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silverliningslurk · 6 years

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Living at Zero

Rating: Teen and up Pairing: Bokuto Koutarou/Kuroo Testurou Additional tags: mentions of death Creature: Reaper Word count: 6,831

Notes: I’m very, very sorry this is late, @humandisasterbuckybarnes! I hope you like it, and again, sorry for its lateness! This is for @fantasyhaikyuuexchange‘s Halloween exchange. Thank you for holding it!

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Reapers walk among us,

At death's door you may find,

And so to not be taken,

You must avoid their eyes

(Transliterated poem found in Old Irish inscriptions, c.1400)

<hr>

He doesn't know all the lives he's lived.

He's been young, he's been old. He's been black, he's been white, and every shade in between. He's spoken every language under the sun, he's spoken his prayers in every faith. He's lived in every time. He's been a boy, he's been a girl. He's been a boy that was born in a girl's body, and he's been a girl that was born in a boy's body. He's been neither, and he's been something else entirely. He's loved girls, he's loved boys, everything in between, and he's loved no one. He's been poor, he's been rich, he's been everywhere in the world and-.

He only remembers the life he lives right now.

<hr>

He is not unique. But he is the only one of his kind. He remembers nothing, but he's been here before. He's seen everything but not with these eyes.

It is a familiar newness.

But things have changed; he meets his doom far before his time.

And he lives.

It's a hot summer day in Tokyo, nothing new about that. The Fukurodani team have made their way over to the Nekoma High School grounds for a volleyball camp, nothing new about that. His old eyes have forgotten Tokyo, have never been here before, and drink it in. He is a mere first year, and new to the school at that; new to Tokyo in this life.

The Nekoma team are stood out, looking in various shades of discomfort with the heat. His eyes scroll down the line as the seniors shake hands and say their greetings, and his gaze catches on one of them. His hair is swept over his eye, he looks ready to start playing already, and his eye catches Koutarou's.

Koutarou knows him.

He doesn't know where, but he's seen those eyes. There are depths there he can't imagine, and he tries to dismiss it as they shake hands as instructed. There is a visceral fear in his gut, a snake coiling up and whispering for him to run. But another latching around his neck and telling him to stay, and it is too strong, allied to his curiosity.

He wants to know more. He wants to get to know this person.

He introduces himself as Kuroo Testurou, and Koutarou has fallen.

<hr>

When reapers reap the world shall know,

The crows will fly and the mould will grow

When reapers reap the world shall know

They sow their seeds from down below

When reapers reap the world shall know,

Those seeds will grow o'er all to show

That when the reapers reap and the world does know

There is nowhere left to go

(Transliterated extract from a Chinese poem, c.1200)

<hr>

He's young when he sees a vague shadowy shape pick its way through the carnage. It delicately steps over shattered glass and around chunks of wall, separated from the house it originated on. It's small, he thinks, but it's a little hard to tell. The world is all upside down, and a stair rail over his chest hurts.

He's young when the shape pauses by one wreck, and taps someone underneath with a long rod with a curved bit on the end of it. It's a bit far away. He doesn't know if that's quite what happened.

He's young when the shape picks its way towards him, skirting a small fire. He feels no fear, a numb sort of calm having settled over him. It doesn't occur to him to panic, or be scared. Not yet. He's fixated on this shape, shadowy, its edges not fully defined. It's hard to look right at it, but he does anyway because he's decided to.

He's young when the shape stops in front of him, facing his dad. He's young when the curved thing arcs down and taps him, and this awful wheezing sound starts, suddenly so loud.

He's young when the shape turns and its sunken eyes meet his and widen in terror.

He's young. But it looks young too.

It stays so still, he can only look back; it's hand twitches, and that blade shudders into motion.

He is young when it hits him, and the last thing he sees are those eyes, etched into his soul's mind

<hr>

By the end of that week, he is tied. They've become fast friends, because Koutarou is very good at ignoring his gut reaction of fear. He doesn't like fear. It doesn't have a place in his life. He's learned to dispel it with ease, and does so constantly. He leaves with Kuroo's phone number and begins a long strand of messages. He leaves with a thousand thoughts in his head, and all of them are linked to volleyball, Kuroo, or both.

They meet up sometimes to play - although they often get distracted. Once, they school some kids in the park at volleyball. Occasionally they go and see a movie, and Koutarou gets kicked out for using his phone because he couldn't focus that long and it wasn't interesting enough. They usually go for food.

No matter what they do though, Kuroo has a small weapon on him. It's hanging from a belt loop, on his bag, tucked into a pocket. Koutarou never sees him without it. It's like a stick with a curved bit on it. It emanates a sense of foreboding that Koutarou doesn’t really understand.

Once, when Kuroo wasn't looking, he tested the blade. His finger came back slit and bloodied, and that snake in his gut he usually ignored so well told him to lie. There were other people around at that point. Maybe that is why.

He asks about it though, once.

"Your keychain, what is it?" He murmurs: they are both lying on the floor, exhausted from an intense serve practice that had devolved from that to basketball to dodgeball to some combination of the three. He thinks next time he should invite some more people.

"Scythe," Kuroo utters back, eyes closed. They both are tired.

"Cool. But why do you always carry it?"

A strangled noise. Kuroo snaps his head around to stare at him. Koutarou blinks, raising his eyebrows.

Kuroo stares at him for a long time. Koutarou, tired, just stares back. He can't think of anything else to say, and he doesn't see why he shouldn't get an answer.

Kuroo doesn't blink that much. Eventually he turns his head back to the ceiling and snorts.

"Didn't think you'd notice it."

Koutarou huffs.

"Was I not meant to? ‘Cause you always have it on. D'ya shower with it too?" He teases, but Kuroo just peers at him.

"Most people don't."

"Whadd'ya mean?"

"Most people don't notice." He says, but there's something about it - like he's saying 'don't' and actually means something else. With his surprise, it seems almost like 'can't'.

"Maybe I just look more than most, bro." Koutarou murmurs, and Kuroo just hums faintly in agreement, and falls silent.

They don't speak of it again.

<hr>

Fear no witches fear no storm

Fear no spiders fear no form

Fear no ghosties under your bed,

Fear no madman way up ahead

Fear no devil fear no fall

Fear no pirate lost in the squall

Fear no illness under the sun,

Fear no violence not yet done

Fear most nothing though this be due

Do fear the reapers comin' for you

Children’s chant, believed to be sung in large areas of West Africa from the 1200s. Has also been adapted to refer to slavers and traffickers.

<hr>

He is old when he sees it again.

He is old, sitting on a rocking chair, his sandals toed off to one side, looking out over the rice paddies and the workers within them. He is waiting. He doesn't know exactly for whom he waits, but there is a vague memory that he is waiting.

He is old, appreciated the late afternoon breeze over his creaky joints, the knarled hands of his. They twitch to join those in the field, help the young ones working so inefficiently, only going to tire themselves out like that. But he's tired and old, and he doesn't want to move. He might miss what he's waiting for. Who he's waiting for. He's at peace, assured that all is well. The harvest will be plenty to feed them all, just the right balance of rain and sun to bring bounty to their fields. They have never eaten lavishly, but they will eat well. With lazy fish trapped in the streams, they will eat well.

He breathes out, a long dwindling sigh. He doesn't want to go, but he knows he can't stay. They will be fine without him.

He is old when they sidle up beside him.

Ready to go? they whisper. He merely nods, and takes in his final sight for a while. The scythe comes down on the crown of his head, he imagines those eyes, and he is old, this time.

<hr>

Koutarou stares. Kuroo stares back.

This lasts quite a while. Koutarou wonders if he's dreaming.

"Dude, did you just kill someone’s rabbit?"

How else it he supposed to appraise this scene? Kuroo, adorned with a cloak and a very large, very sharp looking weapon - scythe, a scythe, and where has he seen that before? - and a rabbit, much of its blood and innards looking to be exterior to its body. It is certainly not on the living spectrum of the world any longer.

Kuroo looks- horrified. Scared, even. Does he regret his actions? Or being caught?

"Kuroo? Tell me you didn't. That's wrong." He musters, as the horror starts to leak into his mind. His friend has just killed something.

"No! Yes, I- I finalised it. It was already dead. I put it at rest." Kuroo frantically corrects. Koutarou blinks long and hard, looks at Kuroo, then the corpse, then Kuroo again. It feels too surreal, him in flip flops with a seven-eleven bag full of snacks, and Kuroo with-

"That's still killing it. Why not just take it to the vet?!" And his heart is at war in his chest, horror fighting against a far fonder emotion, and trying to contemplate the two co-existing. It doesn't feel like it can.

Kuroo groans loudly, and waves the scythe about. He then paces up and down, and back and forth, multiple times. He's muttering, but the exact words slip past Koutarou's ears even when he tries to focus. Come to think, his everything is hard to focus on. Koutarou blames the disgust that's sinking in, joining the fight in his heart.

Kuroo finally stops a few metres in front of Koutarou, and nigh-on slams the scythe down. Koutarou can't help but flinch.

And it disappears. It reappears, small, in Kuroo's hand, and gets tucked away.

"I had my suspicions. So there's no way around this. I'm not human." Kuroo says, like it's easy. Maybe it is.

"Not if you go around murdering pets." He utters, still shocked. Kuroo hisses through his teeth.

"No not- fuck. I'm not human. You shouldn't be able to see me right now."

"But you're not disappearing."

"I'm a reaper."

Koutarou blinks.

Kuroo stares back.

Koutarou opens his mouth.

And shuts it again.

"Wait what?"

"I'm a reaper."

"What's that?" He asks, but he knows. There have been stories and rhymes since forever. He's heard them, sung them, read them. Don't look in their eyes.

"We let the dead pass on." Kuroo states, after a moment of thought.

"You kill people. Things," he corrects after letting his gaze wander back to the unfortunate rabbit.

"Bokuto, listen. This rabbit, it got hit by a motorbike. There wasn't a hope of recovery. I stopped its suffering. I let it pass on. I let its soul go free. I helped, Bokuto. That's all I do. I help."

Koutarou's finding it hard to think right now. It's a lot too much to process. He'd been excited about snacks, but now he's not even hungry.

"I gotta..." He motions going with his free hand, still flabbergasted. Reapers exist. And his best friend is one? It doesn't compute. It doesn't make any sense. They're fictional characters, but here one is, apparently, walking straight out of a folklore book, called down from a song.

"Bokuto, please, don't- don't let this change anything." Kuroo looks worried, almost. It's confusing.

"How? You're not even human, or so you say, that changes everything, doesn't it?" There's a hurricane in his head.

"It doesn't have to. It won't." Kuroo says, although even he sounds uncertain about it.

“But it will, won’t it.” He says, and backs up one step. Kuroo makes a conflicted face. “I can’t look you in the eyes-”

“Which is a total myth by the way.”

“Your whole existence is supposed to be a myth, Kuroo!” Koutarou snaps, feeling hurt. How is he meant to deal with this? How is he supposed to be friends with a creature that shouldn’t exist, by human law? How are they supposed to get on? How could he have fallen for a creature like this?

Kuroo flinches, and steps backwards, eyes downcast.

“Just think about it, Bokuto.” He murmurs, and twists on his heel. Koutarou imagines that he would disappear from sight, but he just walks away, and doesn’t turn back.

Koutarou feels weirdly bad about it.

<hr>

Reapers take the body, we keep the soul. We carry it to a new life, all the while chased by the reapers, jealous of that which they will never have: life.

(Buddhist proverb)

<hr>

She is older still when a hurricane blows through.

It rips the roof from her house, throws her things down the street and into the sea. It hurls her neighbours into the sky, never to be seen again. It forces seawater into the fields, crops ruined. There is a moment of peace, mere minutes, before it starts to take again. It just takes, and takes and takes. It takes so many; her neighbours, her sisters, her brothers. Her parents, her children. Her wife. Her brethren, decimated by a force from above.

Then comes the disease, a plague of bad water. There is no help, and yet more get torn from her, friends wrought from the chaos leave her behind, and still, no help.

She's relieved to finally find a blade in front of her and pitying eyes, just to end the pain.

<hr>

In the midst of playing a monotonous game on his phone, he’s right there when it rings. He notes the caller, and breathes in. And answers, because he’s never been quite that good at resisting his impulses.

Hello, Bokuto,, a quiet voice from the other side. He could be the other side of the world, the other side of death. Koutarou wonders if he’s in front of a corpse as he phones, and shudders. He hums, unable to summon any words.

He’s thought about it a lot. Kuroo has been in the forefront of his mind, invading, pervading. He’s gone to text him several times and had to stop himself. He’s no good at this, staying away; Kuroo just pulls him in, again and again and again. They’ve known each other for over a year now, they’ve upgraded one year and gained kouhai. Kuroo’s childhood friend has joined Nekoma, Akaashi has joined Fukurodani, and they both have dreams of Nationals.

These past two weeks, though, Koutarou has been wondering: how can a reaper have a childhood friend, or dreams. Was it all lies?

“If people can’t see reapers, how can I see you? How can other people see you?” He’s not totally sure he wants an answer. Kuroo audibly sighs heavily, and takes a while to answer.

I only want to answer that when I can see your face.

“Would you answer if I came to see you right now?”

He doesn’t think he really wants to know. But he misses Kuroo.

I would.

And so he treks the darkening streets of Tokyo, to an internet café equidistant from both of their houses. It feels like a neutral ground. Koutarou wonders if the other patrons can feel the tension dripping from his very pores, the fear, the conflict he’s wearing on his skin. Kuroo doesn’t look too uneasy, but uncomfortable enough to make Koutarou not feel too out of place.

There is a long silence, between them. Koutarou is doing his best not to look Kuroo in the eyes.

He’s succeeding.

“There was once a creature,” Kuroo starts eventually, hesitant. “A creature that commanded over death. They only ever saw the last moments of life, before leaving to eliminate the next spark. So on, ad infinitum. They wandered time, they wandered space.

“They gradually grew weary of their travels, weary of watching lights go out, weary of a never ending list. Weary of only watching life be lived by others. So weary, that they went to every mythic they knew about, and begged for a life better than the one they owned. They wanted to be closer to life, wanted to experience finite days, growing old, living and loving.

“Most knew no way. But they kept trying, until they found one yokai, older than time, older than space, who told them that it could be done. Provided the creature could find a suitable vessel. So the creature searched high and low. Eventually, they found it; a sickly child, less than a year of this world, and not long for it. They stole the child, and showed it to the yokai.

“The yokai performed a spell. When the time came, that the child would require a reaper’s service, that creature had to be the one to perform the deed. They must say an incantation as they performed it, and they would be transferred into the skin of that child, doomed to live out its days in its place.”

"Whadd’ya mean, doomed?" Koutarou echoes, forgetting in the midst of the spinning tale not to look Kuroo in the eyes. Kuroo stares back, infinite depths there. Koutarou feels that familiar vertigo.

"The yokai thought it to be doomed. But the creature thought it to be blooming. It still had to perform its work, but it had a home to return to. A family. Friends. It had meaning other than that which was determined by its ability to bring death. It lived. And it loved."

Kuroo is staring at him, open and, dare he think it, vulnerable. Koutarou's mouth is dry.

"Your reality has always been a myth for my kind. It has finally become real for me." Kuroo whispers, with eyes so wide they engulf Koutarou whole. The world melts around him, until it consists of only him and Kuroo, and it feels full.

Slowly, he outstretches his hand and unfurls it, palm up. It's more than a gesture: it's a decision. A point where Koutarou could turn back to the wholly known, and ignore all this. A pivotal moment on his yet short life. There is that familiar snake coiling in his guts with fear, apprehension. But there is that familiar tug of curiosity, wild abandon he is known for. He hovers his hand above the table for a moment, glances at Kuroo's hand, then back to his eyes, and makes no contact.

"I shouldn't trust you," he murmurs.

"Unwise." Kuroo returns, the corner of his lips quirking up slightly.

"You kill things."

"I bring peace to those who have suffered enough."

"You've walked straight outta fairy tale book or something."

"You have appeared from a fantasy." Kuroo breathes, too many shades of fascination and sincerity in his eyes for Koutarou to resist. He trails his fingertips over Kuroo's, and watches him gasp, before taking his hand.

"I am no fantasy, Kuroo." He says.

Kuroo nods like he finally believes.

<hr>

Reaper reaper are you there

Is that you upon my stair

Reaper reaper stop right there

Come no closer dare I dare

(French playground chant, origins and time period unknown)

<hr>

He is not that young when he gets caught up in a war. It's not an obvious war, but a covert one, fought in shadows, territory marked by headlines the following days.

He is taken at knifepoint and hissed at for being wrong.

He's never been wrong, not by the colour of his skin or the gender of the person he loves. But to them, he is wrong, and they will only ever see him as wrong. To them, wrongness must be eradicated, rather than differences celebrated.

They stab him twice.

The third blade does not belong to them. Those eyes, so familiar now, blur into the sirens and the darkness as his heart gives up.

<hr>

Time goes so fast, he thinks; it's been another year, more, and they've clicked up to the hallowed post of third years. Their teams fight a thousand times over; they only fight in name, teasing with blunted claws. Koutarou and Fukurodani hold up the trophy that year, and he knows that Kuroo smiles on. Later, in the darkest part of the stadium, they kiss to make the world melt away.

Then they move on, up, and up.

Koutarou, never much one for education but needing an in for a team, enters a scholarship for a token degree, and thrives with volleyball and friends. Kuroo takes up a pharmaceutical degree in a neighbouring university, and they live together. It partly amuses, and partly scares Koutarou that Kuroo is working with chemicals that, in the correct doses, can both cure and kill.

Koutarou watches Akaashi lead the team well; Kuroo watches Fukunaga do the same in his own quiet manner, and watches Kenma adjust to his absence. The world moves on around them.

Koutarou starts to realise that all his life he's been seeing vague shapes, the ones he's seen dogs bark at and cats stare at - the ones he assumed everyone else saw. He doesn't realise for a long time after they start living together what Kuroo means when he asks if Koutarou wants to watch him working. He usually says no, until he does realise, then he defiantly refuses. Until he's too curious not to.

So he watches a car crash happen from a long way off, and watches Kuroo fuzzily pick his way through the carnage. It feels a lot like a bad memory when he wakes up the next morning, and he declines from then on. Kuroo will always ask, though, and it feels almost like an affront, but partly like Kuroo is trying to let him into this world he's never known about.

He's always been good at ignoring fear and apprehension though, and focuses on positives. Even if Kuroo leaves, he will come back, and curl his material body around Koutarou's, and make him feel more at home than he has any real right to. It works, for both of them. Koutarou doesn't ask where he's been, who he's put at peace, and Kuroo doesn't say, and gets on with his mortal life. Koutarou can forget Kuroo's not human.

Mostly.

“I think I’ve known you a lot.” Kuroo murmurs, curled around him in the early morning light, before they argue about who gets the first shower, and who eats what. Before they set out on their morning run, and Koutarou gets distracted by the first rays of the sun glinting off Kuroo’s hair, making him look more like an angel that he has any right to.

“Tha’s weird, Kuu,’ Koutarou mumbles, tugging Kuroo’s hand closer around him, and jolting when a cold nose gets pressed right into the hollow above his collarbone.

“It’s not. I feel like I’ve known you from a lot of places. A lot of times.” He elaborates, and breathes out, making Koutarou squirm as it tickles his skin. “Your number’s always been zero though, or nearly. Not this time…” he trails off, and for now, Koutarou is too sleepy and content to question it.

Later, though, he thinks about it. It haunts his day, on and on, and he can’t help but ask, later on, once they’ve both returned home. It doesn't help that he saw Kuroo minimise his scythe at the front door before entering. It just reminds him over again.

"You said earlier my number's always been zero..." Koutarou starts, tentatively. Kuroo has never been one to hide his identity from him, mostly, but it always feels a little intrusive to ask too many questions. He loves Kuroo, whether he considers him human, reaper, or an odd mix of the two; but asking about the differences always seems a little fraught.

