the host of the party, he had duties to fulfill.

“I hope you didn’t walk over here,” said a voice. Sylvere looked to his right at a man who had stood up from a sofa under the front window of the house with its view of a garden of red and white roses, a gate made of black wrought iron, and the street itself which led down the hill to the center of Combs-la-Ville. The man, who was a few years younger than Sylvere, had spoken his words in French as he approached. “It’s hot outside,” the man added in Lingala, laughing.

“It’s hot inside,” Sylvere replied quietly in French, looking back toward the middle of the room and trying to spot Pinto. He had never really liked the man now standing next to him. The man, Serge, who had grown up in Kinshasa but who like Sylvere had lived for many years in France, always seemed to try too hard to impress others, particularly other members of the Congolese community, with ostentatious shows of wealth. He and his wife, Penelope, had a reputation for showing up to a party flashing expensive pieces of jewelry they had purchased for the occasion only to put the necklaces, rings, and earrings up for sale on one Web site or another after the event.

“Maybe they think nobody knows,” Bernadette, Pinto’s wife, had once said to Josephine. “But it’s more likely they just can’t control themselves.”

Sylvere typically didn’t concern himself with such matters but at that moment he found himself looking at Serge, moving his gaze across the younger man’s hands, arms, and neck. It appeared that Serge was not wearing, in fact, any jewelry at all. Sylvere was about to scan the room for Penelope when he stopped himself. Suddenly, he felt the need to know something else entirely, even if he had to ask the opinion of a man known for his materialism, not his wisdom.

Old Man on a Boat

“Do you think we’ll ever have a stable political system in Congo?” Sylvere asked in Lingala.

“Stable?” Serge replied. He took a sip from a glass of lemonade he held in one hand and studied Sylvere’s face. “Stable how?”

“Stable like the institutions here in France,” Sylvere said, looking across the large room into the kitchen. He saw Bernadette standing in front of a wide stove. She was using a wooden spoon to stir the contents of a pot.

“Oh,” Serge said. He took another sip of lemonade from his glass. “I see,” he continued, looking at Sylvere with a glint in his eye. “You’re asking because of the French holiday we have today,” Serge added. Then he smiled, tilting his head slightly to one side, as if he had caught Sylvere in a trick. Sylvere, though, was silent, scanning the people in the room. He still didn’t see his friend, Pinto. “Well,” Serge said finally, “no, honestly, I don’t. But don’t forget the French rebelled against Louis XVI in 1789 and then fell into the grip of Napoleon in 1799. He was a warlord who led the French into disaster. France wasn’t stable then; Frenchmen weren’t free.”

“Congo is rich and has great promise,” Sylvere replied, even though he didn’t think the prospect for peace back home would improve any time soon. Serge waited. He expected an elaboration of some sort from Sylvere. But Sylvere was silent again, watching the people in the room. Serge turned to look at the other party goers too. He drank the final few drops of lemonade from his glass. Then he turned back to Sylvere.

“So you didn’t walk over here?” Serge pressed Sylvere, laughing again. Serge knew Sylvere lived close by. He also knew Sylvere recently had started walking two miles every day and swimming 50 laps in the municipal pool three times per week in an effort to lose weight and improve his overall fitness. But Sylvere, who had just driven Josephine and Charles the four blocks from his house on Rue Gustave Hervé to Pinto’s house on Rue René Descartes in his old beige Renault 360C sedan, had no desire to humor the man.

“Pinto needs to have two or three fans going at the same time in this room,” Sylvere said, again speaking quietly in French before noticing one small fan turning rapidly on its axis at the end of the bar near the mouth of the kitchen. “He needs to put a big one right here next to the front door,” Sylvere added, turning to look at the ground behind him.

“He did,” Serge said. “But a few minutes before you arrived it stopped working.” Serge paused. “Pinto said he could fix it,” Serge continued, glancing in the direction of the backyard. “Then he disappeared outside with it.” Sylvere didn’t react. A silence ensued. Sylvere was thinking about going outside too. But he decided to prepare a plate of food for himself before going into the backyard to find Pinto. Serge shifted his weight from one foot to another. “Sylvere, I’m sorry about Ronald,” he added. Sylvere looked at Serge.

Mother and Son at Restaurant

“Yes, me too,” Sylvere said finally, moving toward the table with its dishes of food. Bernadette, who was approaching the table from the kitchen, stopped in front of Sylvere. She was carrying a large earthenware pot covered by a glass lid in both hands.

“Try some of my white beans,” Bernadette said in Kikongo to Sylvere, placing the large pot next to a dish of vegetables on the table and removing the glass lid. Like Sylvere, Bernadette and her husband, Pinto, were members of the Kongo ethnic group originating in southwestern Congo. “I think my recipe is better than yours,” she added. Then she placed the lid back on the pot and looked at Sylvere. “But you can eat later,” she said. “Pinto is waiting for you in the shed.”

Sylvere, relieved no one else attempted to talk with him as he made his way into the backyard, found Pinto in the aluminum shed he had transformed into a small workshop. The two men had known each other for more than 40 years. They had met not back in Africa, however, but rather in Europe, where both of them had gone to work at the French headquarters of IBM in Paris at about the same time. Both of them had been able to emigrate from Congo to France because of their educational background and their technical expertise as electrical engineers.

In front of Pinto on a high bench in the middle of the workshop was a large fan which he had disassembled and now was in the act of re-assembling.

“I had to replace a relay,” Pinto said in Kikongo, glancing at Sylvere. “It should work now.” He plugged the power cord into an outlet and flipped a switch on the fan. Nothing happened.