Kuroo hums, non-committal.

"I think I dreamt that it's always been zero." He pauses in the midst of cutting up pepper to think about it. "I only feel like I've met you before. I've... 'met' a lot of people, though. I'm not sure I believe in reincarnation, but..." He glances over his shoulder at Koutarou for a brief moment. "Dunno. I just feel that way."

"So, if it's not zero..." He starts, and Kuroo freezes. The flat feels eerily silent for some reason. "What is it now?" He asks, merely curious. He doesn't really expect Kuroo to answer, but then he doesn't really expect Kuroo not to answer.

Kuroo drops the knife, twists on the spot and walks towards him. Bokuto starts to think that maybe his number is up now, but Kuroo does nothing to manifest his scythe, instead placing one knee to the right of Bokuto and leaning over him, propped up by a hand pressing against the back of the chair. He is close, and oh so faint around the edges.

"I'll tell you never to ask me that again, Kou." Kuroo whispers. It sends a shiver up his spine, but not an entirely nice one. Kuroo's bony finger pushes his chin up as he leans even closer, his eyes like darkening storm clouds, swirling and ominous. "Never," he hisses, directly into Bokuto's mouth.

His lips are cold, but they warm up quickly. Bokuto forgives easily, but he doesn't forget.

Sometimes, he remembers that he could be considered technically to be kissing a reanimated corpse. It’s got life in it, but it’s certainly not human, not anymore.

He’s not sure if that scares him, anymore.

<hr>

Once met the reaper, there goes the mum,

Once met the reaper, this won't be fun

Twice met the reaper, there goes the son,

Twice met the reaper, the damage is done,

Thrice met the reaper, right in your face,

Thrice met the reaper, stare into space.

(English schoolyard chant, usually forming part of a skiprope game, origins unknown)

<hr>

He's younger still when he doesn't understand the commands given to him by a man with a gun.

His mother had hustled him into a van with her and his two sisters a year or so ago, and they've been drifting in this new language ever since. It feels weird on his tongue, clunky and slow. He doesn't like it, since they all laugh, and he doesn't know why.

His mother says they cannot return home. He doesn't understand, but a harsh look ceases his questions. It tells him they’ve escaped danger, somehow.

So when he sits in his school, he doesn't expect any danger. He's never seen a gun. The words come out of a furious mouth too fast for him to understand, too angry for him to translate. He doesn't respond fast enough.

Later in a hospital, unnoticed to anyone else, that creature leans over, smooths the hair back from his sweaty scalp, and smiles an awful, sad smile.

They tap his chest with the blunt side of that blade. He breathes no more.

<hr>

Above him is a sky of perfect inky blue. Below him a sea of grass. It's an insane time in the morning: Koutarou couldn't sleep.

Kuroo was working.

He's outside a care home for the elderly, not one he knows. It feels a little surreal, but he couldn't have gone in with Kuroo, else the staff would have noticed. He's got practice early tomorrow, but he's not the least bit sleepy.

And Kuroo is working.

Koutarou isn't sure he should have said yes, but he was sleepless and Kuroo had asked. Sometimes, Koutarou thinks that Kuroo wants him to say yes. Sometimes, Koutarou thinks that Kuroo wants him to embrace his reaper side more. He's trying. And maybe it shows: Kuroo will leave his scythe unminimised around the apartment occasionally, and he'll talk about a difficult case or so.

Kuroo seemed happy that he'd said yes.

So here he sits, under a whole sky of stars, in a quiet knoll, waiting for someone to die. Waiting for his boyfriend to come back from passing that person.

It's a strange life he leads, nowadays.

Soft footsteps flatten the grass towards him. Shifting his vision, he finds Kuroo, face just shrouded by the hooded cloak he wears (the aesthetic, he says, that and the fact that his reaper form is always wearing it) and his scythe in one hand. He smiles upon catching Koutarou's gaze, places his scythe down and lays down next to him on his side, head propped up lazily on one arm, and gazes at him as Koutarou does so back.

"Done?" Kuroo nods in response.

"She had heart failure. She wanted to breathe easily again." He murmurs, and then hesitates for a second. "Thanks," he murmurs, quiet and truer than normal.

"For what?" Koutarou doesn't think he's done anything too out of the ordinary, but then, he's living with a reaper. Normal rarely applies to their situation.

"For... staying. For coming with me tonight."

"Not the usual date, but then we never were that normal."

Kuroo grabs his hand with the one not holding his head up.

"No, for staying with this. I know death isn't easy to contemplate for humans, but you gave me a chance anyway."

"You're getting kinda dangerously close to sappy, Kuu..."

"Most people wouldn't, if they found out. When they found out."

Koutarou shifts, a little uncomfortable. He's not used to serious conversations like this; he's used to love portrayed between raucous laughter, between stupid faces and daft jokes.

"Death is just... part of life. T's not like there's anything I can do 'bout it. 'Sides, who else'd tolerate me?" He laughs to himself, and looks towards the sky.

"You're making it sound like a chore, Kou. It's actually a full-time job, looking after you. I don't even get paid." His voice carries the levity of teasing. He knows Kuroo doesn't really like his self-deprecation, but he can't always help it. Kuroo has far bigger things to do than live a life with him, but heaven knows why, that's what he's picked.

"Excuse you. Who leaves all their dishes out for me to wash? You would've thought in nearly thirty years of being human you'd've worked that out." Besides, Kuroo just doesn't do it properly, he does it too fast and doesn't get in all the corners. Koutarou prefers doing it to cooking.

"Oh, I've worked it out. I just like seeing you get mad. I do all the laundry, anyway. And the cooking"

"Hmph." Koutarou sticks his tongue out at Kuroo, who just does the same back. He can't help but laugh. It's daft, they are daft, and he wouldn't change a single thing.

"Come on, let's go home, you." Kuroo murmurs, soft smile on his lips.

“Don’t wanna.” Koutarou says, and uses their hands, still entwined together, to pull himself closer to Kuroo. He nestles his cheek on Kuroo’s shoulder, and wraps his arm around him. “It’s nice. We can stay here.”

Kuroo huffs a laugh, and pulls him closer.

“You’re the one with practice early tomorrow.” He remarks, as though this simple fact will change his mind. Unsurprisingly, it does not.

“I’d rather stay riiiiiight here. You make a good pillow.”

“Well then, I’ll not move. I’m honoured to have such a position of prestige.”

And so, they stay. Koutarou is late to practice the next day (the same day, really). He regrets nothing, even through a harsh lecture from the coach.

<hr>

Reapers were there at the beginning. They will remain here after the end, too.

(Unknown origins)

<hr>

They are exactly fifty when their heart gives up. They ran for a bus that morning, late to work; it’s been twitching ever since, a growing pain in their chest. About midday, they’re left clutching it, gasping for breath, until they are held by arms they don't think they should see.

In this moment, they remember all the times they’ve seen them, all blurring together like the shape of it, indecipherable, the only truly solid things about it being the scythe and their eyes, piercing and sharper than the blade they carry.

But they forget as they do with rebirth.

As they always do with rebirth.

<hr>

They’re watching a movie. Correction: Kuroo is watching a movie, Koutarou walked in from practice, and the movie is still on when he flops on the sofa after his shower. He flings his legs over Kuroo, much to his disgust. It’s fake, Koutarou knows.

He’s not familiar with the movie, some kind of dramatic one with zombies. The main character asks something of their love interest, to do with killing them should they ever be infected. It sparks an admittedly odd, but entirely unfounded thought, considering his own situation.

"Am I supposed to ask you to be the one to kill me, when I get there? Is that supposed to be romantic?" he asks.

"I can't," Kuroo remarks, after a beat. Koutarou blinks, mostly because he expected an irritated response.

"Why?"

A long pause follows, and when Koutarou looks, Kuroo is furrowing his eyebrows at the screen, watching some horrific murders happening with not even a flinch. He’s probably seen worse – then, all of a sudden, he switches it off, and turns towards Koutarou.

"I'm going to tell you something. I've only just worked it out recently." Kuroo waits for him to nod before continuing. "I have no idea when or if you're going to pass."

Koutarou snorts, incredulous. When, he could understand someone else not knowing, but not Kuroo: the honest to goodness reaper who can literally see numbers over people’s heads. If just didn't make sense from anyone. Of course he was going to die at some point. He’s human, last he checked.

"You're messing with me now." He turns to glare at Kuroo, and is in turn surprised to find not that familiar smirk, but a serious face.

He waits for the smirk. Waits, until he slowly realises he isn't getting one. Maybe it's not...

"What?!"

"Kou," Kuroo starts softly. He almost looks pained. "You've been living on zero for ages now. For all intents and purposes, you may have surpassed death."

Koutarou can only stare at him.

"I was trying to work it out. At first I panicked. I can't remember what your number was when I first met you, but it was high enough. I'd been trying not to look, in any case. And then I looked a few years ago, and it was flickering around. The other day I noticed it had settled on zero. But you didn't appear on the list. No one claimed you. Day after day I thought you'd appear but you didn't. You defied the numbers.

"I didn't get it. I asked around, and eventually found out that someone who willingly contacts a reaper's blade is immune to death from at the very least that reaper." Kuroo is giving him a look. Half puzzled, half resigned. “But you couldn’t have…”

Koutarou's just trying to process.

"Willingly, like, wants to? I didn't..." Then he thinks, and winces. "Or maybe..." Kuroo raises an eyebrow. "I tested it at summer training once. I didn't know why you always had it, and I thought it was going to be rubber or something." He holds up the first two fingers of his left hand, the neat thin line of scar tissue forming a white causeway across them. It had taken a long time to heal. The other eyebrow meets the raised one, giving Kuroo a foreboding look of shock. He continues regardless. “But I thought I dreamt it, and you keep leaving it out, so I couldn’t help it, I just…” He holds up his thumb, the plaster over it, and the slowly healing wound he knows is underneath. It had been a particularly intrusive thought and he’d been tired and Kuroo had been in the shower and he didn’t know what he’d been thinking.

Probably that for reaping, Kuroo never seemed to use the blade. The blunt side, yes. The stick of the scythe, yes. He might have used the point once or twice, but with such care that it was clearly never being used in the sense of a weapon, and their school days seemed so far away, that summer day when he’d just wanted to know whether it was rubber or what it was made of and had come away with two split fingers.

"You... could always see it." Kuroo intones, almost like a question but mostly like a creeping revelation.

“Does that change anything?”

“I assumed you’d watched someone pass first-hand, or nearly died yourself. It can induce an ability to see reapers and related objects.”

Koutarou slowly shakes his head, sure that even in his busy mind, he’d have remembered either of those events.

“Maybe it happened at birth, I would have no idea if I’ve ever nearly died. I’ve always seen these things.” He pauses for a second. Kuroo is clearly deep in thought. “Hey! No distracting me. I’m not gonna die?!”

“I never said you weren’t, I can’t be sure. The only people without numbers or perpetually on zero are spirits, reapers, and immortals…”

"I'm already dead?!" Kuroo levels him a nonplussed stare.

“You’re too annoying to be dead, Kou. There isn’t a huge depth of research on mortals who willingly touch reaping scythes. Most of you can’t see it, can’t even touch us, and the others are far more sensible than you and don’t go around testing blades.”

Koutarou pouts.

“In my defence, I thought it was rubber or silicon or something. So what happens now? I just keep going on with no numbers? It doesn’t change anything, right?”

“I don’t know.” Kuroo says, but he’s staring at the TV screen, looking as blank as it. He’s hiding some knowledge.

“I’m gonna punch you if you don’t tell me Kuroo.” Koutarou states, already rolling up his sleeve. He is used to wrestling information out of Kuroo, often literally. He gets a faintly alarmed glance his direction, still not meeting his eyes. Kuroo has, now he thinks about it, gone faint around his edges, blurring into the sofa. Like he’s trying to disappear.

“I should have been more careful.” It’s murmured under his breath, but Koutarou catches it anyway. He flops himself over Kuroo’s lap, and stares at him determinedly.

“Why?”

“Kou, it’s not-”

“Tell me, Kuroo.”

“No, it’s not important-”

“It’s important enough that it’s freakin’ you out, Kuroo Testurou. I’m not gonna leave you. It was my fault, whatever it is.”

Kuroo takes a deep breath.

"You have... made the first steps, we could say. You could actually become one. A reaper."

Koutarou blinks, and a faint colour comes over Kuroo’s face.

He thinks about it, links together Kuroo liking getting him involved, connects various points to one another, on and on and ends up here.

“You want me to do that, don’t you?” The way Kuroo’s face only becomes redder, his edges fainter and harder to define, means he’s hit a truth. He feels like he’s being engulfed.

“I was never meant to get so attached.” Kuroo whispers. “I should have made you go.”

Koutarou huffs in irritation, and smacks his hands either side of Kuroo’s face. It makes a very funny picture, but he’s got a reaper boyfriend to comfort. Laughing wouldn’t do very well.

“Maybe I’d’ve chased you. Maybe I’m here, how many years later, because there’s somethin’ here I like, Kuu. I’m not leaving you ‘cause of that.” Kuroo nods hesitantly. “Maybe I’m glad you’re attached. Ain’t no getting’ rid of me now, dimwit.” Kuroo cracks a small smile, and it’s a start. “I’m gonna get us both a beer. You’re gonna explain, I’m gonna listen. We’re gonna work through this together, ‘kay?”

Kuroo nods. Koutarou walks to the fridge with faintly shaking legs.

It’s like deciding to engage with Kuroo the first time they met. Like deciding to meet him up again, after finding out. Like getting together, like moving in, like falling so, so deep. It’s all been a choice, and once Koutarou decides on something, he jumps with both feet.

Now, he’s got some big decisions to make.

#fantasyhaikyuuexchange2k18 #fantasy #bokuroo #bokuto koutarou #Kuroo Tetsurou #haikyuu!!#hq #writing #My writing #i had a hard time with this #i liked writing it but it just #held me at writing hostage #wanting to write when i couldn't #then not being able to think of anything when i could write #urgh #i really hope someone enjoys this #please

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mitmama · 2 years

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Brussels

Paris | Brussels | Bruges | Paris Food | Travel Tips

We were originally gonna visit Amsterdam with our friends. Alas, as it often happens, there was a strike in Netherland, and our Thalys train only went as far as Brussels. After getting on the phone for an hour trying to change tickets, we gave up and decided to just enjoy Brussels. Luckily our friend lived in Brussels previously. He gave us some tips about the city. It's quite compact and easily walkable, and more affordable compared with Paris. Some of our favorites:

Grand Place - the main square has many beautiful buildings including the tall City Hall dating from 1400s. The buildings to the left say that they from the 1600′s. There are often fests and events taking place here: we saw tents being erected as we left. All around the square are shops and restaurants, fun to walk around.

Manneken Pis - just a 5 minute walk from the Grand Place is the famous peeing boy, less than 2 feet tall. Everyone complains the statue is smaller than you’d think. After 400 years, someone thought of adding also a female version of the statue, called Janneken Pis.

i like how the Belgians didn’t take themselves too seriously and combined that with the other Belgian favorite, waffles; also nice gender equality.

Mont des Arts - our friend explained there’re many beautiful art deco buildings in the area because Belgium got rich in the early 1900s from its Congo colony, a dark past.

Nearby is the royal palace with a nice big park across the street. We really enjoyed hanging out at the beer garden in the park. And the kids rode scooters all around.

Where to stay

We stayed right between the Grand Place and Mont des Arts, quite convenient. Lodging in Brussels is half the price of Amsterdam. The 4 kids got to stay in their own apartment for less than $200 a day, even though we only booked the day before.

Walking around - It’s so fun to walk around town in the morning when it’s quiet all around.

Food

Belgian chocolates are world famous. There are many fancy chocolate stores throughout Brussels.

Finding good restaurants turned out to be not easy, there are many tourist traps around the Grand Place, despite being highly rated on Google Maps Thankfully our friend met up with his Anglo-Belgian friend who took us to a great seafood place called Bij den Boer. I enjoyed the scallop carpaccio and love loved the Greenland fish Turbot made with miso sauce.

There’s even an interesting pasta restaurant Pasta Divina. The nice owner explained her mother is from Bologna. Their signature squid ink pasta was solid, but the Bolognese pasta that my son ordered was amazing! My son remarked that in hindsight that was smart ordering.

I love how there’s a Delhaize convenient store right around the corner, where we can get delicious Belgian milk, smoothie, meats and croissants for cheap.

Last tip: be sure to book international train tickets early. Ours were quite expensive due to last minute purchase. Otherwise it’s quite convenient to train from Paris to Brussels, just 1 hour 15-20 mins.

#brussels #belgium #europe

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scripttorture · 7 years

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Thanks for coming back so quickly. If I could ask another question, do you know roughly what the rate of survival was even in those non-lethal forms? And also what was the attitude if someone died during/after torture that was intended to punish not kill? Thanks.

It’s difficult for me to put a figure on that whichis why I didn’t originally. I can discuss the contributing factors and takea guess, but this really is just a guess. It’s also nudging into @scriptmedic’sarea more than mine.

There are a lot of factorsthat feed into the fact our life expectancy now is much much higher than lifeexpectancy in the Middle Ages.

A quick illustrative example of just how huge the gap is: Alfred theGreat of Wessex. He is the only monarch England has ever called ‘Great’, helaid the groundwork for unifying England and was the only Saxon King toeffectively hold the Vikings at bay. He’s also believed to have had Crohnsdisease.

We think he died around 899 ADat the age of about 50. But we don’t actually know because his death wasn’t recorded.

One of the most popular explanations for that is that 45-50 was simply howlong people lived. His death from ‘old age’ was expected and so not recorded.

That was for a rich man who we can assume didn’t suffer from prolongedperiods of malnutrition.

I’d say the three most important advances since the time period you’retalking about have been nutrition,sanitation and antibiotics.

Some, but not all, of these advances can be mapped on to writing abouthistorical periods generally.

One of the things I mention, but don’t dwell on, in theMasterpost on Starvation is the higher rates of infection that accompanymalnutrition. In a time period where periodic bouts of starvation andunder-nourishment were the norm thatmeans assuming that virtually everyone below the absolute elite would be more prone to infection and lessable to fight off infection.

The diet of ordinary people could also be incredibly monotonous, whichincreases the chances of diseases associated with lack of particular nutrients,such as rickets, anaemia etc. Those conditions could also make a character morevulnerable to infection.

I’d say generally these points about nutrition and starvation apply to most cultures and time periods globally.While we are now much closer to eradicating starvation and diseases of malnutritionwe are not there yet.

If you’re trying to figure out the chances of a character surviving besure to factor in their access to food, not just over the past few days but recentmonths and years.

And then there’s sanitation which er-

You know what? I’m just going to quote a description of an English homein the Middle Ages (via T Deary’s HorribleHistories: Measly Middle Ages)

‘The floors are commonly of clay,strewn with rushes under which lies undisturbed an ancient collection of beer,spittle, grease, bones, droppings of animals and men and everything that isnasty.’

People rarely washed. Human and animal waste was everywhere. Water thatcould be used for drinking or washing was often contaminated with human waste. Bandageswere not always cleaned, rarely boiled and the majority of people probablycouldn’t afford enough clothe to change them regularly anyway.

I’d like to stress that situation wassolvable with the available technology at the time. Not every historicalculture was this soaked in filth. The comparative cleanliness of towns andcities in the Arab world at the same time (and indeed parts of Africa) wouldhave resulted in lower rates of infection and higher rates of survival.

But you asked for Europe and frankly at that time there was no wastedisposal. Human and animal waste was everywhere. Butchers dumped the entrailsof slaughtered animals in the streets. Rubbish was left to rot.

People washed irregularly at best and there was no real sense that handsshould be clean before touching wounds or that implements and bandages shouldbe clean.

The chances of foreign matter getting into an open wound were incrediblyhigh. The chances of that matter being some kind of bacterial culture were also incredibly high.

So even before we get into the lack of decent treatment for bacterialconditions there are two massive factors suppressing the victim’s immune systemand encouraging infection to take hold.

And there was really almost no effective treatment other than treatingsurface symptoms and hoping. This was a time when the usual treatment wasliterally prayer.

I’ve spent most of the morning looking for percentage survival ratesfrom infections in the era pre-antibiotics. The numbers I’ve found vary hugelydepending on the type of infection and the particular bacteria causing it.

I’m finding death rates anywhere from 11% to 80% for common bacterial causing infection in cuts and burns.

That’s among people who were fed in periods where basic sanitation was morecommon.

And we haven’t really gotten into the fact that the tortures we’rediscussing are highly damaging in and of themselves. These are serious woundsthat can kill regardless of infection, especially because torturers are not ‘skilled’people. They don’t pay particularattention to the damage inflicted on victims or stop and think if may be they’vegone ‘too far’. Instead they tend to just keep going.

Blood loss would also have been a pretty big cause of death, especiallyfor amputations and flogging.

So I’d say a conservative estimate would be a 35-40% death rate fortorturous punishments that weren’t intended to be lethal.

For more serious injuries caused by torture that figure would rise. Andit would rise again for people who were more severely malnourished.

A death rate of up to two thirds wouldn’t be unrealistic orunreasonable.

The does not mean you have tokill your character.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with us writing character survivingin situations where the odds are stacked against them, but I think it is important to acknowledge when that’sthe case. There’s nothing wrong with having your character get luckyoccasionally, especially when it comes to fighting an infectious disease. Justacknowledge that they were lucky.

Which leaves me with the final point- what did people at the time thinkof this death rate?

I’m going to have to keep the answer to that relatively shallow becauseI don’t know a lot about Christianity and the answer is heavily bound up in thereligious thought of the time.

Essentially ideas about punishment and justice were bound up in the religiousideas of the time. Suffering was seen as retribution in part because it broughtpeople closer to God.

The prevailing idea was that everything happened according to God’s willand for a reason. Therefore if someone died during a punishment they weresupposed to die.

In some circumstances this seems to have been seen as a proof ofinnocence or redemption. God stepped in to take the good soul to heaven. Inother circumstances it seems to have been taken as proof of guilt.

I honestly don’t understand enough about the religious thought at thetime to provide an analysis of that.

But in terms of building a fantasy world- well that’s not necessarilysomething you need to delve in to. Very few fantasy books actually make theirworld’s religion Christianity. That means you have the scope to decide foryourself how a character’s death or survival would be viewed. That meansthinking about the religion, social order and justice system.

It could also mean thinking about conflicts between those systems andcounter-cultural movements. There were a lotof ‘heretical’ sects during this period of history and a lot of cultsvenerating particular saints or purported events.

My own fantasy stories aren’t based in this period but one of the thingsI’ve enjoyed doing is using minority cultures in the world to providealternative points of view on events. That’s definitely something that can beused in regards to torture and different ideas of justice or morality.

I don’t have any sources I could confidently recommend on religion inthe Middle Ages. Davies’ The OxfordIllustrated History of Witchcraft and Magic might provide more information,although on a very particular area. Deary’s HorribleHistories series is also an incredibly good source on both torture and medicaltreatments. Scott’s A History of Tortureis…useful in parts if you can stomach the amount of racism in his writing.Amber recently released two volumes on the history of torture and the historyof punishment which I haven’t read in their entirety yet. Both contain sectionson historical Europe though I have my doubts about the attitude and sources in The History of Torture.

The best source, as ever, is accounts from the time. Descriptions oftrials and punishments. I’m unsure where the place to start looking for thosewould be. I know that earlier sources (ie 1000 AD and earlier) are harder tocome by for England particularly, in part because many of the primary sourcesburnt during the Great Fire of London. Sources for the 1200s, 1300s and 1400sare more numerous and may be a better period to concentrate on as a result.

If I come across anything that stands out as particularly useful I’ll besure to add it to the Sources page.

I hope that helps. :)

Disclaimer

#tw torture #tw scars #historical torture #infection #scarring torture #medical history #survival rates #middle ages #European historical torture #antibiotics #sanitation #Anonymous

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quranreadalong · 6 years

Text

SPECIAL BONUS SECTION: MOSES’ EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, PART 4

So we’ve established that there’s no doubt that the exodus of Hebrew slaves from Egypt to Canaan did not take place, and that Moses was only tied to books like Leviticus and Deuteronomy for political reasons somewhere between the 7th and 4th centuries BC. The conclusion to the Exodus story, the conquest of Canaan, is also mythical and probably a later addition to the tale. Moses is a mythical figure, albeit one who has been around for quite a while. But that leads us to back to our first question: is this a mythologized version of some real event or is it a completely mythical origin story, like Romulus and Remus? How far back can we date the story of Moses?

Throughout the past three centuries of Biblical scholarship, some scholars have tried (usually in vain) to find some explanation for the events described in Exodus. Even though they know it didn’t happen as described, even though it’s clear that the Hebrews have always lived in “Canaan” without any sudden mass immigration to the area, they theorized that maybe Exodus was a metaphor for some other, more minor event that involved some people of Israel or Judah or both.

The Bible dates the Exodus to around 500 years before the reign of King Solomon, and Solomon’s supposed time is around 1000 BC. So we’re looking at a hypothetical time of 1500 BC. This era of Egypt’s history was pretty well-documented, and nothing even remotely similar to the Exodus--even assuming the Biblical account has inflated numbers and mythological elements--is found in those records. So the story is clearly more complicated than “the Jews based the story on a real but smaller journey from Egypt”.

Biblical scholars have noted that regardless of whether there was a “real” event that Exodus was based upon or not, the authors of Exodus itself almost certainly didn’t know exactly when it happened, beyond being “a long time ago”. There are no dates in the book, no specific details that would allow one to identify the era; the villain of the story is just called “the pharaoh”, no name given. Compare this to the Book of Kings or Chronicles, books written about ancient but (mostly) real Jewish leaders, where the details may largely be mythological but the figures in the stories are based on named, identifiable individuals in clear eras. So whenever Exodus was first written, or orally transmitted, it was long after those involved in the supposed events were gone.

With all that in mind, let’s look at a handful of the theories about the ultimate source of the story.

THE EXODUS IS...

…THE MYTHOLOGIZED VERSION OF THE ORIGIN OF THE LEVITES

This theory is based more on Biblical texts outside the Exodus story than within it. One of the twelve tribes of Israel was the tribe of Levi. The Levites were the kingdom’s priestly class, and at least in post-exilic times the priests claimed descent from Aaron (and he, Moses, and their family were supposed to be descendants of Levi). Unlike the other eleven tribes, they didn’t get a particular piece of land–they just lived throughout Israel in major cities. Because they have a different status than the other 11 tribes, some have suggested that they came to Israel from somewhere else and dispersed throughout the territory. That, combined with some of the Levites in the Exodus story having names (including Moses and Aaron himself) that sound plausibly Egyptian, has led a handful of scholars to believe that while the majority of Jews always lived in Canaan, maybe the Levites were some group who left Egypt and then joined the other tribes, who were later added to the Exodus story to make it more universal. The story itself may be mythical, but they contend it was at least based on a movement of a (future) Jewish group from Egypt to Israel.

There is no archaeological, genetic, historical, or any other sort of evidence for this. It seems to be mainly a theory for those who want to believe that there was some movement of Jews from Egypt to Israel while acknowledging that the entire group did not make this trek. The connection between the Levite priests and Aaron (and the story of Aaron itself) seems to be a rather late invention, as mentioned last section, so his name being possibly Egyptian is hardly evidence of anything. For the record, most scholars think that priesthood in Israel was open to every tribe, but gradually the families of the priests intermarried and consolidated spiritual power, and this--not a migration--is how the Levites came to be in ancient times.

Verdict: There’s no evidence that the Levites came to Israel from Egypt, let alone in an Exodus-like event, nor is there evidence that “Levites” were a distinct, interrelated group anywhere close to the supposed time of Exodus. Considered unlikely.

...SOME MYTHOLOGICAL VERSION OF SOME OTHER SMALL GROUP OF ESCAPED SLAVES

There’s nothing to back this one up aside from the fact that the writer(s) of the Exodus story seems to have had a fairly good understanding of the geography of the desert between Egypt and Israel. There were slaves at the time and some did escape, so some scholars say that hey, maybe a small group of slaves did make their way to Israel from Egypt, and this huge story gradually grew out of that real event. Maybe that group wasn’t comprised of Levites or anyone particularly important, but it still made for a good story, so the memory of the journey survived. These scholars acknowledge that the hypothetical original story had basically zero resemblance to the Exodus we know, they just speculate that some small group did make the journey.

Verdict: No evidence one way or the other.

...A REFERENCE TO THE ENSLAVED “APIRU” PEOPLE

Some Akkadian records mention a group called the Apiru or “Habiru” located throughout the Middle East, some of whom were slaves. Since “Habiru” obviously sounds quite a bit like “Hebrew”, early scholars thought that there might be some connection. Perhaps, they reasoned, the real exodus involved the “Habiru” breaking away from their masters--not in Egypt, but in Canaan itself. The Egyptians were worked into the story due to Egyptian domination of the region.

But further investigation has shown that “Habiru” was essentially a derogatory term, like “brigands” or something of that nature--it did not refer to people in one area or even one ethnic/linguistic group. While some were slaves, many of the people called “Apiru” were outlaws, murderers, and mercenaries. In many cases the word “Apiru” is used to refer to bands of mercenaries who are hired by some would-be ruler. There is nothing in particular to link them to the future people of Israel/Judah, let alone anything connecting them to any sort of exodus event. While the words do sound vaguely similar, that’s the only thing even sort of linking them to the Hebrews.

Verdict: No real evidence to support it; since the term doesn’t seem to refer to a specific ethnic group and has no clear link to Israel, it’s not considered probable.

...A REFERENCE TO THE COLLAPSE OF HYKSOS RULE OF EGYPT

The “Hyksos” were some group of vaguely Levantine people who took over the government of Egypt and ruled it for a while, usually through vassals, around the 1500s BC. It’s unclear exactly when their influence started and how it began in the first place; most believe it wasn’t a simple invasion but rather involved large numbers of migrants arriving in Egypt for trade and such. Regardless, by the 1400s BC they had largely been routed. Because it fits the timeline given in the Book of Kings and Israel is in the Levant, many throughout history have hypothesized that there is some connection between them and the Exodus story. Maybe the Hyksos getting kicked out of Egypt and back to the Levant, where they came from, was the basis of Exodus; the Hyksos were re-cast as slaves to make them more sympathetic. Some go further and suggest that the cataclysmic Minoan eruption, which occurred around this time, was the basis of the Biblical plagues, seen in hindsight as god’s punishment falling upon the Egyptians (not that they were the only ones affected by it).

The first-century Roman Jewish historian Josephus claimed that the “Hyksos” mentioned in Egyptian records were a lordly class of shepherds, which he suggests is the root etymology for their name. Thousands of these shepherds left Egypt for Jerusalem at the end of Hyksos rule. The only problem with this is that there are no records saying it actually happened, and the source Josephus claimed he got this from (which no longer exists) dates to the 300s BC, which would be over a thousand years later. Also, Josephus got the etymology of “Hyksos” wrong (it just means “foreign leaders” basically). Moreover, the “Hyksos” as a people in the region stop being mentioned centuries before the time that “Israelites” became a distinct group.

Verdict: The “Hyksos” probably did originate in the Levant (around modern-day southwestern Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine) and did have some connection to Egypt in the 1500s BC, but absolutely nothing about their history bears any resemblance to the Exodus or Moses. It’s possible that some vague, region-wide (not specific to the people of Israel and Judah) memory of the Hyksos influenced the story in some way, but that’s as far as it goes.

...REALLY ABOUT A REVOLT OF LEPERS

Josephus mentions that the same lost 4th century BC Egyptian source (or rather a document based on that source) claims that a priest named Osarseph led a revolt of lepers and other undesirables against the pharaoh of Egypt. They helped the Hyksos conquer Egypt and religiously oppressed the population before they were finally defeated. Oh and then Osarseph changed his name to Moses!

Yet again, this event isn’t recorded in any actual Egyptian texts. The fact that the only source we know of for this story post-dates Exodus has led many to view it as later anti-Jewish propaganda, as the rebellious group is obviously evil here. The original myth about the lepers’ revolt was probably a metaphor for the religious policies of the pharaoh Akhenaten, who forced an unpopular policy of worshiping only one god, the sun god Aten, on Egypt before the country reverted to its earlier practices after his death. The details connecting it with the Exodus story were almost certainly later additions.

Verdict: Pretty clearly doesn’t have anything to do with it.

...AN EGYPTIAN MYTH BROUGHT TO ISRAEL BY MEMBERS OF THE “SHASU”

I mentioned in an earlier section that Egyptian records in the 15th-13th centuries BC name some group called the “Shasu”, who appear to have been a nomadic people spread out over a large area, with most in the Jordan region. One group of Shasu is called “Shasu of Y-h-w-”, which some scholars connect to the word “Yahweh”. Some speculate that they brought some stories from Egypt with them, including perhaps the one above, and over time it just changed until it reached the form we now know. Others believe that Exodus is based on the enslavement of some Shasu people themselves, though there is zero historical evidence suggesting that they were enslaved in large numbers or left Egypt in a slave revolt. This is all purely hypothetical--there’s no evidence for it at all.

Verdict: The connection between the Shasu and Yahweh may have some truth to it but there’s nothing to suggest they were the originators of the Exodus story.

...BASED ON THE COLLAPSE OF EGYPTIAN RULE OF THE LEVANT

The beginnings of the Israelites as a distinct group, rather than just one of many Canaanite peoples, seem to have their roots in the societal collapse around the whole eastern Mediterranean region of the 1200s BC. During this time, groups of “sea peoples”, evidently mostly Greeks and Philistines (Greek colonists in the Levant), went on an absolute tear of destroying shit along the eastern Mediterranean. It’s unclear if this caused the collapse, or if these people had been affected by the collapse and sought to conquer other territories as a result, but there’s no doubt that it was not a fun time to live in this region. It’s easy to see why small splinter groups would arise and fight with one another to protect what little they had in such an environment, and at first, the people of Israel (and later Judah) were probably just one of many such groups.

The first probable reference to a people called Israel dates to around the year 1200 BC in the Merneptah Stele, which states that the armies of Egypt destroyed them in addition to various other peoples of the Canaan region. Egypt, you see, had been attacked by the “sea peoples” too, but they’d fought them off and their society had survived. And so they did what the Egyptians did best, namely keep their many territories in line by occasionally attacking the rebellious people living there. This event in the life of the young nation was no doubt quite traumatizing and probably did not endear the Egyptians to them. But they’d get the last laugh--Egypt may have thought that it survived the collapse, but the kingdom would eventually fall into political and economic disarray, beginning only 100 or so years after the aforementioned “destruction” of Israel. The resulting decline of Egyptian influence in the region allowed Israel to prosper, and by 1000 BC it had become a true, functional kingdom.

Some scholars speculate that the oldest part of the Exodus story is the “Song of the Sea”, which is written in a noticeably archaic style compared to the rest of the book (though others point out that this might have been intentional, i.e. someone was writing in Old-Timey Hebrew the way someone might write in Old-Timey English in a fictional work). This “song” doesn’t actually mention Moses himself, nor the whole slave thing, but does say that the Lord destroyed the pharaoh’s armies and cast them into the sea, then boasts of how he will help the Hebrews conquer various regional rivals. These scholars believe that this may have been the actual basis of Exodus, transmitted orally, with Moses and the narrative of slavery etc all being added later to build a story around this text. But they believe that the original text itself was just implying that the god of the Hebrews had destroyed the Egyptians as punishment for Egypt attacking them.

Verdict: There are important scholars who believe it’s a credible theory, though obviously it has nothing much in common with the final version of Exodus beyond the role of Egyptians as villains.

...A VARIANT OF THE LEVIATHAN STORY TAKEN FROM ANOTHER CULTURE

This one is sometimes presented as a precursor to the theory above and sometimes presented as its own thing. In the Bible, there is a story of God defeating some evil sea creature named Leviathan or Rahab. This story is from the Baal Cycle of Middle Eastern mythology, which seems to have started or was at least heavily developed by the Ugarites. In this story, the evil sea creature Lotan is defeated by Baal, who you may remember as one of the Canaanite gods who was also worshiped by the Jews before such things were outlawed. No one really disputes that this is where the story of Leviathan came from, but that’s not really the point.

The point is that there are some features that the Exodus story seems to share with, if not pulled from, the Leviathan story. Take this from the Book of Isaiah, written around the 6th century BC:

Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon? Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?

YHWH destroys the evil creature and “dried up the sea” so that “the redeemed” could cross over it. In other parts of the Bible written around the same time, like the Book of Ezekiel, the pharaoh himself is called “the great monster lurking in the streams of the Nile”.

Obviously, these later writers connected the Leviathan story to Exodus' account of Yahweh killing the Egyptian army in the sea. But might there have been a historical reason for this connection? Maybe a very early version of the Exodus story was just an upgraded version of the Leviathan tale, with YHWH smiting the monstrous pharaoh in the water. And maybe that story got combined with some of the other stories above, like the escaped-slave narrative.

Verdict: Maybe...?

...MANY DIFFERENT MYTHICAL STORIES GLUED TOGETHER OVER CENTURIES, WITH EACH ADDITION COMING AT AN IMPORTANT TIME IN THE HISTORY OF THE JEWS BUT NOT HAVING ANY HISTORICAL BASIS

This one is intentionally vague but it’s repeated by a lot of scholars. Rather than just one or two of the above being correct, the Exodus story was likely built up over time, and did not reach its basic form--the persecution and enslavement of Hebrews, Moses as the central figure, who as a baby was taken into the royal household and as an adult was a prophet, the plagues and the destruction of the pharaoh, the trek to Canaan, the conquest of its people--until not long before (or even after) the exile, after which the various laws were added to it along with a few other changes. Maybe it really did start as the Leviathan myth, and then it was changed into being about the pharaoh’s army being drowned after the Bronze Age Collapse. Maybe then the Israelites wanted to be different from the other Canaanites and later said that all of this happened in Egypt itself and the Hebrews left and conquered their current homeland rather than just always living there. Maybe the slavery part was from a myth taken from the Egyptians themselves or from some group that really did make its way to Israel from Egypt. Maybe Moses was only included from this point onwards and not before it. Maybe much of it is true, in small measures.

For example, nearly all scholars believe that Moses’ childhood is based on a mythical account of the king Sargon of Akkad, who is described in a 7th century BC at latest (it is probably earlier than that) text as:

My high priestess mother conceived me, in secret she bore me. She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid. She cast me into the river which rose over me. The river bore me up and carried me to Akki, the drawer of water. Akki, the drawer of water, took me as his son and reared me.

...which itself is based, in all likelihood, on an even older tale about the Queen of Kanesh. So Moses’ personal story probably wasn’t finalized until not long before the exile itself; many of the details of the story indicate an 8th century BC origin at earliest, though most believe it is more likely the 7th century, with other additions centuries after that. (Some of the same scholars think that details of Moses’s later life were based on Hadad of Edom--the relationship between the two is obvious but which came first is extremely unclear.)

There are scholars who believe that other details about the behavior of the Hebrews during the journey through the desert may have their origins in some sort of conflict between Judah and Israel, as the Exodus story has many similarities to the (mostly legendary) story of the Israelite king Jeroboam in the Book of Kings and Book of Chronicles. For example, Jeroboam receives word that he has a great destiny, flees to Egypt and then returns to Israel. When he gets back, he demands the king Rehoboam stop treating the people of Israel so harshly, and leads a successful revolt against him when he refuses. This is given as the origin of the Kingdom of Israel, after it separated from the united monarchy (which, just to reiterate, we have no historical evidence for). But then Jeroboam and his people fall into sinfulness, as they build a golden calf idol, falling back out of god’s favor.