“You better hurry up and fix it,” Sylvere replied. “If your guests haven’t left already, all of them are going to die of heat stroke.” Then he told Pinto about the calls and accompanying voicemail messages from Ronald. Pinto, who had not had a personal relationship with Ronald but who had heard about the doctor’s death like everyone else, didn’t speak. Sitting silently on his stool, Pinto placed both hands palms down on the work bench for a few moments. Then he removed the power cord from the outlet and stared at the fan.

“What are you going to do?” Pinto asked finally.

“I’m going to honor Ronald’s wishes,” Sylvere replied. “I’m going to bring Claudette to France.”

“Yes, I understand,” Pinto said. “But how are you going to do it?” Both Sylvere and Pinto knew how difficult it was to bring an African either legally or illegally to Europe. Both knew that in the end it could prove impossible.

“I don’t know yet,” Sylvere said, leaning over the bench and switching the positions of two tiny electronic components near the base of the fan’s blades. He re-inserted the power cord and flipped the switch. The blades started turning slowly then very rapidly. “But now you’re going to help me.”

***

#Europe, #France, #LifeCulture #Beauty, #Culture, #Love, #Paris

[alxndre-0001]

Alex’s Literary Reads of 2019 (from the months of June to September)

Caution: Bad, unedited writing ahead. Alex is a lazy person

Being a law student is an exhausting line of self-inflicted harm. Your life becomes an onslaught of reading materials and even more reading materials to catch up to. Now, reading has been second nature to me since I was four years old, so you can just imagine the sheer amount of readings my law professors have given us for me to consider detesting reading. 

I’ve managed to keep my sobriety from purely academic books by inserting novels, short stories and some poetry along the way. In all my four years in law school, this is the only year that I read as much as I wanted to. Mostly, short stories and essays that could be finished in one sitting. I had summer classes and wasn’t able to go home at all since January or February so I kept myself preoccupied by reading leisurely ( I know, gasp! Is that even possible for Alex in this economy?).

So here they are ++ some reviews and thoughts on the books.

1. Delta of Venus by Anais Nin

I read this book at the same time as a friend of mine. It was my first time diving into erotica considered to hold literary merit, the ones I had before were utterly terrible, by the way. But we are talking of Anais Nin anyway, so there’s that. It’s actually a collection of erotic short stories involving different, unconnected characters although a few of them were referenced in other stories. As someone who’s always been fine with sex in plots, this one left me feeling visibly unsettled. I realized how truly romanticized sex can be in popular books (e.g Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy). The outpouring of feminine pleasure on those books was strictly gratuitous and self-indulgent. Delta of Venus was an uncomfortable experience because it fleshed out several discomfiting realities of sex and titillation – violence is often an element of power play in the bedroom, voyeuristic tendencies of everyone, depraved fantasies which are almost immoral in their insistence. 

Of particular impressions were ‘The Hungarian Adventurer’ and ‘Boarding School’ which explored themes of rape, incest, and even bestiality at one point.  It wasn’t the fact of preference that appalled me, it was the simple exposition of the truth – sex is all things good and bad, inexplicable and sensual. I have a problem with how media portrays sex, especially in popular culture which is partial with idealistic notions of sexual roles apparent in concepts like the male gaze and fantasy in porn. You see, these things eventually become damaging. When we glamorize something as common as sex, it either becomes fodder for taboo or fantasy, which incidentally what occurs with conversations of sex. Either it is a subject much condemned for its alleged impurity or a dirty little secret which encourages unrealistic expectations for both sexes. 

Nin’s style of writing borders on the absurd, but it is done intentionally. In one interview, she narrated how a client wanted her to write erotica which was basically porn and just skip the poetry. She refused as any self-respecting and intelligent woman would.  And well, we need to appreciate her for that. If she let the client have his way, then what we’d have is an exaggerated image of sex instead of the unnerving stories of Delta. In a sense, we can consider Delta as a commentary on sex literature which caters to a male audience. The stories were rife with feeling, of emotion, which feminized a genre so overtly masculine, pandering to the male gaze.

There were quite a number of jibes at the male gaze as well with stories like ‘Marianne’ and the ‘The Veiled Woman’. My favorite was when Marianne (Marianne) met a man who felt erotic pleasure by only being looked at, like an object of desire. It appeared to me as a reverse of the male gaze, which often portrayed women as the object of desire, effacing her human qualities to turn her into just a vessel to express lust, infatuation or even love. But here, the object of desire is a man and we are made privy into his thoughts and actions, humanizing him instead of treating him as just an object. 

Overall, Delta of Venus was a fine starter for anyone who wished to know more of Anais Nin. The prose flowed well, even lyrically so, despite sex being a subject which can easily turn stale if not carefully written. 

2. Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe

My first experience with Poe was when I was around nine or ten years old. I was a nosy child when it came to other people’s books and one day I found printed copies of short stories of my cousin’s in his room. One of them was A Tell-Tale Heart.  I still remember feeling on edge as I read the slightly blurred lines in cheap brown paper, it was utterly thrilling. The horror of the story comes less from the almost supernatural obsession of the unnamed character with the eye of the old man. It was more on his slipping attempts of overcoming the inhuman desire to kill the man for his eye. 

There’s always something that fascinates me with horror that is internally driven. More than the hostility of vampires, the looming threats of an apocalypse, the real horror for me lies in the deep recesses of the human heart, that inscrutable machine that throbs inextricably within all of us. And I feel like that’s what always impressed me with Poe. He had the excellent ability to articulate darkness that is motivated by the self and that is a feat for writers. Stephen King, for example, is great at understanding that his monsters are metaphors for his inner demons but he relates them into tangible forms be it demon dogs, telekinetic teenagers to give them an external existence. 