Obviously the details are too similar to be a coincidence. Some scholars believe Jeroboam’s actions were intended to hearken back to the Exodus story... but others believe that it was the other way around. The Bible, which was written almost entirely by Judeans, presents their vanquished northern neighbors as overly influenced by foreigners, prone to idolatry, and generally incapable of ruling themselves without falling into sin. As we saw in the first section, this was likely tied to the Judean kings’ determination to “restore” their “rightful” rule over Israel.

And so other scholars believe that Jeroboam or a similar early king of Israel did indeed build calf idols, and the people writing this story in Josiah’s time sought to present this as a grave sin in the eyes of YHWH and one of the reasons for Israel’s later collapse. So the calf story was inserted into Exodus, where it is shown to be a heinous act that YHWH brutally punishes. Probably not coincidentally, the Book of Kings has a prophet saying that Josiah himself will personally destroy the site where Jeroboam built the calf idols. And that is what Josiah did, when he took over Bethel and demolished the cult center there (to eliminate a rival religious center for Jerusalem, in all likelihood).

It’s not a crazy theory, because as we’ve seen, most of the hypothetical additions to the (also hypothetical) base text served some political or religious purpose--the document was not thrown together randomly. In the 600s BC, it served to unite a nation under an ambitious leader and provide a justification for his policies; in the 500s and 400s BC, it served to re-form the history and spiritual life of a destroyed and restored people. Moses as a figure proved useful to writers in both eras. He hated what they hated, and loved what they loved, because they wrote him that way.

The Exodus was a perpetually changing document, and we just know the end result of it all. It likely wasn’t originally about an adopted Egyptian prince sending plagues upon the Egyptians and leading his people to Canaan after various desert shenanigans, but that’s the tale that solidified at some point after the Babylonian exile, becoming a central component of the history of the Jewish people. Given everything we’ve talked about, you can tell why the story had such enormous appeal to Jews in the exilic and post-exilic era, regardless of its origins--in the end, it was about their triumph as a people, and a return to their homeland. Jews and Christians in Mohammed’s era fully believed in the Exodus, with no doubts about its historicity, and so it’s the tale Mohammed had to work with--with even more additions from apocryphal texts. So let’s leave the “original” Moses, whoever he was, behind, and actually get back to the Quran now.

⇚ previous day | next day ⇛

#historylesson #quranreadalong #taha #surah 20

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08091999 · 4 years

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The printing press: a deadly weapon

When we’re thinking of the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century, we have in mind a great progress that allowed the dissemination of knowledge by making reproductions faster, easier and more accessible. The fact that this is a major development is indisputable but we never really think about the possible bad consequences it could’ve generated. The printing press is a fantastic and powerful invention but what if this tool is misuse?

It didn't take long before the first example came: The Malleus Maleficarum, usually translated as the Hammer of Witches in english, is a treatise fighting witchcraft written by the clergyman Heinrich Kramer and published in Speyer in 1486. Before the 1400’s, it was rare to be persecuted for witchcraft in Europe. Heinrich Kramer first tried to prosecute witches in the Tyrol region but he was quickly labeled as senile and crazy and was expelled of his living-city. Angry, he decided to write and to publish his book as a way to communicate his ideas despite local censorship and as an act of self-justification and revenge.The printing press materialized and spread a discourse that would have been ignored and mocked.£ Malleus Maleficarum was surprisingly a great success and spread throughout Europe rapidly. Between 1487 and 1520, twenty editions were published, and another sixteen followed between 1574 and 1669. The invention of printing instigated the fervor of witch hunting and as Jeffrey Burton Russel said, “the swift propagation of the witch hysteria by the press was the first evidence that Gutenberg had not liberated man from original sin”. As an impact to this publication, tens of thousands of people, mainly women, were tortured and killed for “witchcraft”.

Printing gave reproducible materiality to thoughts. As a consequence, it developed new ways of propaganda that were more powerful since it easily extended the speech in time and space. Over time, editorial projects gave legitimacy to thoughts. We forgot that publishing is just a tool of reproduction, it doesn’t determine the quality of the content. Nowadays, we tend to think that if it’s printed in a book, it is a reliable and immutable source. Books gave credibility to opinions that might not have been considered verbally. But at what price? The Internet is often considered to be less reliable: in fact, it’s the same thing. The Internet is just a tool and everything depends on the use we make of it.

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saintsnsinnersbdb · 4 years

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Deal with the Devil: The End of the Beginning (Part 6)

Written by @Lassiter_SASBDB.

https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1srinhn

It was a normal, blue-collar suburban neighborhood, filled with 1950’s ranch homes and split-levels. Mature trees lined streets that were probably filled with kids on bikes and dog-walkers during warm weather months, although now they were barren except for a couple of people shoveling snow off the sidewalks and a few toddlers playing in the white stuff with a stay-at-home parent in their respective yards. Shortly the Catholic K-12 down the street would let out and younger kids would trudge their way home while teens tentatively navigated the slick streets in 200,000+ mile Subaru’s and Nissans that had been purchased not by their parents but by working summer and after-school jobs and saving their money to do it themselves. Yeah, this was that kind of human neighborhood. So why was Devina here?

Short answer is hiding out. After I’d rousted her from that obnoxious ode to regentrification in yuppieville she’d gone deep. So deep I’d thought for a while she’d left Caldwell. But I knew I couldn’t be that lucky, so I’d kept looking. The easiest way to find her was to focus on missing persons. Not the bodies, although there would be plenty of those, but she was smart and careful. She wasn’t going to leave any of those where I might put together a pattern. But I’d been looking for the wrong /kind/ of missing persons.

Devina’s preferred prey was male and not too sober. A horny, drunk man was a sitting duck. She’d take females, too. Had all too often, but her bait for them tended to be emotional support or some such shit. She “bonded” with them when they were at low points. So I’d been looking for singles. People who had gone missing from bars or been depressed and just ghosted. I’d been over hundreds of missing persons reports…yeah, computer hacking isn’t my bag, but when you can go invisible and look over a cop’s shoulder for an afternoon it’s a piece of cake to get the right passwords. Then it’s just a little late night B&E into the police station and an empty office. But I’d looked for months and hadn’t found anything I couldn’t track down. And yes, some of them had been dead, but a few inquiries “up top” had let me know the souls had made it where they were supposed to. Obviously not Devina’s victims, as taking the souls was the whole point for the bitch. So I’d finally backed off that angle, taking a wait-until it-smacks-me-in-the-face approach.

For a while I’d turned my attention to the problems of the Brotherhood and the race. That whole deity-in-training thing was turning out to be a full time job. I kind of liked it. Who knew I had it in me? But while “tending my flock” I’d stumbled across something that sent me in a new direction.

Now,I’m not big into the whole “organized religion” thing, even for the race, but I tried to keep tapped into this one particular Catholic church. Most of the brothers aren’t big on prayers to the Virgin Scribe unless shit is going down hard, but Butch was a regular, so long as he could do it in a Catholic church like his human mother had taught him and this was his one of choice. I wasn’t 100% sure prayers not directed to the VS would get to me through the whole ethereal call-forwarding system the Creator had put in effect, so sometimes I went to hear Butch’s in person. I know, I know, I could have just tapped into his head when he was in the manse or the pit, but it seemed like an invasion of privacy to do it in his personal space. A church was basically public, so it felt more acceptable to go invisible and sit in the pew behind him while I listened in. I didn’t wanna neglect him. And it was a beautiful place. The serenity there was on par with my place in the forest so sometimes during the day, after my morning deity duty, I’d go back to the church and hang around and kinda veg in it while the Brotherhood slept. Or whatever. With all the shellans these days you never knew. Or, given the volume level, sometimes you did, but you didn’t /wanna/ know, feel me? So some days I decided to be missing during the fireworks and this place was calming. Ellen and Maury only relieve the stress of being a deity so much, you know? And if I followed the priests back to the rectory, well, hey, the nun who cooked for them made killer snickerdoodles. I kept trying to snitch the recipe for #Fritz but she did it all from her head and man, I am SO not going to pick a nun’s brain.*shudders at the implications* It was while I was looking over her shoulder as she baked that I overheard the three priests that lived there talking.

They’d lost a family from their parish that week. I mean literally LOST them. Dad, mom, and four kids, ages 4 through 9. Just vanished. The kids all went to the parish school and when none of them showed up four days running and the voicemails to the parents weren’t being returned one of the priests had gone to check on them. All he had found was an empty house. He’d called the police and filed a missing persons report to start a preliminary investigation but essentially both mom and dad had called into work one morning and said they were taking a week off, and since it’s not illegal to take vacation time, the cops had done nothing. But it was odd that the school hadn’t been contacted at all. So I did a little digging of my own and what do you know...a pattern.

Six families from different parishes in Caldwell had disappeared in the last four months. Thirty-seven souls in all. All the families had been Catholic. All the families had young children, one just a few months old. And the mother in all the families had attended a stay-at-home mom support group that met every Thursday night in the gymnasium of St. Phillip Neri’s Church and Catholic School. The same one that was just down the street. And the group was open to people from all parishes in the archdiocese, which explained why the missing families were from all over the city.

It hadn’t been hard from there. I’d stationed myself outside the gym two Thursday nights ago and waited and lo and behold, who should walk out, but Devina, bundled up in a puffy white coat that made her look like the Pillsbury Doughboy and fake giggling with a human female. It was “soooo tough to relax when the kids couldn’t get out much because of the cold” she said and then she said her condo on the beach in Florida was “sooooo relaxing” and such a help. And then she offered her nonexistent condo to the frustrated mom and her family for a stress-free vacay. And bingo, bango, done, I knew how she was luring the families in.

She’d left the woman in the parking lot as others came out, getting into a predictably boring, yet originally expensive, used Volvo, thereby confirming her image as a middle-class mom who could afford a few luxuries and putt-putted to the last house on a street that dead-ended at a dense woods with a “no trespassing” sign on the the fence that separated it from neighborhood. That gave me a good idea what she was doing with the bodies.

I’d done my recon in the past two weeks. While she hadn’t brought any new victims home, she did have a routine she invariably followed. In the mornings she made a public appearance with a pair of toddler-sized gollums she glamoured into looking like rosy-faced children. Playing in the front yard, a walk with a stroller in the park, going to the grocery store… it was always carefully planned to give her maximum exposure to her victim group without allowing them to get too involved in interacting with the “kids”. Every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon she put the golems in carseats and left the house at 1:58 PM. I’d followed her those days and found Devina had a standing 2:30 appointment with a therapist. Good to know somebody else knew what a neurotic bitch she was. She’d deactivated the gollums and left them in the car in a parking garage while she had her appointment, magicking the rear window tint to opacity so no one noticed them there. Afterwards she indulged her inner compulsive shopper for an hour or two and then headed back home.

And now, on /this/ Thursday I was standing across the street from her modest hideout waiting for her to leave. Like clockwork, at 1:58 the garage door rose and the Volvo backed out of the driveway. I had stayed invisible while I waited for her to leave -- even though I’d taken the precaution of tucking my long black and blonde streaked hair down inside my coat with a black watch cap shoved over my head and added shades and a black scarf to obstruct most of my face, I’d decided discretion was the better part of valor here. While it was obviously a friendly neighborhood, 6’7” of unknown muscle encased in black leather standing on a dead end street would make anyone take notice and I did/not/want to be noticed. And I was glad I had. Devina must have sensed something off. She stopped the car after she’d backed onto the street and looked up and down it. She’d paused as her gaze fell on where I was standing and squinted. I simply stood there watching. If she saw me and we did this the hard way, it was no skin off my nose. I’d just thought it would be simpler if I searched for the souls and released them myself before deciding what to do about her this time. Finally, she’d given up and driven down the street to turn onto the main drag. As the last wisp of frozen exhaust from her car disappeared, I turned my attention to her house.

It was a tidy little brick ranch. No gargoyles or garishly macabre door knockers this time. The front lawn was fenced but otherwise unadorned. The curtains were drawn on the large picture window as well as the jalousies that were probably the bedrooms’ windows to the world. Down lower, hopper windows told me there was a basement. All in all, even if the basement is finished, there’s probably only 1400 square feet absolute max. A huge comedown for her. Devina liked luxury and lots of it. This probably was very nearly Hell for her. *smirking as I fold my arms across my chest.*

Getting inside wasn’t a problem. Although Devina knew how to keep me out she was just arrogant enough to assume this was enough of a change to keep me from finding her and maintaining warding requires power that she doesn’t have an abundance of right now. Thirty-seven souls weren’t going to be enough to keep it powered up and maintain the glamour that kept people from seeing the evil hellbitch she really was. But she could have put in ADT and that was going to take some finesse. I didn’t want her coming back before I was ready for her. As I dematerialized just inside the front door I took a moment and looked around. To the left, just behind where the door would hide it if I’d opened it was a control box with a steady green light. It was either set to trigger when the door opened or had motion sensors connected to it. Either way was no big deal. While it might have caught an unwary human, all I had to do was demat from room to room and stand still while I scoped them out.

As I stood in the doorway looked through the small living room it was apparent that Devina was maintaining her cover well. There was nothing here to indicate she wasn’t what she seemed. A photo of her in a wedding dress with a man in a tux graced the foyer wall surrounded by pictures of the “kids”. On the table beneath it lay a scrapbook, conveniently open to an obituary for National Guard Captain Alan Veckman, KIA in Afghanistan. A wife and two kids were listed as the only survivors. That explained why she hadn’t gollumed up a spouse for her image. She’d just tracked this guy down, photoshopped herself into their wedding picture, and probably taken the wife and kids as her first victims this time around. Instant sympathetic widow.

The house had had some modernization done on the inside. Instead of closed off main rooms the dining room walls had been knocked down to open it up to both living room and kitchen, forming the more-currently-popular “great room''. From here I could see all the public spaces were clean. No macabre art work on the walls, no horrific but trendy sculpture. Just a few framed prints on the walls and the typical kid’s finger paintings on the fridge. I popped into the kids bedroom and the hall bath, doing a quick check, but finding nothing then moved on to the master. It had been remodeled too, probably taking out the third bedroom to enlarge it and add the spa-like ensuite. This space, small by Devina’s norms, still felt more like her. Where the great room had been “Leave It To Beaver” tidy, this place was an overpacked disaster. Her shopping addiction was apparent in the overstuffed closet and bags of clothing laying on the floor. Jewelry strung haphazardly across the dresser and the unmade bed completed the total mess. The bathroom had every known brand of cosmetic, perfume and skin treatment known to man represented, and that was just a waste of money, given she relied on magick to maintain her outwardly pretty face and body. Lots of scented bath crap around the tub, too. Keeping the stench of evil down must require some heavy maintenance. But still nothing that hinted at her new well of souls.

Only one place left to check. The basement. I’d spied the door to it in the kitchen. If any door was going to be wired to alert her, it would be that one, but if it was her gateway to hell, ADT wasn’t going to be her alert system. Dematting to the kitchen, I look at the door and open my senses. There was nothing alive in that basement but there sure was a lot of pain coming from it. I dematerialize to the otherside of the door and flick on the stairwell light. The smell hits me immediately. The odor of death is distinctive. The odor of death by torture even more so. Blood, feces, spilled intestines, vomit….and the residual agony...I had to stop on the steps and take a deep breath to steel myself. I’ve seen a lot, done a lot, been on battlefields. But I never get used to this.

Jaw set grimly, I focus on the details of my surroundings to get me down the stairs. The walls are painted yellow concrete blocks, the ceiling exposed floor joists. The floor at the bottom of the stairs is smooth concrete. My eyes follow the slope of the concrete to the center drain, beginning to take in the blood and viscera still laying on the floor. She must have magicked the whole damned place to keep the smell down here. Nausea rises in my throat, but I force it down as my gaze rises to the table over the center drain. It’s a steel autopsy table, the kind sits on a pedestal and raises and lowers for the user's convenience. It has a sink attached to it and channels that run down the sides to let blood and body fluids drain away . But unlike standard autopsy tables this one also has straps attached. Ones for wrists, ankles and forehead as well as thicker ones that run over the chest and thighs. I guess Devina wanted options. Staked to the wall behind it is the mutilated body of a female. Early 30’s, blonde, fair skinned where the corpse wasn’t ripped open or stained with red. Before moving towards it, I flip another switch that lights the corners of the basement. I take in the empty cell in the corner. Makes sense. If she’s taking families she can’t work on them all at once and holding them immobile takes power she doesn’t have. And on the concrete wall that runs behind the staircase I see it. Instead of a well she’s created a wall this time. Faces frozen in agony are embedded along it. Male, female...children…

”Creator,” it’s a scream in my head “she did this to CHILDREN!” I can feel His pain, but the whisper enters my head “She has a part to play. She must live.”

I choke back an agonized cry and move towards the woman staked to the wall. Gently I close her already clouded eyes, murmuring “I’m sorry. I was too late for you and your family. But I’ll set you free.” I know she’s not in there anymore. She’s on that god damned wall. The body is just the alarm system. Devina will know if it’s moved. Well, I’ll get to that.

Moving to the wall, I let my wings become visible. The basement ceiling is too low for me to spread them fully, but I can feel the souls’ pain and terror. Going full angel will help calm them, I hope. The white light I normally suppress to a dim glow that can be at least partially explained by the light catching all my piercings is fully released to become a white light so brilliant it would burn the retina’s of a mortal.

“𒂼𒅈𒄄.” Release, in ancient Summarian, the language taught to humans by the angels. “Ama-ar-gi. Release,” I repeat it again and again as the souls gradually disengage from the wall and come to stand before me. Fathers, mothers...little ones, all confused and fearful. But even as they shimmer into existence, the rheapers come. I knew they would. As I serve the Creator, they serve Death. I help mortal souls find their way in life. They help souls move on and find their way once their mortal bodies can no longer serve them. And, like me, they’ve seen it all, but also like me, this sickens them. After the initial shock of pity passes, compassion settles on their faces as they begin to take the souls. Somehow they know which souls belong together and they take them as families.

After the last has gone, one rheaper remains. She’s small and dark-haired, her 5’3” frame barely reaching chest high on me, but she comes towards me, pounding her finger into my chest and hissing,

“They weren’t supposed to die yet! Take. Care. Of. This. Or we will.”

“I can’t. The Creator says she has to live. For at least a little longer.”

“Good thing we don’t answer to Him, then isn’t it? My boss doesn’t like waste of the life spark and this is incredible waste,” she shoots back at me. As I look at her, not a little shocked, she shrugs “What, you didn’t know? Everything dies. Even at the Creator’s level, there’s balance. Balance for Life is Death. Two sides of the same coin. So,” putting her hands on her hips and squaring off with me,” handle this before we do.”

“The demon has a part to play. I don’t like it, but I’m forbidden to kill her.” My frustration must be showing in my face, because she softens a little bit.

“Then get creative with it. Because the rheaper way won’t be creative. Just final.”

She disappears in front of me, a fine black mist swirling into nothing. ‘Get creative,’ she’d said. Biting my lip, an idea I really don’t like hits me, but one of the Creator’s early lessons pushes back on my initial rejection. ‘Being a deity often consists of doing things you don’t like.’ Yeah, this qualifies. With a sigh, I go to the body staked on the other wall and gently remove it, laying it on the autopsy table. The sudden drop in power when the souls were freed would have been enough to alert Davina there was trouble. At this point moving the female’s body was just respect for the dead. But I wouldn’t face the bitch over it.

As I go back up the stairs, I open the door to the kitchen and cross to take a seat at the table just as I hear the garage door go up. As she bursts through the door from the garage, she shrieks,

“YOU! What have you DONE?!!!!”

“Hello to you, too. Long time no see.” Everything in me wants to slam a lightning bolt through that glamored body just to see it twitch, but that’s not the plan. “You knew I’d still be looking for you. Did you really think hiding out in this hovel would be enough camouflage? You have a very distinct signature.”