Poe has a clear grasp of fear and all its friends. And though some critics would lend an idea that Poe writes well with supernatural elements, I beg to disagree. He uses, for one, unreliable narrators (Berenice, William Williamson, Fall of the House of Usher). The thing with unreliable narrators is they warp the sense of reality of the stories, an indication to the reader that everything is not what it seems. And if one pays enough attention, then they could ask the all-important question: Is this the real-life or is this just fantasy? If you’re playing with those two possibilities, then you’d be less scared with the supernatural/ external world than the worldview of the narrator. You start to scrutinize him more closely, dog his steps, intimate his intentions, etc like some fixated lover. In doing so, in peering into the mind of another, you stumble into your own inner motivations, your thoughts and who knows you might mirror the darkness the narrator is struggling with? 

And there is the true gift of Poe – he reads everyone like how he reads himself. He doesn’t do this by getting acquainted with thousands of people with innumerable different lives. No, sir. He forces readers to examine themselves and the darkness inherent in men but constantly, through our self-delusion denied as present in others but not in ourselves. I need not belabor that this kind of writer is my favorite, the ones with a very vivid understanding of humanity, no matter how bleak the answers that arrive to them.

I went at liberties with Poe (lol) but some favorites inside the collection of stories are The Case of M. Valdemar, Black Cat, Descent into the Maelstrom and Pit of the Pendulum. My only issue is Poe’s tendency to philosophize in protracted terms that I was afraid I was going to get bored to death ( Domain of Arnheim, The Island of the Fay) with the possible exception of ‘The Colloquy of Monos and Una’ since I like the ideas presented there. 

3. Slapstick! or Lonesome No More by Kurt Vonnegut

I was supposed to start with Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions or Cat’s Cradle but the only available copy of the writer’s work in the book fair (thanks BBW!!) was this one. It seemed like a light read, a stark contrast from Poe’s grim, verbose collection, so I decided to give it a go. The last time I read a sci-fi novel was Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 ( a real shame since I planned on reading more sci-fi this year). I finished it in less than a day and I wouldn’t say it left me with any remarkable opinion as much as the other books have had on me except that Vonnegut seemed like that fun, carefree uncle in reunions who has an alcohol abuse problem, is unmarried, and eats grapefruit for breakfast.

It’s not a very long novel and Vonnegut kept ending every part with ‘Hi, ho’. There’s a deeper sadness that is thinly veiled in the book as well, yeah slapstick, which reminded me of David Wallace’s Infinite Jest except the latter presents a more serious nod to its humor. 

It tells the story of Wilbur and Eliza, twins who are considered conventionally horrendous and abnormal in physical qualities. They are tall, too tall in fact. But thank god for rich parents who secretly dislike them, that they lived a sheltered existence away from everyone else other than their servants and a doctor who checks them every day. Unbeknownst to the parents and everyone else, the twins are super smart but only if they are allowed to share their intelligence by being close to each other. 

Long story made short, it’s a light read and perhaps a good overview of Vonnegut’s style of writing. I did want to read Slaughterhouse-Five after this one, so maybe that’s a good start. 

4. Dubliners by James Joyce

I’m having a hard time deciding whether this is my favorite out of everything else in this list or not. James Joyce was actually one of the writers I wanted to read very closely and understand his style better. He had such status and influence in modernism, plus the mythic reputations of both Finnegan’s Wake and Ulysses for their wrought complexity and ingenuity in style that I felt drawn to his works.  You should have seen my face when I got a copy of this book at the BBW Fair last August – think of a kid in a candy store for an accurate depiction. 

Let’s cut right down to the chase. What do I really think of this book? To sum up my thoughts about it: If there is a master class for short story writing, Dubliners should be a required reading. I am by no means a writer or journalist but as someone who reads short stories often (more often than novels or poetry) for the last two or three years, Dubliners was a standout. 

Dubliners is actually a collection of short stories (hell I’ve only been having collections, is this a pattern? lol). They are set in Ireland mediated through the simplicity of daily life.  I admired the craftsmanship of Joyce in this one, the prose was written so concisely, dispensing with the arduous descriptions that lead nowhere.  

The characters, too, were forged from the circumstances of ordinariness – a dead priest, an abused woman, a boy about to come of age and so on. The characters themselves feel like semblances of a collective consciousness – that of Ireland during a tumultuous time in the  20th century.  In a way, the mundane, individual aspects of a character’s life was a mirror to the social conditions Joyce wanted to portray emphatically in the stories. The style was polished in a way that one is made to occupy the places mentioned in Dublin through the familiarity of an old friend, a returning local into the arms of unchanged memories. There hung in each story, a great atmosphere of nostalgia and I suspect it is because Joyce knows how to excavate sentiments for places which we haven’t even visited or seen but that somehow we recognize as phantoms of our very own lives. 

There is indeed great beauty in the most ordinary things and it takes the eye of an artist to take the uneventful and reveal its exquisiteness. Joyce made me grasp a show of that ability in the days that I pored through his collection. Whatever he intended while writing Dubliners, whether as a mirror of a conflicted Irish society or as a commentary to the social context borne through those times, it is his style that won me over. The plots were as simplistic as possible and there was no way to harness more meaning from the events of a character’s life rather than to take them at face value and coming to the understanding of just how nuanced and visceral our daily lives can be if only we looked hard enough, paid attention enough.

Dubliners reminded me of what I look for most in a book. It really is less of the plot or even it’s overarching theme and more of the style. Language as an art form has always been my standard in saying if a book has taken me in or not.  The great writer, Vladimir Nabokov is similarly convinced that language can elevate a story into an art form. There is artistic merit in a writer’s style just by itself and I would rather read a book with a weak plot but with a sound use of language than a novel plot with a severely exploited and copied style. 

5. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Perhaps the other strong contender for favorite in this list is Heart of Darkness. To be fair, it was less a book and more of an experience. An experience of what literature can do when it goes beyond style and narration to get to the bottom of the writer’s innermost motivations for writing the book. I ended Heart of Darkness, perplexed and in much quandary. There are only two possible explanations: First either the book was beyond me and my mediocre mind that try as I might, meaning of any sort would only elude me. Second, it was so condensed with significance that reading it once simply didn’t qualify as reading it at all. By the end of maybe two days, I realized it was the latter. For the lack of any other time, I’m going to try and process its entirety with the sum of my reading it only once.

I confess I looked up a video review off YouTube before getting to the book, mostly because classics have a way of being exhaustively discussed without losing their ability to sustain a reader’s interest. In my case, spoilers don’t do any damage or if there is any, of only negligible consequence since I look for other things other than the stream of events.

According to the video review, the book is an example of darkness as a location. To put context to this description, it would be good to tell a bit of the story. This is about an English man named Marlow who went to Congo to take on greener chances in the trade therein and for which the backdrop is meant to replicate the inhuman conditions of the slave trade. Amidst all this is another man named Kurtz, who was quite illustrious as a prodigious ivory trader and who was steeped in so much mystery. Upon arriving at the Congo, Marlow witnesses the cruel treatment of the ‘slaves’ under the supervision of the Europeans. 

[vampbait-a]

|| Cemetery Roses ||

|| co-written with @cynaram     Previous: [1] [2] [3]

There were ghosts and there were ghosts.  

Cabal had left the parlor immediately, ignoring Horst’s words, shaking off his hands.  He wanted to be alone.  But he was not alone, was he? She follows you.  He went to his attic laboratory, the highest, farthest point of the house.

Had she followed him all these years?  It was only a common apparition, surely: an assortment of phrases and scenes etched upon this reality by that soul as it fled away.  One could not speak to such a thing, and it did not feel, but Cabal still found the idea unutterably sad, that any shred of her had flitted at his heels.

It must be a simple apparition.  For if it was not.  If it was not, what had she seen?

Tears of red stained Laurelai's vision, hurt and confusion fueling her flight. She did not understand why the man Cabal had attacked her; why he was so angry.

Hadn't he said they were the same? Had he not asked for her to prove her abilities? Laurelai hated that she could not remember. The spirit had been gone when she had been so violently awoken.

She thought he had meant to kill her.

Impeded by her skirt, Laurelai fell twice.

Skinned knees and palms ignored, she wept all the long journey home.

Dawn brought the numb relief of sleep, though without dreams, she found little rest. Night came, and little had changed.

Laurelai remained in her nest, staring listlessly up at the many baubles hanging from the chapel ceiling.

----

Horst didn’t know what to say.  He wasn’t going to get any ideas, but anything had to be better than leaving Johannes sitting in his lab, motionless, as he had for the past four hours.  He heard Johannes’ breathing shift at the knock and pushed the door inward.  His brother sat at his empty writing desk.  An expression cleared from his face as Horst entered.  “Yes?”

“Are you all right?”

Johannes paused. “Yes.”  The word lacked force, as if he didn’t understand what he was saying.

Horst ached for him. Hearing Berenice’s voice had been frightening.  It had been worse, of course, for Johannes.  “Laurelai hasn’t come back.”  Horst put a folded package of clothing on the table by the door.  “She was scared.  She wasn’t trying to… well, you know.  She was only trying to help.”

The pause again. “Yes.”  There may have been a shade of meaning in it this time.

Horst wished he could do something.  As it was, he couldn’t even sit up with his brother.  Dawn was coming.  “Eat something.  There’s half a cold chicken in the larder.”

Johannes blinked. “Yes.  Perhaps.”

When Horst awoke, his brother was gone.  There was no note.  Horst had to take comfort from the disappearance of most of the chicken and all of Laurelai’s effects.

Laurelai was thirsty, but would not rise. She lay listless amid the tangle of soft blankets and cushions- stolen from clotheslines- that served as her nest.

She wanted to go back, to apologize and explain, but it seemed foolish. He had hated her. Laurelai had heard the venom in Cabal's voice. How dare you.

Inhuman. She curled on her side, ignoring the hollow ache of her thirst and balling her fists in the fabric of her skirt. It was stained with blood; Laurelai's tears.

Inhuman. Monster. Friendless.

Cabal sat in the cemetery.  He had taken a room in the town before he came here.  He had left his gun and the matchbox there.

He sat on the edge of the fountain with a neatly wrapped package of leather clothing.  He waited.

Eventually hunger forced Laurelai from her bed, but she was in no mood for her usual hunting games. She emerged from the chapel on foot, walking at a human pace down the fading path.

She stopped when she saw Cabal, looking unsure.

"You came back?"

“I did.”  Cabal felt uncomfortable.  “I brought your clothes.”  

Some part of him rolled its eyes.  That was not what he was here to say.

Laurelai glanced at the package, hesitant as she came closer. Her hands twisted in her skirt anxiously.