“Those souls were MINE! They came to me freely. You had no RIGHT!” The last comes out as an angry wail and ok, I’m done with diplomacy. Rising from my chair I slam my hand thunderously on the table.

“I have EVERY right. You broke the rules. You took innocents…children. Babes in arms. You’re only allowed ones that have the ability to make their own choices.”

She glares at me, then crosses her arms and simpers, “The parents made their choices for them. Children have such power, You know, the more innocent the soul, the greater the energy. I’m short on that, thanks to you, so kids were a quick way to restore it. And the pain of the parents as they watched their brats die...it was sooo delicious. That kind of pain is almost as powerful as the kids' souls. So I’m stronger now than I was the last time we faced off. Whatcha’ going to do about it?”

Motherfucking bitch….Oh, so not getting away with that. Holding a hand out, I release a bolt of electricity that knocks her back against the refrigerator and spears through her body to pin her to it.

“What am I going to do about it?” I repeat. “I can do a lot of /very/ painful things to you Devina that won’t result in your --immediate-- death. You’ll just wish it did. I’m not that naive angel boy you once knew and betrayed. Deity-level upgrades come with deity-level thinking. And you aren’t strong enough to break free even from that,” nodding at the electric bindings holding her to the fridge, “Now are you? So I have a lot of pain in store for you. Maybe I”ll use your own autopsy table. But,” materializing a silver handled angel’s dagger, the blade flashing blue fire, “I think I’ll bring my own tools.”

The thing is, while I really would like to end Devina, torture isn’t my thing. It makes me wanna throw up. But ‘get creative’ the rheaper had said, so creative I was being. Devina doesn’t know what the kind of changes the Creator made with me when he agreed to bring me up to a deity, might have done to my psyche. In her fallen, psychotic brain the Creator is a cold, distant daddy figure capable of enjoying causing His children pain and she’s getting back at Him by embracing the dark side. So I can see the doubt growing in those dark eyes. She’s asking herself if I’m still the same egocentric, soft, gullible angel-boy toy she used and killed centuries ago or am I growing up in Daddy’s image? Have I turned into a being that is detached enough to use pain for my own ends? Thing is, I hope I am becoming more like the Creator. Because He’s nothing like what she thinks He is and nothing like who I used to be either. He’s just….more. But the doubt is good for my plan.

The energy trapping her against the refrigerator is doing its job. Not only is it keeping her immobilized, it’s sapping her strength enough that her true appearance is flickering through. Time to move to the next step. Calmly, I take the tip of my dagger and clean a nail with it before pointing it at her.

“You’re losing your mojo babe. Your face is showing. I don’t think all those creams and cosmetics are helpful for decayed, oozing skin.”

“OH!....Lassiter, please, don’t do this to me. To us. Remember what we were…”

Oh, I remember all right. In my nightmares. But this tact plays. I heave a sigh and look at her sadly, as though remembering something bittersweet.

“We did have some good times didn’t we. You were something special back then. We had something special.” Oh gag me, this is more likely to make me puke than torturing her. But she seizes on it.

“We did, yes, we did. Let me go, Lassiter and we can again. I never stopped loving you, I just got caught up in it all. It’s so dog-eat-dog on the dark side!”

Christ, how do I not kill her when she spews shit like this? But be creative. Creative. Think of it as an acting job. Ok… Sadly, I shake my head.

“Too much water has passed under that bridge for me to cross it again Devina. But…” pausing for effect, “for old times sake, maybe we could come to an agreement. Something that lets me not have to kill you.” Right now. Not have to kill you right now…. She makes a major effort to hold the glamour and pours a combination of pleading sensuality into her eyes that should have won her an Oscar.

“Oh, baby,” I cringe inwardly as she calls me ‘baby’, “I’m so sorry. But,” And there it is, the self-interest speaking…. “What kind of agreement did you have in mind?”

Bingo. Gotcha hooked. “If I let you go, you have to promise not to go after innocents. You have to leave them alone. And that includes their parents. And,people who are kind of lost, too. You can’t use that emo bonding thing with them to lure them in anymore.”

“But, but…,” she makes a pout, “what does that leave me with? I have to have /some/ leeway or I’ll die.”

And this is the part that irks me most. It goes against everything in me. But she’ll fuck it up, probably sooner that later and I won’t have to keep my end.

“Go back to trolling for your prey in bars. If they choose you, really choose you, you can keep them. You’ll have to work harder for it. A quick fuck in the backseat of the car isn’t going to be enough to get their souls. But if you can get them obsessed with you? You can keep them.”

“It will take me forever to restore myself that way!” It comes out as a wail but she’s almost there.

“It will take time,” I agree. “But meanwhile you won’t be stuck in suburbia living in a 1400 sq ft. dump. You can indulge yourself in the highlife again and I won’t hunt you. Think of it. A luxury loft, being able to wear Prada and Coach without blowing your image…think of the time it takes you to build back up as doing penance in the demonic equivalent of Club Fed. Payment for the innocents you took. All the perks, just a few restrictions. It’s the best I can offer you.”

“Fine,” she spits out, and I have to struggle to keep the uniquely male satisfaction of knowing that whenever a female says ‘fine’ it’s absolutely not fine but that she has no other options, off my face. “But you’re going to have to let me out of this restraint.” And then she coos “We’ll seal it with a kiss.”

Oh, hells no to that. “I’d rather we seal it with this.” Holding up my hand I materialize a contract containing everything we’ve talked about. And some very special wording. “You’ll sign it in your blood.” Laying the document on the counter, I release the energy restraints and grab her arm. Using the dagger I slice her arm as she howls in both pain and outrage, but not fast enough to do anything about it.

“Here. Use this. It’s appropriate.” My wings materialize and I bend one forward towards my hand. Managing to pluck a silvery secondary feather, I dip the tip in the blood running down her arm and hand it to her. “The magick in my feathers will make it doubly binding. Break the agreement and I’ll know. Immediately.”

If looks could kill, she’d be frying an angel right now. And with her, at full power, looks could. But she doesn’t have the juice right now and we both know it. She scrawls her name on the document and thrusts it at me, but drops the hand holding my feather. “Here. Take it.”

“Uh,uh uh...not so fast. I’ll take that feather back too.” Can’t let her keep it. No telling what kind of evil she’d use it to conjure up on me. Taking both feather and contract back, I step back from her and add, “You should have read the contract. In addition to specifying how you can attract souls it also specifies only /human/ souls.”

Dropping all pretense of cordiality now, I narrow my eyes at her. “I know you were imprisoned and I know how you were freed and by whom. Stick with taking the human souls agreed upon in the way we agreed upon and we don’t have a problem.” Until she breaks the contract. Then all bets are off. But one thing at a time.

“I’m going to make you pay for this Lassiter!” She yells as she grabs for the contract.

“Oh, please, bitch,” dematerializing contract and feather back to my room at the manse, “stop with the evil super-villain talk. It’s really cliche and Darkseid did it better.”

Walking to the door, I jerk it open, setting off the alarm system she’d neglected to turn off when she came in. As the earsplitting siren split the neighborhood quiet, I added...

“Oh, and if you want to avoid the police, I’d be vacating this place PDQ. I’ll be phoning in a dead body in the basement as soon as I’m out the door. Laters, babe.”

The resounding crash of what had to be the blender off the countertop hitting the door makes me chuckle as I dial 911.

“911? Yeah, I want to report a dead body….”

#DealWithTheDevil #TheEndOfTheBeginning #PartSix #TBC #SaintsNSinners #BDB #SASBDB

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autodidact-adventures · 7 years

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World War I (Part 55): The Cossacks

The Cossacks were the tsar's enforcers, and they were sent out whenever there were uprisings or other troubles. They were used to attack and violently reppress peasants and Russia's Jewish populations. They were armed with rifles and sabres, and wore big shaggy hats. In 1613, they had put the first Romanov on the throne; they had conquered and settled Siberia; and they had broken Napoléon's invading army in 1812. During WW1, they were the core of Russia's huge cavalry.

Trotsky called them “age-old subduers and punishers”. Tolstoy lived with them when he was young, and he said that what made them Cossacks was their “love of freedom”. The Cossacks weren't exactly Russian, but not an entirely separate tribe or caste like the German Junkers. For centuries, their homelands had been open to anyone who wished to join them.

There was no such thing as a Cossack until the 1400's or even 1500's. When Genghis Khan's Mongol army forced their way deep into central Europe, controlling a huge expanse of the steppe that extends from Hungary to northern China with almost no interruptions. After the Mongolian expansion stopped, Genghis Khan's empire was carved into pieces. A sub-group called the Tatars were left in charge of a region that is now southern Russia & Ukraine.

The Tatars were warlike nomads who lived by plunder. They constantly raided the Russian domains centred on Moscow (to the north). They looted treasure and took thousands of captives to sell in the Ottoman Empire's slave markets. The Russians were terrified of them.

During the 1500's, the tsars were consolidating their control of Muscovy, and forcing the peasants into serfdom. Some of the peasants chose to flee, and the only place to go was southwards into the Tatar lands. There, they clashed with the Tatars, learned from them, gradually dominated & finally merged with them. And so the Cossacks emerged – a community of Christian Orthodox warrior horsemen, of Slavic & East Asian blood. They lived by the sword and were ruled by no-one but themselves – as Tolstoy said, a “love of freedom”.

The origins of the name “Cossack” are unknown, but apparently it has roots meaning “wanderers” and “free people”.

Unlike the other societies surrounding them, the early Cossacks were very democratic, and the women had more freedom. Every community member voted to elect the ataman, who served for only one year, and there was no hereditary elite. Anyone could join them, if they declared a wish to do so, and accepted the Orthodox faith (at least nominally). Ethnic/racial origin was irrelevant, and property was held communally.

But as the Cossacks grew in both population and power, the tsars became worried about them as a threat, and wished to gain the as allies. For a while, they were happy to have the Cossacks as a buffer against their traditional enemies to the south & east. But eventually, the rulers in Moscow tried to change them from allies into subjects. Conflict arose, with the Cossacks refusing to take an oath of loyalty to the tsar. But Moscow agreed to allow them to keep the territories they conquered, so long as they officially became part of Russia. So the Cossacks came to occupy huge areas of territory, including Siberia.

Mikhail I was the first Romanov tsar. It took years of chaos before he gained the throne, with Cossack support. But later on, he sent an emissary to the Cossacks to demand submission from them. The emissary was put into a sack and thrown into the River Don. The relationship between the Cossacks and the rulers was still not solidified in the way the tsars wanted.

During the 1600's and 1700's, there were wars between the Russians & Cossacks, and Cossack rebellions. In the end, the Cossacks were defeated, absorbed into the Russian nation, and some of their most important traditions gradually faded.

The ataman was now appointed by the tsar. Some of the strongest Cossack families set themselves up as a landowning aristocracy on the Russian model, seizing large estates to do so. Serfdom was introduced into the Cossack lands.

But the old traditions didn't entirely disappear. The Cossack men were still warrior horsemen, as they had been before. But they owed the tsar 20yrs of military service, and later 30yrs. They had to provide their own horses & equipment (very difficult for ordinary families). They were given a grant of land at the end of their military service.

The Cossacks' contempt for outsiders made it easy for the tsar to use them as instruments of oppression. In 1648-49, for example, they slaughtered 300,000 Jewish people.

However, they weren't completely subjugated to the tsar. In the 1905 Russian Revolution (which lasted into 1906), the Cossack regiments were ordered to suppress the rebellion of peasants & workers, but they mutinied instead. The disloyal units were dissolved, and the crisis was averted.

When WW1 broke out, the Cossacks were all mobilized, from boys to middle-aged men, and they made up at least half of the Russian cavalry forces. The Russian general staff often sent them out against the German machine-guns, making the war even worse for the Cossacks than for most Russians.

In 1917, they were called upon to suppress the popular uprisings that began the February Revolution. But many of them had had enough, and they stood aside and allowed things to happen. This was the clearest sign that the whole system of the tsars was finished.

The Hetman state (1648-1782) after 1649, in modern-day Ukraine.

#book: a world undone #history #military history #1905 russian revolution #february revolution #ww1 #russia #siberia #cossacks #mikhail i

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sirtravisjacksonoftexas · 4 years

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Did Moses Write the Torah? Yes and No…

From the dark recesses of antiquity to the 1600’s, scholars accepted that the Pentateuch or Torah was written by Moses, the great Hebrew lawgiver. Though skepticism about the idea emerged in the Dark Ages, it was nevertheless the consensus among both historians and theologians for many a century. However, skepticism grew, until eventually the theory of Mosaic authorship of the Torah was discarded. There were several reasons for this, including the fact that Deuteronomy recorded Moses death and burial (Deuteronomy 34:5-12). Scholars also argued that the Torah was laced with repetitions and contradictions. One of these so-called contradictions was God’s statement to Moses in Exodus 6:2-3 that he had not revealed his name “YWHW” (Translated “LORD”) to Abraham, even though Abraham calls God “YWHW” in Genesis 14:22. Indeed, the name of God alternates in the Torah, at times being “Elohim” and at other times “YWHW”. Eventually, this led to a new theory of the origin of the Torah, one called “The Documentary Hypothesis”. The Documentary Hypothesis states that the Torah was written in four parts at four different points of history. These four documents are called J (Yahwist, because it used YWHW as God’s name), E (Elohist, because it uses Elohim as God’s name), D (Deuteronomy) and P (The Priestly Source, which includes a lot of ritual material as well as narrative). J is the oldest, dating to about 950 BC (about the time of David and Solomon), while E was written a hundred years later or more. D was written about 621-22 BC, while P was written about 500 BC. In 750 BC, J and E were combined as one text. In 600 BC D was added to them, and by 450 P was added to them as well, becoming the Torah. Considering that Moses would have lived around 1400 BC, this would mean that he didn’t write any part of the Torah. The Torah would be in this regard a Pseudepigrapha (“False ascribed to”), a kind of ancient book that falsely ascribed authorship to a famous religious figure (The Books of Enoch being big examples).

So, Moses wasn’t the author of the Torah? Did he have nothing to do with the books that were together named “The Law of Moses”?

Um, NO, and here is why:

1. Of repetitions and “contradictions”

Repetition was a big part of ancient near eastern stories. Details could be repeated 2 or more times, and this could involve different content or perspectives. Repetitions in a story were evidence that the story had one author, not more than one. The Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation epic, is jam-packed with repetitions, not all of which are identical. Likewise, the Book of Acts tells of Paul’s conversion in 9:1-31, 22:1-21 and 26:1-20. If you read these passages, you’ll notice that not one of them are identical, some having details that the other two versions lack. Indeed, one would consider them contradictory at a first glance (though if one looks more closely, one can actually combine them into a solid narrative). Indeed, it was common for ancient narrators to give parallel stories, such as what we find in Genesis (the three stories of a dude avoiding getting killed by claiming that his wife is his sister (12:10-20, 20:1-17, and 26:1-11). Thus, these repetitions and parallels are NOT evidence that Moses didn’t write the Torah.

Before we continue: some see the three tales of a patriarch claiming that his wife is his sister in Genesis 12:10-20, 20:1-17, 26:1-11, as three versions of the same tale, not three separate, fully historical accounts. In this view, one of them was the basis for the others, or all three were based on an older tale that wasn’t put into Genesis. Either way, the story that was the basis for the others may, or may not, have happened.

Before we dismantle this idea, let’s see how the stories compare:

1. Both the stories in Genesis 12 and 20 mention Abraham and Sarah (the first occurred before God changed Abraham and Sarah’s names (they had previously been “Abram” and “Sarai”, respectively). The story in Genesis 26 has Isaac and Rebekah.

2. Both the stories in Genesis 20 and 26 have King Abimelech of Gerar

3. Out of all three of these stories, only the one in Genesis 26 states that Abimelech ruled the Philistines (this is also shown in Gen 21:32)

4. Abraham admits that Sarah is his half sister in the tale found in Genesis 20.

5. God sent plagues on Egypt, until Sarah was freed. In Genesis 20, Abimelech is warned in a dream by God that Sarah is actually Abraham’s wife, and warns him to let her go. He does, and God healed Abimelech and his wives and females slaves of unspecified illnesses (his wives and slaves had been made infertile, before God removed their affliction). In the tale in Genesis 26, no plague or dream is shown. Abimelech put two and two together and figured out that Isaac was lying about Rebekah.

6. In the first two tales, the Pharaoh and Abimelech are the ones who takes Abraham’s wife. In the third tale, no one takes Isaac’s wife Rebekah, King Abimelech figuring it out before a guy made an attempt on her.

I could probably go on, but there is enough here to see how similar these stories are and yet where they differ. Nevertheless, the similarities are impressive. Is this evidence that these stories are three different versions of the same tale, and that therefore most, if not all of them, are fiction?

On the night of April 21rst, 1977 in Dover, Massachusetts, a 17-year-old named William Bartlett was driving with two of his buddies (both of which were also 17) when he reportedly spotted a small humanoid creature with large, glowing eyes. He said it had a huge head, thin neck and no mouth, nose or ears. He later made a watercolor painting of the creature (seen below):

Two hours later, another Dover teenager named John Baxter reportedly spotted the same creature. He likewise drew a sketch of it (seen below):

Less than 24 hours later, Abby Brabham and Will Taintor (15 and 18 years old, respectively) claimed to have spotted the same creature close to a bridge. Curiously, while the first two sightings described it as having glowing orange eyes, Brabham described it as having glowing green eyes (Taintor didn’t catch a glimpse of its eyes). Otherwise, the creature was identical.

This was the beginning of the legend of Dover Demon.

Now, there is of course a lot of speculation about what went on in that fateful spring of 1977. Some thought it was a hoax (though there is no evidence of this), or that they had mistaken a baby moose for a monster. Some believe that they truly saw something paranormal. Perhaps we will never know the answer to the riddle of the Dover Demon, but we do know that in a short period of time, there were three reports by teenagers of a mysterious monster. The monster isn’t recognized by science, but the fact that it was reported by these teenagers in a short period of time in 1977 is a part of the historical record, beyond dispute.

Now, let’s see how these incidents compare.

1. All the eyewitnesses were teenagers.

2. In two of the incidents, only 1 teen reportedly spotted the Dover Demon

3. Two involve more than 1 teenager at the sighting (William Bartlett was riding with teenaged friends when he reportedly saw the monster (the others didn’t see it). In the third sighting, Brabham and Taintor saw it (both in their teens).

4. In two of the incidents, an eyewitness was 15 years old (John Baxter and Abby Brabham)

5. Two of the incidents involved a vehicle (1rst and 3rd sightings)

6. All three involved a resident of Dover (Only Brabham was from out of town, but she was riding with Will Taintor, who was a Dover local)

7. Almost all involved were male

8. In two cases, sketches of the Dover Demon were made.

9. All three incidents happened in the same region

10. In all three incidents, there was an eyewitness whose last named started with a B (Bartlett for the first sighting, Baxter for the second, and Brabham for the third).

11. The creature was said to have glowing orange eyes in the first two sightings (it had green glowing eyes in the third).

12. The creature description in all three sightings was consistent (save for the eye color in the last sighting)

13. All three sightings occurred at night

13. The first two incidents occurred on the same night

That is a lot of similarities! Indeed, these three reported sightings parallel each other. This isn’t proof that the teens collaborated on a hoax (and at least some of these similarities were out of their control. Three of them didn’t have their last names legally changed to start with a B, for crying out loud!). However…could it be proof that Bartlett, Baxter, Brabham and Taintor never reported these events? Is it proof that they never reported seeing these creatures? Is it proof that these eyewitnesses never even…existed? Would a scholar thousands of years from now, coming across books that detail these sightings, shrug them off as parallel tales, as fiction, and thus believe that the people involved never existed?

Its one thing to conclude that these teens either got together and made it all up, or mistook a baby moose for a monster, or that they saw some kid in a costume that was pulling a prank. Its another to believe that these people never reported these sightings, or that they never existed.