"I am sorry. I do not know what I did, but I am sorry for it." she stopped again, some twenty feet away. "Do you want your dress back?"

She was frightened of him, and it shamed him.  Suddenly, the words were simple.  “You did what I told you to do.  As a result, I laid hands on you and made threats.”  He lost his train of thought as the moment came back.  “I violated our agreement; you had every excuse to pull my head off and did not.”  He remembered the look on her face as she stumbled out, ungraceful in her hurt and fear. “I am sorry.”  

The words had come out too bare and sincere.  He looked for something to follow.  “Keep the dress, if you want.”

Laurelai had not been expecting an apology. It surprised her; all the more for its sincerity. She looked up, her expression softening. Another timid step closer, her hands ceasing their wringing.

"I am not hurt, you did not hurt me," she shook her head, confused. Her emotions were at war- she would have killed anyone else. Why not him?

She looked down at the dress. It was stained red with her tears, the hem torn and smudged with grave-dirt. He was being kind again- an unfamiliar fond feeling fluttered in her breast.

Laurelai was lonely.

"Why did you come back?" she sat down nearby, folding her legs beneath her. "I will keep my promise, I will not bother you."

“I came back to apologise.”  He took out his handkerchief, dampened it in the fountain, and handed it to her. “Your face.”

Laurelai shied away as Cabal moved towards her, but then accepted the handkerchief. She looked over the edge of the fountain to view her reflection in the water- dried streaks of red adorning her cheeks.

If Laurelai could blush, she would have as she scrubbed blood tears from her face. She rinsed the handkerchief in the fountain, listening as she cleaned her neck and chest of all traces of her sorrow.

“I came back to give you your clothing; having chased you from the house, it was the least I could do.”  He was delaying.  “And because I have learned some things about your past.  I will tell you, if you would like.”  He looked into the depths of the cemetery.  Whatever he saw, it wasn’t the ranks of tombstones and roses.  “I came back because of the thing you did in the parlour: I want you to do it again.”

"You know about me?" Laurelai paused, interested. She took the parcel, tearing brown paper to retrieve her freshly-cleaned leathers. She had heard his request, and it struck her as odd: why would he want her to do the very thing that had angered him?

Laurelai nodded, her brow creased as she thought.

"You want me to be as a vessel? I do not wish to upset you again, mon cheré," The dress came off over her head, eager for her own clothes. Beneath, black silk knickers contrasted ivory skin. She stepped into her trousers, unashamed by her nudity. He was proposing an equal trade, she thought, and found the offer tempting.

"Oui, I want to know who I was, I want to be as a human. I will do this thing you ask." she looked up as she shrugged into her halter-vest and buttoned it closed.

"Who do you wish me to bring? I need a name, si vous plait."

“We must make some things clear first,” Cabal said over his shoulder.  He had turned his back at the first glimpse of slim, white legs and… they came in black?  Lips pursed, he categorized the tombstones by mineral content while she dressed.

“I have learned a little of your human life.”  Only what he could find that afternoon at the libraries and archives.  “I will tell you what I know.  You are under no obligation to me for this.  After -  we will discuss the other matter after.  Is that agreeable?”

"This is not a trade?" Laurelai's brow lifted, and she ran her fingers through her curls as she sat beside Cabal. He had been sincere from the beginning; she had no reason to disbelieve him.

"You are sweet, to do this for me. And I accept your apology. I was not harmed." she offered a small smile, wrapping lithe arms around her legs to rest her chin upon her knees in a self-hug.

"Oui, I will help you, but there are things you should know about me, no?" she chose her next words carefully.

"I do not like to cause you to feel pain."

He nodded curtly. “I was surprised.  I reacted badly.  It will not happen again. What should I know, Mademoiselle?”

Laurelai nodded; there was no cause to elaborate his shame.

"I am not here when the spirits take me," she explained, extending her legs in a more casual posture. "I do not know what happens during, I think I am.." she struggled to define the slumber, and gestured to the night sky. "Not here. Do you understand? I do not remember."

“How is the possession ended, if you are unaware?”

"I do not know, I have never done it on purpose." Laurelai looked at Cabal, and then away- seemingly at her roses.

"It happens when I concentrate to perceive them."

Cabal had taken out his notebook.  He glanced up.  “Is that what you wished me to know?  And when it happened before, was it brief?”

Laurelai nodded. "Oui,". Unable to resist her curiosity, she leaned over to see what Cabal was writing. "I do not know about time. Not long. What does that say?"

“I am writing down what I have learned about your medium abilities.  But I said I would tell you what I learned.”

"Oh." she smiled, almost bashful as she withdrew. "You make pretty letters." Then, more seriously, "What did you learn?"

Cabal flicked several pages back in his notebook, though there was no real need; the facts were simple.  “Laurelai Wingate was a Frenchwoman, a psychic medium who performed on the stage. She achieved fame in Marseilles. She was unusual in being genuinely gifted.”

“Her life was not a happy one.  Her manager and husband was a brute.  Their son died in infancy.  After, her husband’s behaviour worsened, and her performance schedule and social life suffered.”

“One night, she disappeared.  The husband’s body was found in her dressing room, lacking a heart.”  He flipped the notebook closed.  

“That is all I know at present, though more information could be found.”  The story was ugly, and he had not tried to soften it.  She might not wish to know anything more.

The sparkle of avid interest that had first lit lavender hues faded as Cabal provided the information. He was perfunctory, clinical in his accounting of what had once been her life. Her human life.

A child?

Pale hands clasped over her stomach in an unconscious gesture, her gaze seeming to search the ground for answers to questions she could not find the words for. Withdrawing into her thoughts, Laurelai hugged her legs and rested her chin upon them. She remained silent when Cabal had finished.

"Am I.. ...is she dead?" she whispered.

Cabal had the feeling, not new to him, that he had blundered.  Her former life was gone as well as forgotten, but it seemed it still mattered to her.

“No, Mademoiselle, you are not. You are widely believed dead.  Your government may have ruled you so, by now.  But you are undoubtedly here, talking to me.  And Horst tells me that you are not dead even in a technical sense, as he is.”  Cabal had a brief pleasurable feeling of having satisfied the claims both of reassurance and of scientific truth.  “But whether you regard this unfortunate story as part of your own life, or choose to start afresh with what you remember….”  He shrugged.

Laurelai was not familiar with many of the technical-sounding words Cabal used (what was a Government? It sounded frightening, possibly large and dripping fluids?) but she was able to understand in a general sense.

"They think I am lost? They did not put me here?" her brow lifted, and Laurelai seemed almost relieved. What Cabal had proposed was a novel way of looking at things.

She stood to pace, hands tucked into the rear pockets of her trousers.

"I think I understand, merci. I do not feel dead, but I have been waiting for so long to know why I am here. I do not know what it is to be as you are, I have no desire to be anything but as I am."

Laurelai plucked a rose in her frustration, peeling the petals from the bloom.

"...I am tired of being alone."

Cabal didn’t know what to say, but he nodded.  He chose to answer her earlier question instead.

“If you are happy with your state, then that is all you need to know.”  It would not have satisfied him, but her past was not his business.  But Cabal wondered.  He hesitated. He was not sure this question would add to Laurelai’s happiness, but once formed, he could not ignore it.  

“You said you are a llamia.  Who taught you that word?”

Laurelai seemed to lose patience- whether with her past or with the question was unclear. She growled and shredded the rose.

"I don't know!" Laurelai turned away, distraught. She plucked another rose. "I do not want to talk about it anymore. I want to talk about something else."

Cabal watched her prowl for a moment.  “Why do you keep the roses?  Is it simply a pastime?”

She made a low sound; not quite a growl. Then she sighed, glancing at him.

"I was buried in them."

“…Oh.”  Even to a man as impervious to the demands of small talk as Cabal, that did not seem like a promising turn to the conversation.  It dangled awkwardly.  Laurelai, unexpectedly, came to the rescue.

"May I ask who she is?" Cautious, she sat down among the blooms. "The one who follows you?"

The breath froze in his lungs for a moment.  He made himself breathe in and out.  He had known this was coming.  It was why he had come, but he would have talked about mediums, about llamia, about roses until dawn if it meant he could have avoided it.

He missed his cigar case.  He would have liked something to do with his hands.  “You will have noticed,” he said, his tone as dry as old bones, “that it is a difficult subject.  I knew her. She died.  If you are to help me, you….”  He had decided this.  “…You may ask what you need to know.”

Laurelai heard that hitch in his heartbeat, the momentary pallid expression. She frowned slightly in sympathy, plucking one of the rarer white roses.

Stepping closer, timidly, Laurelai threaded the short stem into the button hole in Cabal's lapel.

"I would not pry, but I need her name or something of hers." stepping back again, Laurelai sat down on the fountain. "It is easier when I can hear them, but she does not speak to me."

Cabal nodded.  He had expected this.  He straightened the bud in his lapel; the petals were silky, temperatureless, night-scented.  

He reached into his interior jacket pocket.  He withdrew a small leather folder, which he opened and held out to Laurelai in his gloved hand.  In it rested a fold of tissue.

Laurelai smiled quietly at his acceptance, and waited patiently. She accepted the tissue carefully- nodding to him in respect.

With a delicate touch, she unfolded the object.

She did not touch the strands of golden curls that lay within. Lavender hues studied the strands; dark lashes lowering in contemplation. Then she closed the tissue, keeping the creases perfect. The closed folder remained in her lap, her fingers bone-white atop dark leather.

Laurelai looked faraway, as if trying to see.

"I feel.." she murmured, swaying slightly as her eyelids fluttered. "...water.. I hear ..her laughing.."

His fingers clamped around his pencil.  He had a moment of dizzy apprehension, but there was no excuse to wait.  He flipped to a fresh page.  “Simply observe, please.  Do not seek a connection.  These impressions come from the hair?”

Water, he wrote.  Laughter.

Laurelai could not hear his curt directions. It seemed for a moment that she had lost consciousness and would topple into the fountain--

---and then she went very still.

"Father will box my ears if he finds I've snuck out..."

Cabal closed his eyes reflexively.  He had known this might happen.  He had prepared himself.  He would hear her voice, as if it was preserved on wax.  He did not look at Laurelai; the effect was too uncanny, and he needed his concentration.  

He’d had so little of her.  Johannes Cabal wrote down every word, and he listened to Berenice’s voice.  He drank it in; he existed only in the act of hearing. It scalded him with grief and guilt and pleasure.

"I feel daring, positively wicked! Well come on now, darling, say something! Did you fall asleep?"

Blue had intruded upon lavender hues; an impish smile on borrowed features.

The pause had gone on too long.  Had Laurelai awoken from her trance?  She’d said her episodes were short.  Cabal glanced up to see the eyes fixed on him, to note the change of colour, the familiar smile on the wrong face.  It was Berenice; it was her.  She was looking at him.