Keep in mind, many authors have mentioned these three accounts. Nobody would conclude that a book on the paranormal would have to have more than one author if it mentioned these three parallel Dover Demon sightings (Loren Coleman, a famous cryptozoologist, records these events in his book “Mysterious America”. He is the only author of that book).

Why then would we expect multiple authors of Genesis because it mentions three parallel stories about patriarchs passing their wives off as their sisters?

Let me give you another example:

In Robert H. Busch’s “The Grizzly Almanac”, there is a section on “Outlaw Grizzlies”, bears of the west who terrorized ranches and the wilderness. Some of these are listed below:

Old Mose: A Colorado Grizzly. Crime: killed 800 cattle and 5 humans. Short in 1904.

Old Ephraim: the last Utah Grizzly, stood 9 feet 11 inches tall and weighed 1100 pounds. One of his toes was deformed. Crime: killing cattle. Shot in 1922.

Susie: a Grizzly who lived in the southwest during the late 1800s. Crime: Cattle killer. Shot in 1883.

El Casador: a 19th century California Grizzly. Crime: Killing sheep and cattle. Had part of its paw shot off (Eventually shot and killed at a later time).

Wab (aka Wahb): Wyoming Grizzly. Crime: cattle killer. Shot by a rancher.

Three Toes: a Wyoming grizzly who had lost two toes. Crime: Man killer. Shot in the early 1910’s.

Now, there were several other outlaw grizzlies in Busch’s list (which I will mention shortly), but I mention these here first…because they parallel each other.

1. All lived in the west.

2. All but 1 were cattle killers

3. 2 were man killers

4. All were “on the lam” for a time

5. All were shot.

6. They all lived roughly about the same time (19 century to early 20th century)

7. Two had missing toes, one had a deformed toe.

8. Two had damaged paws (one had missing toes, one had its paw partly shot off)

Now, the tales of these outlaw grizzlies parallel each other. I mean, its almost as if these stories about them are…telling the same story…

Does this mean that these bears weren’t “Outlaw” grizzlies? Does it mean that their stories are fiction, or that one of these outlaw Grizzly tales are the basis for all the others? Does it mean that they all derived from one story of an outlaw grizzly, a story that may or may not be true? Does it mean that these outlaw Grizzlies didn’t exist (Um, the Smithsonian Institution has Old Ephraim’s skull. All of these bears have been historically verified)???

Does it also mean that “The Grizzly Almanac” by Robert H. Busch…was written by more than one person?

I mean, if it has parallel stories in it, that just HAS to mean that it has more than one author…right?

BTW: the outlaw grizzlies I didn’t bring up from the book were Old Silverback, Big Foot Wallace and Old Bigfoot. The reason I didn’t bring them up is because they weren’t very parallel with the above examples (due to the fact that their “crimes” weren’t mentioned in the book). However, not only was Bigfoot Wallace missing two toes on his left front paw (sound familiar?), both he and Old Bigfoot parallel each other:

1. Both are named “Bigfoot”

2. Both lived in the west (Bigfoot Wallace lived in Wyoming, Old Bigfoot lived in Arizona).

3. Both lived and died close to the same time (Bigfoot Wallace died in 1885, Old Bigfoot died in 1910).

4. Both were killed by humans (Bigfoot Wallace was shot. The book doesn’t mention how Old Bigfoot was killed (though a gun was most likely the weapon used, and he was killed by a person).

5. Both of their “crimes” are not mentioned in the book (just like Old Silverback).

Oh, and did you notice how many of these outlaw grizzlies were called “Old”?

Old Ephraim.

Old Mose.

Old Bigfoot.

Old Silverback…

Oh my gosh, this had to be evidence that these stories are all either fake, and or that one is the basis for the others, or that they were all based on an outlaw grizzly tale that didn’t make it into Robert H. Busch’s book…right?

This also has to mean that more than one man wrote “The Grizzly Almanac”…right?

We can see how eat-up-with-the-dumb these ideas are, especially the latter one.

And yet…people think that Genesis alone had more than one author, because it has three parallel stories???

2. YHWH

Let’s take a closer look at Exodus 6:2-3;

“God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them.”

At first, this seems like a contradiction, considering that Abraham said “Lord” (Hebrew YHWH) in Genesis 14:22. However, it may surprise you to know that Exodus 6:2-3 can be translated in another way:

“I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty. And my name is the Lord. Did I not make myself known to them?”

Thus, no contradiction.

Also, some scholars have proposed that Moses didn’t ask God for his name earlier in Exodus 3:13-15 (where God revealed his name “YHWH”) because the Israelites were ignorant of God’s special name, but because Moses wanted to know what previous epithet or name for God would be the most appropriate. God reveals that it would be YHWH in verse 15. Thus, when God spoke in Exodus 6:2-3, he was revealing that God Almighty (“El Shaddai” in Hebrew) was the original term that was appropriate for the Patriarchs to use (though they had also used Elohim). This usage was connected to what God did for them and how he interacted with them. The significance of YHWH as a name was tied to the longer-term promises that God made about the Holy Land. El-Shaddai was the special name of the Lord in the Abrahamic covenant, while YHWH would be the special name of God for the Mosaic covenant. Both names were already known and used for centuries, but YHWH would now take preeminence as the covenant name for God.

Its also possible that Moses or a later editor or scribe (more on that later) may have added YHWH to Genesis 14:22 and other passages that tell of times before Moses in order to reinforce the message that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the same God that was talking to Moses. According to this theory, though the name for God that the patriarchs used was not YHWH, and though Abraham really never spoke the name “YHWH”, the word was added to these pre-Mosaic tales by Moses or a scribe in order to reinforce the fact that both the patriarchs and Moses worshipped the same God. It was a tactic designed to strengthen the doctrine of monotheism, leaving no room to doubt. The more the doctrine was reinforced, the better.

Thus, the different names of God in the Torah, and the testimony of Exodus 6:2-3, are not evidence for the Documentary Hypothesis.

3. Torah evidence for Mosaic authorship.

Though the Torah never states that Moses wrote most or all of the Torah, there are several passages within it that point to Mosaic authorship. Exodus 17:14, 24:3-4,7 and 34:27, Numbers 33:1-2 and Deuteronomy 17:18-19, 31:9,24-26, 28 indicate that Moses wrote at least some parts of the Torah. Almost every Law section in the Torah starts out with a phrase that God spoke these laws or gave them to Moses (who would have either written them down or had a scribe write them down).

4. Beyond the Torah.

What do Joshua 1:7-8, 1 Kings 2:3, 2 Kings 14:6, 23:21,25 2 Chronicles 8:13, 34:14, 35:12, Ezra 3:2, 6:18, Nehemiah 8:1 and 13:1, Matthew 8:4, 19:8, Luke 2:22, 16:29, 31, John 5:46, 7:19-23, Acts 3:22, Romans 10:5, 19, 1 Corinthians 9:9, and Hebrews 7:14 all have in common?

Together, they indicate Mosaic authorship of the Torah.

Now, to be fair, one can imagine the Torah, due to the tradition of Mosaic authorship being so strong, eventually being referred to as “Moses” or the “Books of Moses”, whether Moses wrote it or not. It would have become part of the lingo. Thus, just as we say sunrise and sunset without intending to make a scientific error, likewise one can refer to the Pentateuch as the Books of Moses without making a historical blunder. Indeed, there are passages in Genesis 1 that on the surface seem to contradict modern science, but when one understands that God was speaking to the ancients in a way they could understand, and that he wasn’t giving a science lesson, then one can understand that he wasn’t making any scientific blunder (which will be explored in a future article), just as Jesus wasn’t making a historical blunder when he acquainted Moses with the Torah.

However, the idea of Mosaic authorship didn’t come out of the blue. It was obviously repeated several times in the Hebrew Bible, and these books predate the New Testament by centuries (some parts of Joshua seem to have been written either by Joshua or during his time (1300s BC). See Joshua 18:8, 24:25, 5:1, and chapter 6). Also consider the Torah passages we just looked at that indicate Mosaic authorship. This wasn’t a tradition that had no basis in fact; it rested on the testimony of the Hebrew Bible itself, a testimony shared by the New Testament. Thus, we can conclude that Moses wrote at least parts of the Torah, if not most of it.

However, he didn’t write it all…

5. What Moses didn’t write.

We’ve already noted that Deuteronomy 34:5-12 is basically Moses’ obituary. I’ll give you all the cash I have, mow your lawn for a year and wear a pink tutu and a clown wig while doing so if you can show me one person who wrote their own obituary. True, some (such as the ancient Jewish philosopher Philo) argued that Deuteronomy 34 is actually a prophecy. According to this view, Moses prophetically saw his own death and what would happen after it. He then wrote it all in Deuteronomy 34 before he died. However, the entire passage is written in past tense, not as an event yet to come. God did reveal to Moses his upcoming death in Deuteronomy 32:48-52, but God’s words to Moses describe something that had yet to happen in the current setting, while Deuteronomy 34:5-12 describes a pivotal event in a past tense. This is indicative of a historical event, not a prophecy. Plus, look at how Deuteronomy 34 ends:

“And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and the wonders that the LORD sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, and for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.” Deuteronomy 34:10-12

If this was written by Moses…it would sound like he is tooting his own horn. To be fair, its accurate in its details but…if Moses did write it, wouldn’t it seem kind of egotistical? If Alexander the Great had had such a vision about his upcoming death, and wrote about how “There has never been another king of Macedon like him, a man whom the gods enabled to conquered the known world, a man who defeated Darius and overcame mighty war elephants.”…wouldn’t he be seen to be tooting his own horn? What did God say about pride and boasting?

“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18

“This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD.” Jeremiah 9:23-24

People who follow God are to boast about the Lord, not their own accomplishments. If we mention those accomplishments, we need to give credit to where credit is due; God. This is why, whenever I mention how I was diagnosed with autism and mild intellectual disability as a child, how I was not supposed to get beyond a 5-year-old mentality…and yet went to college as a religion major and am now preaching and writing, I don’t do so by saying “Hey, look at what I accomplished!”. No, I relate that God did it all. I did my part, but he did the rest, and without him I wouldn’t have been able to do a thing at all.

Also remember: you can still give some credit to God for your accomplishments, and yet still toot your own horn. Pride can come into the picture if you are not careful. God’s aid to Moses is noted in Deuteronomy 34:10-12, but if Moses wrote it, it would still be glorifying himself.

Thus, this passage wouldn’t make sense if Moses wrote it.

It would, however make sense if someone divinely inspired by God, someone other than Moses, wrote it after the great lawgiver died, perhaps centuries after he died(the passage seems to indicate that a long period of time took place between Moses’ the events of Deuteronomy 34:5-12 and the person who wrote the passage).

There are also other passages in the Torah that Moses couldn’t have written. Consider, for example, Genesis 12:6;

“Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.”

Now…what’s wrong with this passage?

Let’s look at it again:

“Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.” (Emphasis mine).

This passage is about Abraham (at the time still called Abram), and they were in the land with Abram was around, right?

So what's the problem?

Well, you see...the Canaanites were STILL in the land when Moses was alive! He didn’t get to enter the Holy Land (32:48-52). The language of the passage, along with numerous other verses in the Torah (as well as the book of Joshua) indicate that the Israelites didn’t enter the land, let alone conquer it, until after Moses died, when Joshua took control. Indeed, this conquest wasn’t completed in Joshua’s time (see Joshua chapters 13-18). The Gibeonites, a Canaanite people, tricked Joshua into sparing their kingdom, and thus weren’t removed from the land (Joshua Chapter 9). The conquest wasn’t completed in the book of Judges either (Judges chapters 1-3). Indeed, the Canaanites were still in the land in Ezra’s time, after the Babylonian captivity (Ezra 9:1-2). To put this into perspective, the Babylonian captivity ended shortly after Cyrus the Great sacked Babylon in 539 BC, almost a thousand years after Moses’ death! Thus, at least part of Genesis 12:6 is a much, much later edition to the Pentateuch, one not written by Moses or a scribe or his era.

Let’s also look at Genesis 36:31;

“These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom, before any king reigned over the Israelites.”

This verse introduces a short passage that goes over an Edomite kings list, kings who reigned before the dawn of the Israelite monarchy. It seems in and of itself not startling, except for one thing.

Moses lived long before the first Israelite king was born!

Many people believe that Saul was the first Israelite King, but this is actually incorrect. Saul was the first person that God chose to be king of Israel (in Deuteronomy 17:14-15, God told Moses that, in the future, when the Israelites enter the land and eventually decide to have a king, that God himself would choose their king. Once again, remember that the Israelites didn’t enter the land until after Moses’ death. See also 1 Samuel 9-10). However, during the earlier Judges period, Abimelech, a son of the judge Gideon (aka Jerub-Baal), was made king by the Israelites (Judges 9). He was a wicked king who met a horrible end (see verses 53-57). 5 judges had ruled the Israelites before Abimelech received his crown(Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah and then Gideon). If we combine the details given in Judges 3:9-11,14,30, 4:3, 5:31, 6:1, 8:28, we can see that 245 years separates the beginning of Othniel’s reign as the first Judge to Abimelech’s reign as the first Israelite king. We haven’t even factored in the reign of Joshua, which lasted decades. We also haven’t considered the unknown time period from Joshua’s death to the conquest of the Israelites by King Cushan-Rishathaim of Mesopotamia, which occurred 8 years before Othniel’s reign (Judges 1:1-3:9). Given this, we can conclude that the time period from Moses to Abimelech was around 300 years.

Thus, there was no way that Moses wrote Genesis 36:31.

Now, some may protest, saying that the passage could be a prophecy about a future time when Israelite kings would exist. However, the passage is once again in past tense, not future tense. This is indicative of a historical event, not something in the future that the writer of Genesis 36:31 was predicting. Indeed, 1 Chronicles 1:43-51 is surprisingly similar to Genesis 36:31, and its also treated there as a historical event, in the past tense.

Others may object, saying that just because there is no king mentioned in Moses day and age…doesn’t mean that there weren’t any Israelite kings in Moses’ day and age. Perhaps, they argue, there were Israelite kings at the time, but they weren’t mentioned.

Well, if there were, then for one…why weren’t they mentioned? Why?

Two, how would people who hold to this theory explain Deuteronomy 17:14-20?

“When you come to the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ you may indeed set a king over you whom the LORD your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the LORD has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’ And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold. “And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.” (Emphasis mine).

This is highly indicative that the Israelites didn’t have kings in Moses’ day.

Others may protest, saying that Israelite kings could have arisen shortly after Moses died, perhaps during the time of Joshua, and were just simply not recorded. This would indicate that Genesis 31:36 would not be that late of an addition. However, it would be highly unlikely that, out of all the history books of the Bible that mention the time period from Moses’s death to Abimelech’s reign (Joshua, Judges, 1 Chronicles), not one would mention such a king. That would be a pretty odd thing to leave out, don’t you think? Out of all these histories, written by several divinely inspired men (some of whom would have been historians (which seems obvious from history books like 1st Chronicles), all of whom would have had access to documents long since destroyed (including historical texts)…and not one mentions an Israelite king before Abimelech.

Why?

Because there weren’t any Israelite kings before King Abimelech.

There are other aspects of the Torah that Moses himself couldn’t have written. There are anachronistic Hebrews terms in the Torah that were used long after the time of Moses. The Edomite kings mentioned in Genesis 36 all lived after Moses. This, combined with Genesis 12:6 and 31:36, strongly indicates that other people added to Moses’ text, people who lived after (sometimes LONG after) Moses died.

How could this happen? Why would this have been allowed?

6. Scribes.

Most of the books in the bible were not written by their authors directly. Instead, most would have used a scribe. Jeremiah, for example, had a scribe named Baruch (Jeremiah 36:4). Likewise, Paul used a scribe named Tertius to write the book of Romans (Rom 16:22). In the ancient world, if you were educated in reading and writing, you were either rich, or a scribe. The former could write (though not all the rich were educated in reading and writing), and sometimes did, but most of the time they would dictate their words to a scribe, who wrote them on paper. Scribes sometimes had amazing leeway with their work, in some cases being allowed to add their own wording and structure. They were allowed at times to edit what they heard, writing an improved version. In some cases, their employer gave them an outline and had them add the rest. All of this is reminiscent of a modern ghost writer. Sometimes scribes were allowed to write in the name of their employer without the employer dictating words. Indeed, they were at times told to do this by the person who employed them. The scribes had to come up with their own material for a text, and yet that text would officially be that of their employer. His or her authority would be the basis for the text. The only thing the employer had to do was look over the text to see if they approved. Whatever the case, once a scribe was done, his employer would usually add a postscript themselves. Scribes would have been of great importance for the Hebrew Bible, considering that Hebrew, like any other language, changed over time. When these changes did, the scribes had to make new copies of old Hebrew Biblical texts, updating the Hebrew language. This was even more an issue when the Jews adopted the Aramaic alphabet as the new Hebrew alphabet after the Babylonian Exile (6th century BC), replacing the older Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. Scribes would have also added details into biblical texts in order to clarify what was in them (similar to how commentaries and Bible footnotes do today, though in this case the scribes added such statements (by divine inspiration) into the biblical text themselves). This is why the Dead Sea Scroll version of Jeremiah is a 7th shorter than what is found in the later Masoretic text. This is why some parts of Joshua seem to have been written by at least one contemporary of Joshua, while other parts seem to have been written much later.

This is also why there are so many later additions to the Torah.

Curiously, the relationship between God and Moses is at times identical to that of someone dictating their words to a scribe. God dictated his words to Moses, who wrote them down (Exodus 17:14,24:4,7,34:27, Num 33:2). Moses is not pictured as having a scribe write for him; he is acting as God’s scribe, writing down what God says. We see this literary relationship well in Exodus 34, where God says that he himself will write on the new pair of stone tablets that Moses was to make (Ex 34:1), only to see Moses writing on them what God dictated him to write (Ex 34:27-28). Deuteronomy 10:1-4 also has this same story, which indicates that God wrote the ten commandments on both pairs of stone tablets, yet when combined with Exodus 34, its indicative that God was writing through Moses as a scribe.

Now, none of this means that Moses didn’t have a scribe write down the rest of the Torah. Nevertheless, in these particular cases, Moses isn’t dictating God’s message to a scribe; it is God himself dictating his own message to Moses, who is acting like a scribe. God himself is more directly the author, not using a human figure like Isaiah, Moses or King Solomon to speak his word so that another writes it; God is speaking his own word. No middle men, no divinely inspired human authors, no go-betweens.

However, there were occasions were God was a bit more direct…

7. God: the Writer of writers.

We are so used to the Pentateuch that we don’t realize how unusual, bizarre and unique it is. One can’t understand the fact that its account of creation in Genesis 1 is so revolutionary, unless one realizes that most creation epics of the time depict multiple gods and divine battles involving sea monsters/dragons. From a talking Donkey (Numbers 22:22-41) and humans who are nearly 1000 years old(Genesis 5) to Angels mating with women (Genesis 6:1-4), siring half human, half angel giant warriors (Genesis 6:4(compare Numbers 13:33), the Torah abounds with perplexing historical accounts.

Yet the most perplexing of all may be found specifically in the Book of Exodus.

Between the time that the Israelites reached Mount Sinai to when Moses smashed the stone tablets, Moses had conversed with God on Mount Sinai, receiving God’s teachings and writing them down (Exodus 24:3-4). However, during this time, God said something that must have made Moses’s eyes widen and his jaw drop:

“The LORD said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.” Exodus 24:12

Now, keep in mind, God had already given Moses a slew of commandments-including the famous Ten Commandments-from Exodus 20-23 before this event occurred.

Also keep in mind that the Torah itself, in an obvious incomplete form, is mentioned in Exodus 24:7 (where it is called the "Book of the Covenant"). This too occurs before God speaks of writing on stone tablets. Obviously, this book would have had at least some of the commandments that God already spoke to Moses.

Nevertheless, we see God writing down commandments, which as we see later in Deuteronomy 10:1-4 are the 10 Commandments (more on them later) onto stone tablets.

God…himself…had written scripture directly.

Now, we don't know exactly when God wrote these tablets down. If he wrote them after Moses had written down such commandments into the Book of the Covenant, then God has simply wrote a copy of said commandments on stone (still writing directly without a scribe, remarkable in and of itself). However, if they deal with commandments that Moses hasn't written down yet on paper...then God has directly written these laws, this part of scripture, this original autograph of scripture onto stone without the aid of a scribe.

And thus, a part of the Torah was directly written...by God himself.

The fact that God wrote directly on the first set of stone tablets is confirmed in several other passages in Exodus.

“And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.” Exodus 31:18

“Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.” Exodus 32:15-16

Though Deuteronomy 4:12-13 and 10:1-4 state that God wrote the Ten Commandments on the stone tablets, we really don’t have a clue what else may have been written on them. Indeed, when God states that he had written “the law and the commandment” on them in Exodus 24:12, it seems like more than the Ten Commandments were written on them. Whatever the case, it had to have been other parts of the Torah.

Who knows how much of the Torah may very well have been originally written directly...by God?

So, did Moses write the Torah?

He wrote some of it, and other parts he would have had a scribe write. Later scribes added to it. And whether God wrote any part directly, or divinely inspired humans to write it all, either way, he is the ultimate author of the Torah.

Indeed, of the entire Bible.

Sources:

“Archeological Study Bible (NIV”), 5, 15, 302

“Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (NIV)”, 171

“Exploring the Old Testament: A Guide to the Pentateuch” by Gordon Wenham, 159-167, 172-83

“IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament” by John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, 105,118

http://apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=537

https://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=6&article=754

https://www.ancient.eu/Torah/

https://www.ancient.eu/Moses/

“The Babylonian Genesis” by Alexander Heidel, 21-23, 25-26, 29-36, 39-40

https://www.mesacc.edu/~thoqh49081/handouts/torahclues.html

“Is God a Moral Monster?” by Paul Copan, 170-71

“The Holy Land: Guide to the Archeological Sites and Historical Monuments” by Fabio Bourbon and Enrico Lavagno (English translation by Richard Pierce), 9-10

“The Unexplained” by Dr. Karl Shuker, 133-34

“Mysterious America” by Loren Coleman, 42-61

“The World of Lore: Monsterous Creatures” by Aaron Mahnke, 52-56

“The Grizzly Almanac” by Robert H. Busch, 107-108

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIOUj1wyjfg&t=941s

https://www.google.com/books/edition/On_the_Death_and_Life_of_Languages/lXxuFhJqK8MC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Hebrew+borrowed+Aramaic+Alphabet&pg=PA248&printsec=frontcover

https://www.ancient-hebrew.org/ancient-alphabet/paleo-hebrew-alphabet.htm

“The Words of Jesus in the Original Aramaic” by Stephen Andrew Missick, 33

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Words_of_Jesus_in_the_Original_Arama/kxGxVNaPVoYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Paleo-Hebrew%2BAramaic%2Balphabet&pg=PA33&printsec=frontcover

https://rosenhebrewschool.com/articles/paleo-hebrew-alphabet/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081103091035.htm

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-artifacts/inscriptions/precursor-to-the-paleo-hebrew-script-discovered-in-jerusalem/

“The Portable Seminary: A Master’s Level Overview in One Volume” by David Horton (General Editor), 49-69, 71

https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/texts/torah.shtml

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kaynamiteineurope · 7 years

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Day 12: A Successful Day of Looking at Art and Not Getting Smited Day 12 of our trip, the second Friday, we got to sleep in a bit later and meet up for the bus into the city at 10:30am. I struggled, as I usually do, and took a 10 minute shower and dried and put my hair up in a ponytail, choosing to wear my yellow dress for the Vatican (with my leggings rolled up underneath). At first, I thought I looked kind of cute. Then, I nearly immediately decided that I actually just looked rough. And whale-like. So that was a great way to start the day. We went down to breakfast a bit before 10 and ate some peach halves, pastries, and scrambled eggs before getting on the tour bus that was set to drop us off near Piazza Navona for the day. We started off looking at a shop near the center, 4 Rivers, fountain and picked up some great stuff--an ornament for Natasha and a magnet and gift for my mom for me and a keychain for Carolina--then we tried to find a dress shop we had remembered passing the night before on the walk to the bus. We didn't, however, end up finding it and instead walked around for an hour or so, ducking into other shops to no avail. After we gave up on that, we bought fruit cups for a snack and decided to head back over to the Trevi Fountain so Natasha could get a video of her throwing a coin into the fountain since mine had turned out so cute compared to the pictures we had already taken. By now, my sandal-ed feet (or tour director had recommended sandals for those whose feet were hurting in their shoes) were starting to itch and burn at the same time from all the walking, and the sun was pretty high in the sky, so my entire back was basically all sweat (sexy, right?). We wove our way through a massive amount of people on a couple main streets, before finally turning off to the smaller ones to reach the fountain. Right before the Trevi piazza, we passed a line of street artists and stopped to check out some of their work. Unlike Venice, where the mode of art was usually oil, Rome seemed to be a lot of watercolors--which is tough because watercolors, especially those on mattes, are very easy to do prints of and pass them off as originals (we saw another couple from our group who bought prints, though I'm not sure they knew it). So we had been very vigilant with our browsing to make sure what we were going to get was original work. We decided to circle back after the fountain because we were on a tight time-frame (we had to meet back up at Piazza Navona at 2 for the bus to the Vatican City). We fought our way through to the fountain, where I took an adorable video of Natasha throwing a second coin into the fountain, and then we took forever in the Trevi Bar (a place the nice couple from Indiana had recommended) for some gelato. There was a tour there of Asian tourists getting their gelato, and when one of them asked for pineapple and apple, the guy behind the counter started singing the Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen song, so it's been stuck in my head ever since. Which is mega annoying. I got a small with raspberry and lemon (my favorite), and then I navigated us back toward the art. There was one guy with larger works that both of us really liked, but they were going to be 50 a piece, so we went over to a second artist who had smaller pieces for a lot less money. Natasha ended up getting a medium-sized piece and I got three wider-rectangle pieces (15 euro total!) that were of different historical sights in the city that I think will look awesome together in a collage. We got to the Piazza Navona just in time to meet up with the group, and then we walked a few blocks in the sun over to the public bus stop where we hopped onto a bus to the Vatican City. Do you know how amusing it is to watch a group of 44 people scrambling to pack into a bus? Or how subsequently amusing it is to watch the expression on other people's faces as they realize they're either trapped in their seats or won't actually be able to get on without sardining with us? Quite funny. Quite funny indeed. (Less funny for my aching feet, though, since we barely ever manage to get actual seats.) We took a small break on the steps directly across from the entrance to the Vatican--during which most people seemed to struggle against falling asleep--as we waited for Alexandra to meet up with our tour guide for the afternoon. Once we did, we started the process of going inside, walking through metal detectors and having our bags scanned. We made our way up onto the second floor where we picked up the Vatican-approved lime green and blue radios (the earbud was super big and my radio was extremely temperamental. The channel would change itself every 15 seconds and I kept having to fiddle with it the entire time just to hear our tour guide talk about the history of the city and its buildings). Then, we walked out into a courtyard area and sat down while she explained about different parts of the city we would be seeing. She explained a lot about the Pope and how even though the Pope is a lifetime gig, the current Pope was elected after the previous one resigned, which hasn't happened since the 12th century. She explained that since the only way a Pope is supposed to exit his position is through death, they still held a funeral ceremony for him and he was flown out of the city, and subsequently brought back in where he now lives on the grounds near the gardens in a private home that they renovated for him. She also said that on a tour two weeks ago, she actually saw the Pope himself walking around! In the Sistine Chapel, there aren't supposed to be photos (because it's copyrighted) and you're not allowed to talk. But she also explained that the Chapel is open to the people who live in the Palace. Michelangelo, the famous painter of the Sistine Chapel, originally wanted to be a sculptor, but while his first piece--of the Virgin Mary holding her dead child for the last time, a piece in St Peter's Basilica--was the piece that got him noticed for the first time, it was his painting that made him famous. He lived until he was 90 (whereas Raphael only lived until age 30). The Chapel itself was built in the 1400's, with Michelangelo decorating it with his masterpiece from 1508-1512, and the wall frescos were added in the 1530's (frescos are made when you have to transfer your design onto fresh plaster and then paint it to make the heat seal in the color, while is why the Chapel's art is so well preserved). The ceiling itself isn't very deep, but since painters have to lay on their backs on super tall scaffolds to paint it, Michelangelo complained a lot in his letters that it hurt his back a lot to paint the Chapel ceiling (which I totally get!). While Michelangelo was originally from Florence, he vowed he never wanted to "go back to the city that disappointed him." Unfortunately, his body was stolen from Rome and is now housed in Florence, which would have been his biggest nightmare. After all of that, and a ton more information, we walked through the Vatican's museum. A lot of it was statues and sculptures, with a pair of coffins, a giant marble bathtub, and plenty of vases. They also had painted maps, more fresco walls and ceilings, and giant tapestries. The entire thing was really interesting and fun to go through (more fun if my feet hadn't been screaming), but, of course, it was the Sistine Chapel everyone was waiting for. By the time we wound our way through the museum, and down the stairs to the chapel, there were a ton of people inside. The Chapel was smaller than I expected--especially after seeing Saint Mark's Basilica and the Doge's Palace in Venice--but every inch of it was covered in Michelangelo's masterpiece. Each of the people were shadowed in a way I'm not sure I'd ever be able to figure out, and they were massively impressive. Weirdly enough, my first thought was "Ooooh, this is so cool! It's even got the gated off section near the back that they had in the Da Vinci Code!" ...Yup. After our ten minutes in the Chapel, we headed out and over to Saint Peter's Basilica. Saint Peter's is the largest Catholic Church in the world. According to our tour guide, all other Catholic Churches actually have an agreement with the Vatican that they can't construct a church bigger than that of Saint Peter's. It was massively impressive. And, thankfully, we were allowed to take pictures here. They were even starting the evening rosary because services started at 6 and we were there just before it at like 5:45pm, which I'm sure my grandma would have loved. Afterward, we headed outside and our guide pointed out where the Pope lived, and that the guards who stand by the gate to his house have intricate uniforms that cost about 1,500 euro (where as the ornate Pope shoes are 5,000!). Then we walked a million miles down the street toward the store where we could purchase Vatican souvenirs which would have the opportunity to be blessed by the Pope's priests. I picked out a beautiful pearl-y looking one that has a bit of Vatican holy water in it, and had them bless it, and then our group split into two for the night. One group went off to the hotel and the rest of us took a bus back near Piazza Navona to have our 35 euro (originally 55) 5-course, 6-wine Italian dinner. It was held at a place called Buddy's and it was delish! We had a veggie plate, bruschetta, a meats and cheeses plate with the best bread I've had in Italy, then they brought out a traditional tomato pasta, pork slices, and then a dessert of these little shortbread sticks. I ate until I was full and drank a bit too much, so I was a little giggly and introduced myself to one of the guys on the trip, Gus, who I hadn't talked to until that day. He told me about how he's nicknamed "Vanilla Gorilla" and I talked about how I needed a cool nickname like that (yeah, I know. I was quite tipsy though, so it's fine). We walked a while to get to our tour bus and then our tour guide spent the entire drive back drunkenly talking on the mic about how we all needed to get together at the hotel and keep drinking. Then she started passing around the mic to the other girls of whom she actually knows the names of, joking and laughing with them. Then they used a girl's phone and put it up to the mic to play music. Our. Poor. Bus. Driver. Not only were we 40 minutes late from the time he thought he was picking us all up, but then he had to deal with a bunch of drunken college kids and an even more far gone tour director. That man deserves a raise. So we got back to the hotel and she told us to meet back in the lobby in 10 minutes and that she would buy wine and treat us all to a last drink in Italy. Natasha and I decided since we'd pretty much opted out of all of the longer nights that we'd join and get to know people. So I changed into a PJ top and touched up my make-up (though it didn't really help) and then we headed back down, where they had already broken into the wine. Alexandra finally noticed we were there, told us to get a glass of wine, and then told Natasha she loved her ancient Grecian dress and that she loved how put-together and pretty I looked with my winged eyeliner. She said "I love you guys," and then held my hand for a bit and then promptly forgot we were there. So we got kicked out of the lobby for being too loud, so we went outside and set up there. Here we drank some more wine and Alexandra had us go around the group and say what we thought would happen on the trip and what actually has happened. A lot of the girls talked about how they thought they wouldn't get along with anyone (bull) and how it hadn't been the case at all and how much they loved "literally everyone here" and that they got "along with everyone" (also bull). Natasha and I headed back up to the room around midnight and once we were back, we realized that we had both had the same thoughts. They didn't mean it. They didn't even know all of us. Barely any of them had tried to get to know us, let alone Carolina. The quieter, culture-driven girls were pushed off to the side. We weren't there for the wine and the partying or the boys (though it wouldn't hurt to get a guy along the way!). We were there for the architecture and the mythology, the culture and the experience. It was just a huge shift. And Alexandra said how we were our favorite group and she loved each and every one of us and how we were so wonderful, but she doesn't know Natasha or my name--only those of the girls who were loud and drank a lot. The entire thing was just a sort of shift in the trip. I drank too much wine (I'm sure any of you could have called that--those of you who know my minuscule drinking habits), so I spent the next hour propped up in bed thinking about how nauseous I was. I fell asleep and then from 1:30-2am, I sat in the bathroom hoping I would just puke and get it over with. But when that seemed like it wouldn't ever happen, I went back to bed and slept through the night. ...Or at least until my alarm went off at 5:50am and then it was time for GREECE! And, of course, the ESCAPE FROM THE INSECT ROOMS OF DOOM! FINALLY!!!! Ciao, Horrible "Club House Hotel" of Doom! I shall never return and absolutely never miss you!

#Rome #Roma #Italy #efcollegebreak #ultimatebreak #vatican #Vatican City #Sistine Chapel #saint peter's basilica #italyandthegreekislands2017

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mon-amour-eternel · 8 years

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Worth It

Features: Original!Caroline, Hybrid!Caroline, KC with kids, altered backstory, etc. Warnings: mentions of pregnancy, minor death of children who were turned, and infertility. Rated G/SFW.

Sheila Bennett paced nervously. She was wearing a hole in her patio, but it was unavoidable.

An Original was coming.

Sure, she’d called him there, but that made her no less nervous. She wasn’t sure what she’d called him for was worth it. Plus, Bonnie was there with her, and the Original would surely use her as leverage if he didn’t like what he heard.

“Grams, sit down. It’s okay. Whoever this guy is, he can’t be that bad,” Bonnie cajoled.

Sheila shook her head. “You have no idea who you’re talking about. We’re meeting an Original. One of the first vampires in existence. He’s extremely dangerous and if he doesn’t like what I have to say, he’ll kill us both.”

“I think you confuse me for my siblings,” a voice called.

Sheila turned around so quickly her hips popped.

There he was, standing just before the steps. In a full suit, he didn’t look nearly as threatening as some said. But Sheila could feel his power like it was a tangible thing.

“You are Sheila Bennett, yes?” She nodded, struck mute by the sheer wrongness of his existence. Nature hated this man. “You summoned me.”

Bonnie peeked around Sheila. “Hi, I’m Bonnie. Her granddaughter. She didn’t really tell me who you are…?”

He looked amused. “I am Elijah, an Original vampire. I’m also very busy, so if we could move this along?”

Sheila snapped out of it. “Come, have a seat.” She directed him to one of the chairs. She sat opposite him, Bonnie at her side. “I hope you don’t mind, Bonnie is training right now. I thought it would be a good idea for her to watch. But if you’d rather she not….”

He put a hand up. “It’s alright. But please, let’s get to it. I have other business to attend to after this.”

“Okay.” She breathed out through her mouth. “I recently found a collection of family heirlooms. Many grimoires were part of it, but only one really stood out to me.” She gingerly pulled out the book she was talking about. He took it carefully. “This grimoire belonged to a woman named Ayana.”

“Ayana. She was a friend of my family’s.” He looked at the book, facial expression slightly surprised. He looked up. “If you want to keep this, then it is yours. It’s your family history, not mine.”

“Thank you,” she said, though she never planned on giving it away. She leaned forward and opened it to a well worn page. “I wanted to show this page to you. It’s a spell for temporary infertility that was used quite often. It was a drink, ingested during puberty, during the ovulation part of the menstrual cycle, if applicable. And it can be reversed. Do you see, here she says that it was often reversed on the last night of the wedding, before the couple had their private time.”

Elijah read the spell quickly. “Yes, I do. I believe I was given this spell, now that I look at it.” He spoke more to himself, “Mother probably didn’t want us giving her grandchildren before marriage.”

Bonnie grinned. Elijah did feel extremely powerful, but that comment made him seem really human.

“I do not understand why you are showing me this.”

Sheila steeled herself. “May I ask a few personal questions?”

He stared for a moment. “Alright.”

“Were you the only one of your siblings to get this spell?” He shook his head, remembering each of them getting the special drink. They’d gotten them at random, only once, leaving all the rest jealous. They’d all been given the drink that night, though. Her next question made him frown. “Do the hybrids want children?”

“I won’t presume to know. Why are you asking this?”

“Because I can reverse this spell. I can take away the infertility from the wolf side and it would be possible for them to have children.”

Elijah eyed her. Niklaus and Caroline already had Isaac, who was partly the pride and joy of the family, but they’d always wanted more.

“Explain,” he finally said.

“I can make the reverse of this spell quickly and easily. They will ingest it, then wait a little while, and they should be fertile again. That is, if she was given this spell?”

Elijah shrugged. “I don’t know if she did or not. Let’s assume she did for now. I have a few questions before this goes anywhere.”

“Go ahead.”

“How long is a little while?”

Sheila pointed to a line in grimoire. “A few days, a week at most.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I was told by the spirits that a hybrid can only live if it is natural. I’ve heard stories of the hybrids he attempted to make. They could not live because they were against the balance of nature. But if they make a hybrid like this, then it will be allowed to live. I am a servant to nature, and She says this is something that can happen without bloodshed.”

Elijah looked both contemplative and defensive. “Why, though? Why are you willing to risk yourself and get this news to them?”

She looked away for a moment. Bonnie watched avidly. “I want your help finding someone. It should be easy, but she is blocking me. You won’t be putting yourself or your family in danger, I promise you.”

“I will get back to you. For now, do not tell anyone about this, do you understand?” She nodded. “Do you have a number I could call you on?”

“Yes, I do. I’ll go write it down.” Sheila was hesitant to leave Bonnie with him, but Elijah had been calm and peaceful, so she hoped he would do anything and went inside.

Bonnie asked, “so...Original vampire? What does that mean, exactly? If you don’t mind my asking, I mean.”

“It means that my siblings and I were turned into the very first vampires after the death of my youngest brother. Also turned were my father, sister-in-law, and nephew. All vampires in existence come from us.”

“Woah. What did she mean by hybrid?”

Elijah smiled at her curiousity. “Hybrid in this case means part vampire, part werewolf. Both my brother, his wife, and their son are hybrids, the only ones alive. My brother has made attempts to make more, but they always die.”

Bonnie frowned. “That’s sad. But, do you think he’ll go for it? If he wants more hybrids, this might be the only way.”

She was overstepping her bounds, just a little, but he allowed it. “I’m not sure. I’m going to ask him and return his answer to you two.”

“Okay,” she said as Sheila came back out. Elijah and Bonnie both stood.

She handed a piece of paper to Elijah. “My number and Bonnie’s are on there. If you can’t reach me, just call her.”

“I will. Thank you, Ms. Bennett.”

And then he was gone.

He was in Richmond not long after, shut away in his hotel room. He loosened his tie and steeled himself.

“Caroline? Great news.”