He felt horror; he felt shame at the horror.  Nothing about Berenice should be alien to him, even here and now.  Was this, he wondered, how Leonie had felt when she saw him work?  Was the recording simply paused, or did it wait for him?  In negation or reply, he said ”no.”

"What?" her laugh accompanied a smile that became unsure. She looked at him, the figure she inhabited wavering upon the crumbling stone.

"Johannes, why are you looking at me like that?"

Oh no.  No, no.  Something of her was here.  This was no recording.  He wanted to stop this, to call for Laurelai.

But the uncertainty in her voice was awful.  She didn’t seem to know where they were.  He scrambled to remember her words - something about her father boxing her ears. He recalled the night, a summer night, when they had escaped their parents’ homes for a long solitary walk in the dark.  

He bit his lip until he tasted blood.  He couldn’t bear to frighten her.  His voice almost steady, he spoke. “I’m well, my love.  Just glad to see you.”

Her smile returned; her posture shifting as if she meant to reach out-

--but then the slim leather folio slid from her lap, falling to the grass-

-as Laurelai fell back onto the stone like a marionette with the strings cut.

“-Berenice!”  It echoed back from the chapel.  She was gone again.  

He stifled a sob, shook his head, and stood for a moment, head bent.  Then he knelt beside the still form.  “Laurelai?”  He didn’t know if he should touch her, so he stayed a little back.

The return to consciousness was slow. Groggy, Laurelai blinked at Cabal. Then she groaned and winced, one hand rising to her temple.

"<I am alright,>" she muttered in French, her skull pounding with the pressure of a fully-formed migraine. Laurelai pushed herself upright slowly, disoriented and dizzy.

HIs throat had closed again.  He sat on the ground next to Laurelai, their shoulders touching.  He didn’t care.

Laurelai was quiet as she gained her bearings, head bowed, back against the fountain’s side. She could feel the warmth radiating from Cabal against her bare arm, and something else.

He was trembling.

The headache and hunger she felt no longer seemed to matter as she realized his state, and Laurelai peered at the necromancer worriedly.

"Mon ami?" she queried, touching one gloved hand. "Have I done something wrong again?"

His hand twitched under hers.  He did not move it away.  “No. You did nothing wrong.”

His chest heaved once, and he said,  “her voice sounded so young.”

Laurelai felt an empathetic shudder in her chest, her gaze fixed upon his hand. She did not understand why, having never experienced the sensation- why did his quiet suffering hurt her? Comfort was an almost alien concept: she was a creature that fed on blood and killed without conscience. And yet this fearless, fragile human left her helpless.

Laurelai's fingers gently wrapped around the side of his palm; silently lending her ear.

“She spoke to me. She saw me.  And now I wonder, what else does she see?  Does she see this, now?”  He gestured at the cemetery.  

“Has she watched me here, in my laboratory, in Hell?  I don’t think so.  Surely not.” He gnawed on his lip. “I must know. I have to know, Laurelai.  What if it is, through some horrible chance, her soul? Is that even possible?  Or what if, by communicating with it, or her, I somehow….”  Whatever idea occurred to him, it was too terrible to be spoken.  He stopped.  

He realised he had been ranting, sitting on the ground, Laurelai’s hand on his.  He cleared his throat.  “You fell.  Did you hurt yourself?”  He pushed himself to his feet.

Laurelai had remained seated as Cabal stood, unsure where to begin answering his questions- many of which she had posed herself in some form or other.

"I have met few true personalities, Monsieur," she replied first, moving with evident weakness as she rose. She needed to feed. "But the ones I have met have all left something unfinished."

She leaned back against the fountain, regarding him with quiet respect.

"My head hurts, and I thirst. I am not harmed."

Cabal’s eyebrows drew together faintly.  She was not the laughing, gymnastic presence of their first meeting.  “Then I will leave, so you may feed and rest.  May I visit again, so we may talk?  I must read and think first.  I do not assume you are willing to help, but I hope you will advise me.”  He held out a hand to help her rise from the fountain’s edge.

"I would like to help? I have many questions about this, as I do not know what happens?" Laurelai's brow lifted at the offer to assist, accepting the support to stand. He was taller, how had she not noticed that before? She caught herself looking at the pale skin just below the curve of his jawline; his query half-heard over the rhythm his heart sang.

"...I do not have time, this night. You may come tomorrow." what had he asked? Laurelai stepped back, one hand covering her lips in shame as her fangs extended.

"Bonne nuit, please, go now,"

Cabal saw her bashful gesture and did not wait to be told twice.  “Not tomorrow.  The full moon,” he said, glancing at the sky.  He needed a few more days to read, and he would go mad waiting in the hotel. “Good night.”  

He walked away quickly, not looking back over his shoulder.  He did not envy her consort of the evening.  He did not envy the train ride home that lay before him, staring at an empty seat.

Laurelai took two victims that night.

The second was a tall, lean man with pale blond hair. He had had a nice smile and clutched at her as she drank, his hand in her hair. Something nagged at her, and she could not continue- leaving him unconscious rather than dead.

Laurelai had never done that before; had not known that she could stop. She spent what little remained of the night lying in her nest, the small, rounded shape of a white queen held within her fingers.

[angryteapot]

Book Eight

Book One // Book Two // Book Three // Book Four // Book Five // Book Six // Book Seven // Book Eight // #tea reads Masterlist 

Cleopatra’s Shadows

~ Emily Holleman

Synopsis: After her father is overthrown and he flees with Cleopatra, Berenice is crowned Queen and oversees a bloodthirsty court. Arsinoe, sister to Cleopatra and Berenice, is left abandoned at the palace and does what she must to survive. This novel follows both the Elder and Younger Ptolemies, as one tries to rebuild Egypt to its former glory, and the other fights to hang on in the margins of Cleopatra’s shadow. 