When Isaac was born, the whole family had rejoiced. The last addition had been Henrik, some thirteen years before.

Isaac spent every waking moment with his family. His aunt and uncles adored him, his maternal grandparents doted on him, and his parents, most of all, loved him more than anything else in the whole world.

He’d been there, that night. He’d been in his father’s arms, and he’d been killed by his step-grandfather. He’d barely been seven months old, not quite able to stand up without assistance. He’d had two front teeth on the top and bottom, and he’d never known a world of violence.

But then, he was killed.

Unlike his parents, who drank the blood because they were forced, he did it because he was thirsty. And unlike his parents, who killed after turning, he never did.

Isaac was a hybrid in name only, a vampire in reality. He’d never killed. He didn’t even have fangs to kill with. His parents, however, had turned into wolves that fateful night and killed Esther when she later plotted to bind their natures.

Mikael went on a rampage, and the Mikaelsons had been running ever since.

There had been only two additions since -- the emergence of their sister, Freya, and her son.

It was the 1400’s, and she found them, heavily pregnant and being chased by their aunt. She’d proven herself quickly, and they’d killed Dahlia with no remorse.

Freya had given birth to her son, Théo, soon after. He’d never been adept at magic, and Freya had him turned at a young age. (“Better companion for Isaac than any of the rest of us,” Kol had drawled, the only one who’d agreed with her actions. He’d been the one to turn the boy.)

There had been no one else, unless you counted the many people Elijah and his single siblings had claimed to love.

That didn’t mean they didn’t want more. As children, they’d envisioned their lives being aunt and uncles to many little Mikaelsons, spread between the six of them evenly. It wasn’t a lost dream, or at least, Elijah thought not. He hoped not.

Niklaus and Caroline, Isaac and Théo accompanying them as was usual, came to town a few days later. Elijah had already bought a property and was having it renovated. Hotels were not an option with two little boys who liked to throw their bottles of blood (a baby bottle for Isaac, a water bottle for Théo) at the walls. Isaac only did it when he was excited, but Théo would do it if he was excited, mad, or being defiant.

It was because of that that Elijah’s nephews did not live in hotels, ever.

He told this to Bonnie, who found it all amusing. Sheila smiled, but she was too nervous to laugh. The hybrids of the Originals were surrounded by rumors, and no one knew the truth. Elijah had told them little tidbits here and there in the hopes he could ease their fears, but no luck.

When Niklaus and Caroline entered the clearing, Sheila tensed. Bonnie stood away from them, behind them, so Elijah wasn’t sure how she reacted.

They greeted Sheila shortly but not unkindly.

“Brother,” Caroline said, moving to him. She pressed a kiss to his cheek and allowed him to do the same before she stepped back. Isaac was in a sling on her chest, excitedly kicking his feet.

“Hi! Hi!” Isaac screeched happily.

“Caroline. Isaac.” His tone was as affectionate as it got.

“Not going to say hello to me?” Niklaus questioned. Théo ran at him and jumped up and down until Elijah picked the little boy up. He hadn’t seen his nephews in months.

“Hello, brother,” Elijah said a little exaggeratedly. To Théo, he booped his nose and said, “hello, darling. How have you been?”

Théo chattered, “we got to see Unca Kol! He showed me the magic he learned and then he made me a magic puppy! It’s soooooo cute, Unca Lijah! But Mama said no.” He pouted.

Caroline cut in, “she said no because it tried to bite you, baby. Kol has it and he’s training it, so next time you see him, you’ll get to see your puppy again.”

“What did you name it?” Elijah questioned, seeing that Théo was unhappy with that explanation. His nephew’s whole face lit up at the question.

“Théa!” He giggled.

“He’s turning into an egomaniac,” Niklaus joked. Isaac giggled, though he was too young to understand what they were saying. At his age, he was too young to be talking or comprehending them, but his thousand years had aided him in the former. All he could say was ‘hi’, ‘mama’, and ‘papa’.

“You’re one to talk,” Caroline and Elijah said at the same time. Théo found it hilarious and threw his head back in a laugh.

He righted himself quickly, and turned in Elijah’s hold, holding onto his shoulder to keep his balance. “Who’s that?”

Elijah looked back. “That’s Bonnie. She’s a friend. We have to do a spell, so she’ll be watching you. It won’t be very long at all, and Isaac will be with you.”

Niklaus and Caroline eyed him warily. “Elijah, are you sure she’s safe?”

“Yes. She can’t hurt the boys, I promise you. And as I said, this won’t take long at all. Trust me,” he implored.

After a long moment, Niklaus took Isaac from Caroline and Théo from Elijah and walked them to the younger witch. “If any harm comes to either of them,” he threatened, “you will not live to see another day.”

Then he moved back to his family and the older witch. Bonnie stared after him, then sat to play with the little boys.

She handed them both cups of the special drink. “It won’t take long before the infertility wears off. Though I wouldn’t expect to start reproducing right away. Your reproductive bits have been frozen for a very long time,” Sheila advised.

They nodded and downed the drink. It tasted just the same as they remembered.

“So, we should be back in business in, oh, the next month?” Klaus asked, licking the remnants off his lips.

“Yes, good luck,” Sheila said with a small smile. The spirits were happy with her.

“Now, who was it you needed to find?” Elijah asked, watching his brother and sister-in-law closely. They seemed indifferent, but when he’d told them, they’d been overjoyed. They hid it well, though.

Sheila lowered her voice when she said, “Abby Bennett. She’s blocking me, I can’t find her.”

They shared a look. “Very well. Expect an update soon.”

She thanked them and watched them leave. It was definitely worth it, she thought.

#kc with kids #kc with babies #original caroline #klaroline drabbles #klaroline drabble #klaroline fic #klaroline fanfiction #my fiction #i really like this one #its really cute #well i think so at least #also i love elijah #rated g #sfw #werewolf caroline

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wordcreatr · 5 years

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Like a lot of people, I’m never satisfied with my weight. Whether I’m gaining it or losing it, I never end up completely satisfied with the result. I think that dissatisfaction stems from the fact that I don’t magically transform into some young, good-looking buff dude.

As many of you know, I went to the UK in May to attend my cousin Liam’s wedding. Months before I left, I decided I didn’t want a repeat of my last visit — this time I would show up in somewhat reasonable shape. Okay, that’s kind of a misstatement because I don’t work out at all, so “in shape” is a wistful dream rather than a goal. While showing up sculpted like Chris Hemsworth would have been ideal, showing up and not looking like 190 pounds (86 kg) of chewed bubblegum seemed slightly more attainable.

Thar She Blows!

Last time I went to the UK in 2017 to kick off The Year of Sean, I arrived in Blighty the heaviest I’d ever been. (A slowing metabolism, no willpower, and two years of working in a corporate office with a serious snacking culture will do that to a person.) While in the UK, I didn’t help matters by pigging out like a hunter-gatherer trying to build up a layer of fat for the lean times. I eventually tipped the scales at a somewhat portly 196 pounds, well above my ideal fighting weight. (This might not seem like a lot, but remember, I was the kid nicknamed Stick Man. And while I did go on numerous 5-mile walks in the English countryside during my month-long stay, I also ate and drank everything in sight. I’d like to say it was a wash, but it wasn’t.

My face was looking a wee bit round in 2017.

Slimming Down

After I returned home to the States in 2017, my weight gain bummed me out, but I did nothing about it. Until one day, as I was minding my own business, the Houseguest observed I looked pregnant. (By the way, God help me if I ever made the same comment to her — just saying). Now, it’s one thing to think you’re fat but a whole different ballgame to have someone confirm it for you. I’d seen the photographic evidence from my vacation snaps, but that was easy to rationalize: “Oh, it’s a bad angle” or “I’m just not photogenic.” But the sad truth was I was overweight (and unphotogenic).

So, in a rare moment of determination, I lost weight and ended up dropping 27 lbs in a couple of months. It happened so fast, it surprised some people. So, what was my secret?

So if I join, I get my ideal weight and unlimited power, right? I don’t have to do anything weird, do I?

Still waiting on the unlimited power.

No, no, I didn’t actually join a cult or make a deal with the devil (believe it or not, I was a groomsman in a Halloween wedding).

To lose weight, I just had to get motivated. And my top motivator was never hearing the Houseguest refer to me as being-with-child again. I also relied on intermittent fasting (or laziness-induced starvation as it’s more accurately known). Working from home as a freelancer and part-time Uber driver, I just didn’t eat often during the day. Also, my income fluctuated wildly, so I cut expenses by eliminating fast food. And though I like to socialize, I also avoided going out to dinner with my friends because they like to eat out. A lot.

Another change was to follow the Houseguest’s dietary suggestions (more protein and fiber; fewer carbs). Veggies are cheap, so I made a lot of salads and threw cheese and pepperoni on them and had the occasional naan bread. Instead of cookies and potato chips, I snacked on crackers, cheese, pepperoni, and apples. I substituted a spoonful of peanut butter drizzled with honey for sweet stuff. Oh, and I became a reluctant walker in the desert evenings. What can I say? It all worked and I quickly dropped to 169 lbs (76.6 kg), which turned out to be a bit too thin. Getting skinny when you get older just makes you look gaunt.

Maintaining my weight gets harder

During the year after I slimmed down, my weight fluctuated by a few pounds but remained fairly stable around 175 lbs.

When I abandoned freelancing and joined an agency, I faced the common hurdles of an office environment like Bagle Monday; Donut Thursday; free pizza; copious snacks. The caloric assault was nonstop and my weight started to creep up.

When I got the invite to my cousin Liam’s wedding, I was up to 181 lbs. Originally, I wanted to defy time by losing weight and getting in shape so I looked younger. Instead, I compromised with myself and settled on a more attainable goal — fitting into my wedding clothes without the button on my pants screaming for help as it held on for dear life.

Trying to go on a diet; Houston, we have a problem

So, I did all right maintaining my weight — until about a month before my departure when my efforts started to go off the rails. It’s ridiculous, I know; I was almost to the finish line. I have no excuse other than moderation and willpower are alien concepts I am unable to truly embrace.

A delicious calorie bomb at the Cornish Pasty, one of our group’s go-to places.

The slip-ups kept piling up. Going out for too many high-calorie dinners with my buddies or going out for lunch at work and ignoring the sensible salad I’d brought from home. Even worse, the special events started to pile up as invitations came in for BBQs and birthday parties and celebrations with family friends, etc, etc. And despite my conviction to show restraint, every one of them turned into a gluttonous Roman feast where I gorged myself — the only thing missing was a slave feeding me bonbons while I reclined on a couch.

Eating like a big leaguer

The low point in my gluttony occurred when Fox Sports Arizona invited our agency to watch a Diamondbacks’s game in a corporate suite with an all-you-can-eat buffet spread. In an effort to avoid traffic (which turned out to be nonexistent), I arrived forty minutes before everyone else. With time to kill and no witnesses to bolster my accountability, I attacked the unattended buffet of unhealthy ballpark food with all the gusto of a vampire on the loose at a hemophiliac convention.

Mine! It’s alllll minnnnnne!

After everyone else arrived, I played it cool and pretended I hadn’t eaten, then gobbled my way through seconds and thirds, drank beer, had some (several) dessert(s) and topped it all off with a healthy serving of self-loathing. I spent the rest of the game making small talk and feeling uncomfortable because I’d eaten too much.

The closer my departure date got, the more demoralized I became. It reached a point where I was afraid to get on my scale. It had become an unwelcome prophet of doom, reading out its digital prediction that my fatass wasn’t going to fit into my wedding attire. Then I had a moment of panic when right before I departed, I discovered that a ravenous moth had infiltrated my closet and eaten holes into my backup plan — a pair of out-of-fashion trousers with cuffs and an expandable waistline (basically, a dressier version of fat pants). Shit.

I’m a weak, weak man

No, I didn’t eat them all — just the big one.

During my month of pre-vacation weakness, one thing I kept craving was a Dairy Queen Blizzard. For my international readers, a Blizzard is a type of tasty soft ice cream treat that is available with multiple ingredients and is roughly about a million calories. Against all odds, I managed to avoid giving in — for a while. Numerous times, I was about to head over to DQ when I’d miraculously regain self-control. Then about a week before my flight, I finally succumbed. My thinking went along the lines of ‘What if the plane crashes? Skipping that Blizzard won’t have mattered.’ I couldn’t beat that logic.

As I drove over to DQ, I told myself I’d only get a mini Blizzard or maybe a small one; definitely not a medium. But I’d been denying myself so long, I caved while ordering at the drive-thru and got the largest Blizzard that DQ offered. On the way home, I told myself I’d only eat part of it and then finish the rest up over the next two days. But after eating a sensible amount, that delicious, icy siren kept calling me back to the fridge for another spoonful. Forty minutes later, I had vanquished the Blizzard. That was 1400+ calories on top of everything else I had eaten that day. My lack of control left me ashamed. (But that Blizzard was so worth it.)

The league of chubby fellows

By the time I arrived in England, I weighed six pounds heavier than I wanted to be. Luckily, I still fit into my wedding clothes (barely) but I didn’t have much wiggle room left in my waistband. Problem was, I had six days to get through until the wedding. The last two visits I stayed with my Aunt Bernadette, where healthy eating and portion control are the norm, which counterbalanced all the excess I experienced hanging out with my cousins, the Dillons. This time, however, I would be staying at 22 Kings Lane (Dillon Central) where food is abundant and self-control is in short supply. I knew I was in trouble.

22 Kings Lane

Now, my uncle, Daddy Bernard, eats sensibly. However, his five sons can put the food and beer away. However, some of them still play sports weekly to maintain their physiques. Only my cousin Bernie (aka Little Bernard, Young Bernard or Big Bern) lives at 22 Kings Lane, but the rest would be around regularly to see me. Bernie moved in temporarily after surgery for a badly broken leg and hasn’t left yet. He can eat with the best of them and is also a connoisseur of lagers. Always a solidly built fellow, he used to play rugby, but isn’t quite as active after the broken leg and has put on a few stone.

Brief aside: I don’t know why the Brits still use stone to denote weight — seems even more quaint than Americans using pounds. For those of you unfamiliar with this unit of weight, a stone is 14 pounds. Any time someone mentions their weight in stone, smoke starts coming out of my ears as I try to do the conversion in my head. Okay, back to our regularly scheduled post.

I had one week to go before the wedding. Basically, I was screwed.

Let the contest of wills begin!

Sure enough, the first day there, Bernie, Daddy Bernard, and I ate out at a rock and roll pub owned by this guy named Mick. (Mick may or may not be a gangster; he is the only British guy I know who’s been shot). The Turkish cook made me a giant chicken burrito. (Yes, as an Arizonan, I felt compelled to try it and it was good but different.) And when I say a giant chicken burrito, I’m not joking. It was a brick that would not have been out of place at Chipotle.

Next morning, I went downstairs and Bernie had made sausage sandwiches, and I scarfed down at least three days worth of saturated fat. Then Daddy Bernard and I stopped at McDonald’s at lunch. That night, Bernie cooked up a large pot of chicken thighs. He gave me a bowl piled high with chicken, far more than I needed, but I figured I’d be polite and eat some of it. Holy Mother of God, it was delicious! So succulent and flavorful. (My mouth is watering as I type this). Bernie asked me if I wanted more. No! I mean hell yeah, I wanted more. Then we polished off a few cans of beer. At least the lingering aroma of savory chicken covered up the burning smell of my diet plan spiraling down in flames.

However, I did have to start declining the massive breakfasts and began eating Daddy Bernard’s Shredded Wheat. (So hard to turn down bacon sandwiches.)

Shredded Wheat — Depression in physical form

Hungry in Scotland

On the Wednesday before the wedding, I rode up to Scotland with Bernie in his work van. He had to deliver some building materials and thought I’d like to come along for the scenic drive. After he made his deliveries, we headed to Glasgow to spend the night. Bernie told me we’d go for a couple of pints and then eat at the World Buffet. The idea of a buffet alarmed me, but he had his heart set on it — he’d even had the company book rooms at a Travel Lodge right by it. The plan was to arrive in about an hour.

Big Bern behind the wheel on our way to the best buffet in Scotland.

Suddenly, he spotted a grocery store and pulled in.

“I’m getting a chicken to eat,” said Bernie. “You want something?”

“I thought we’re eating in Glasgow?”

“When you eat like I do, I’ll collapse before then.”

Starving, I abstained from buying anything. Bernie bought a whole rotisserie-style chicken. He told me he was going to only eat the drum sticks and would eat the rest tomorrow with some wraps. That poor chicken didn’t stand a chance as he devoured it in the van.

Eventually, we made it to the pub, drank a couple of pints while Bernie had a conversation with an incomprehensible old Glaswegian, and then we feasted like kings at the World Buffet.

The Final Countdown

Back in England, my battle against calories continued. My sister, Bridget, showed up from Florida. Surprised, I noticed she looked heavier than usual. She mentioned that she too had put on weight. Hurricane Michael had blown down all the old, majestic trees in her town. There was no shade for her to run in now only blazing sunlight. She mentioned she wanted to lose some weight. I suggested we could try to be good influences on each other while in the UK.

“Screw that. I’m on vacation,” Bridget said as she ordered ice cream. Clearly, I was going to have to be my own moral support.

The day of the wedding, thank God I still fit into my clothes (barely!) without popping a button. After the ceremony, the attendees enjoyed a veritable feast at a swanky place called Crabwall Manor (someone gave me an extra slice of cheesecake and I ate it). Then they had another buffet dinner a couple hours later for those not invited to the service and reception. (Naturally, the Dillons and I were first in line). And then they served wedding cake. (Yes, yes, I ate that too.)

How I wanted to look…

…the sad reality

Winding down

So, once the wedding was over and there was no need to watch what I ate, I still tried to keep things in check, with mixed results. We ate out and celebrated a lot. Going out for Indian, lunching at a tapas restaurant, having a rich dinner at my cousin Matthew’s. (His partner, Véronique, is French, a people not known for cooking light — it was delicious.)

Another Dillon getting stuck into his grub (Raphael and his mum Véronique)

My lovely sis, Bridget

Eating tapas with my cousin Martin

The night before I left for home, I went and stayed in Manchester with my cousin Martin’s family. He had to work late and we got our wires crossed. I didn’t eat before I arrived thinking he and I were going out to grab food, but he’d eaten when he arrived, so we walked down to a kebab place. That late at night, I thought I should just skip it, but again my willpower failed me. So I ordered the small kebab. (The Brits have adopted American sized portions; you see a lot more overweight people these days.)

Yes, this is the “small” one.

Next steps

Back in Arizona, I wasn’t making any headway on the weight loss. Then I walked to lunch with three of the guys from the office and on the way back someone mentioned something about Christmas and out of the blue, my coworker Cbass says to me, “You know you could play Santa.”

WTF?

I gave him a few choice words and he tried to explain it was because of my friendly face and whitish beard, not because I’m a fat ass.

So I sat around for a few hours thinking bad thoughts about Cbass until I eventually decided I had to make a real effort.

Cbass hangs his head in shame. He knows he did wrong.

Okay, maybe Cbass has a point. (Plus, no more scruffy beards for me).

Anyway, I’m back to intermittent fasting and I’ve lost three pounds this week (no fast food, no snacks in the house, no eating out, etc). And the Houseguest has volunteered to put me through a modified boot camp workout she does with a friend (I’m not so sure about that, but we’ll see).

Anyway, check back and see how I fare.

Trying to Go On a Diet Like a lot of people, I'm never satisfied with my weight. Whether I'm gaining it or losing it, I never end up completely satisfied with the result.

#eating #traveling #UK

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fadingpersoncollectorstuff-blog · 6 years

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Where can i get the cheapest car insurance and only 3rd party i am aged 18?

"Where can i get the cheapest car insurance and only 3rd party i am aged 18?

Where can i get the cheapest car insurance and only 3rd party i am aged 18?

BEST ANSWER: Try this site where you can compare quotes: : http://financeandcreditsolutions.xyz/index.html?src=tumblr