I really liked this book, it was really interesting and engaging. Then again, I’ve always loved literature about ancient Egypt. 

A/N: For those of you who missed my intro post, Here’s the gist of this thing: I’m trying to read more books this year, so I’ve taken to documenting them and writing out some of my favorite quotes from whatever I’m reading! Once I finish a book, I’ll make a post with a summary of the books and the quotes I like best!

If you’re interested in new reads or just quotes, and would like to be tagged, send me an ask or dm! If you have any reading recommendations, send them my way!

If you wanna blacklist these posts, I’ll be tagging them #tea reads

I’m always up for a discussion on whatever I post, or life in general, so come talk to me! Have questions, theories, complaints, deep thoughts? Come talk to me! x ~ Tea <3

*Quotes are below the cut!

[Quotes]

“It’s always better to act than to do nothing. Even when your actions are futile... Which would you rather do: Succumb to fate, or fight for your house, your dynasty?” ~ Ganymedes

>>>

“Perhaps this isn’t the proper time?” “This moment suits me as well as any other” ~ Dio, Berenice

“... Kindness was softness, and softness was death.” 

>>>

“You haven’t been forgotten.” ~ Ganymedes

“Now look at the two of us, left so alone... Think what death we’ll die...” ~ Arsinoe

“I beg not for my life... For who can twist the wrist of fate? ... I merely ask for mercy.” ~ Arsinoe

“Maybe it was just the emptiness that struck her.”

>>>

“You think I will content myself with ‘shall’?” ~ Tryphaena

“Never show them you are soft.” ~ Tryphaena

“Don’t flatter yourself, Mother. You’re not my councilor - only a shrieking harpy upon whom I take pity in my weaker moments.” ~ Berenice

“This, she thought, would save her from emptiness; it would blossom in the place where all her hatreds lived.”

>>>

“ ‘I’m not ashamed to sail though trouble with you, to make your troubles mine.’ ” ~ Arsinoe quoting Ismene

“ ‘I have no love for a friend who loves in words alone.’ ” ~ Ganymedes quoting Antigone

“Instead, she savored the pain; it distracted her from her aching loneliness.”

>>>

“I don’t think that being unafraid is the same as being brave... I think bravery is when you go on even when you are frightened.” ~ Alexander

“ ‘Nor did I think your edict had such force that you, a mere mortal, could override the gods, the great unwritten, unshakeable traditions.” ~ Arsinoe quoting Antigone

>>>

“Her mother didn’t  suffer, she prevailed. She manipulated ailments the way lesser women manipulated costumes: with ease and calculated malice. She wouldn’t be felled by some plebeian illness...”

“... death had stolen the mad vigor that had defined her life.”

“She was queen, and if she wanted solitude, the world should grant her that.”

“Perhaps that was the way of it. She should ignore the emptiness wearing at her gut, and go about her business.”

“In death, we all become concubines.”

“ ‘But the world doesn’t pause for death, not even for [her].’ Thrashing around desperately for some fresh topic, something innocuous to divert her mind from... the emptiness that lingered in place of rage.” ~ Berenice

“She pressed onward - always onward.”

“Tears were weakness. Weakness and death.”

>>>

“Loveliness is not the business of queens.” ~ Tryphaena

>>>

“She could run faster than her anger and her fear.”

>>>

“She’d been reared among men like Seleucus, men who thought the world owed them merely for the trig between their legs... And what sort of world had they brought forth through their misplaced confidence?”

“Bloody gods birth bloody creatures.” ~ Merymut

“Perhaps every brave woman had to battle the coward the world made her out to be.”

>>>

“The gods cursed her; she knew that with certainty. And curses had a nasty way of rubbing off on the people she loved most.”

“It shouldn’t be so difficult to drive away his love - she’d destroyed everyone else’s. Or else, perhaps, she’d never had it at all.”

“The truth isn’t gentle, little one... But I don’t tell it to wound you. I wish only to warn you of the changes to come.” ~ Ganymedes

“ ‘You may mourn your differences, but remember that the gods give mysterious gifts. There may come a time when your affliction seems an advantage, not a shortcoming.’ ” ~Unknown

“I’m afraid this isn’t the sort of thing that can be taught. It must be learned in its own way, and in its own time.” ~ Ganymedes

>>>

“No holes remained now, no emptiness lingered inside her, no worry about what might take fury’s place. Only triumph, and bliss.”

“Mortal lives are only brief flickers before the deathless ones.” ~ Berenice

>>>

“Lying wasn’t difficult - even lying with her heart.”

“Words of horror didn’t unnerve her, not when she’d seen true horrors before her eyes.”

>>>

“She liked this plan: wed men, murder them, and steal their soldiers.”

“All she could offer him was death.”

“And besides... there’s nothing here for me but you. Let the gods rain down their horrors. It won’t frighten me away.” ~ Alexander

>>>

“The truth didn’t live between them anymore.”

>>>

“She tries to fawn, we’ll not be charmed, like savage wolves, we’ll not be tamed, no mother comfort soothes our rage.” ~ Electra

“She was done waiting for people who weren’t coming back.”

>>>

“[She] felt nothing. Only emptiness. But she forced herself to weep.”

And that concludes Book Eight, my lovelies! If you managed to read through even a part of this and found a quote you liked, my heart will be happy.

Thanks for stopping by my blog! x

~ Tea <3