Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Pigeon

I

Strutting down the sidewalk

and not retreating from me.

Cocky pigeon.

II

Fleeing before the Number 1

bus.  Flap like mad pigeon!

you forgot

your bus pass.

III

Front yard invasion.

What is so interesting?

Pigeons confuse me.

IV

Six pigeons in a circle

on Brunswick Street.

Not a NSCAD student in sight

to film, paint, or sculpt

this confab of wings.

V

Pigeon in the rain.

I’ll share my umbrella.

VI

I miss pigeons when the snow comes.

VII

If they were an Airborne Division

we would cower before

the pigeons’ gray, purple,

and turquoise colour scheme.

VIII

Maybe we should charge them

rent if pigeons are going to be

our sidewalk roommates.

IX

Thanks for inviting yourself

to the barbeque, pigeon.

We’re cooking a distant

cousin of yours.

X

Who talks this much

about pigeons?

XI

Pigeon eyes are like

googly eyes pasted

on Paper-Mache birds.

It unnerves me.

XII

The industrial revolution

brought more than people

in to crowd the cities.

The pigeon nuclear family

is alive and well.

XIII

Thirteen pigeons outside

a coffee shop.

Lucky or unlucky?

Let’s wait

and see if they attack.

Three Limericks for Canadian Summers

The heat eats us up like the gas tank of a Hummer

And global warming seems like such a great big bummer.

We sweat and we toil,

Complain we will boil,

But come winter we’ll beg for the furnace of summer.

The suns fierce rays seem to be frying my brain

And I find my focus is hard to maintain.

Then I think of the Equator

Where the heat is no doubt greater

But a proud Canadian’s gotta complain.

Up in the sky, our Oppressor has shone

As I lie sprawled in the grass on the lawn.

And I know the day will come,

And it’ll make me feel glum,

When that lovely gold Oppressor has gone.

The Letter

I’m one of those kids whose read Harry Potter from start to finish over a dozen times.  And I mean from start to finish of the series.  Not The Philosophers Stone a dozen times or Order of the Phoenix a dozen times.  The whole thing.  Maybe that’s not that impressive to some of the mega-fans out there but I still think it’s a particular accomplishment.  It’s just about the only thing I have for free-time.  My mom takes care of me since my dad…and she can’t afford to get me a Wii or satellite TV or anything like that.  But I have Harry Potter.

                I’ve dressed up as a different character from Harry Potter for the last four Halloweens.  First I was Harry (duh).  The next two years people argue that I dressed up as the same character but clearly they haven’t read the series over a dozen times.  If they had, they would have been able to note the subtle differences that marked me as Fred one year and George the next.  Finally, last year, I dressed up as Snape.  A few people actually thought I was wearing a really bad Lord Voldemort costume.  Come on!

                But you see, this year is special.  This year I turn eleven.  What kid hasn’t read the Harry Potter books and hoped that they’d receive their very own private letter – express delivery via owl – inviting them to attend seven years of schooling in wizardy and witchcraft?  At the very least we’re the majority, I should think.  I know it’s not going to happen.  Harry Potter isn’t real.  I can tell the difference.  But still, it would be pretty great wouldn’t it?

                I don’t want to leave my mom all alone you understand.  That’s not why I want to get the letter.  My mom is fantastic.  Dad…left and she has done everything to make enough money for the two of us.  Most days she comes home and she’s burnt out.  And even though I’m almost eleven now she still finds time to read Harry Potter to me when I request it.  That’s just about the only time we ever get to spend together.  She’s working two jobs after all.

                But sometimes I just wish I could step into the pages of the books and enter the world of magic that Rowling created.  I know there’s death and pain and all of that but there’s almost friends, family, and adventure.  And the bad guys always win.

                What I really want is to step into Hogwarts and learn how to do a better job helping my mom.  She does so much work and I can’t do anything to help her out.  I’m only eleven.  But if I was a wizard I could use magic to do the chores at home before Mom got back from her second job.  If I was a wizard I could use magic to make our lives easier.

                I might even be able to use magic to make Dad…

                No.  I know that won’t happen.  But it doesn’t stop me from sitting with legs crossed on the welcome mat in front of the front door on the morning of my eleventh birthday.  I know the letter won’t really come.  But I can imagine.  My mom left a note for me on the fridge.  Happy Birthday big man!  We’ll do something nice for supper, I promise!  She’s usually gone by the time I get up.  Luckily, I know how to make pop-tarts before I go to school just up the street.  And she always remembers to pack me a lunch before she goes.

                So, sitting there, even knowing that I won’t be getting a Hogwarts letter, I get excited when I hear the post-man’s truck slide to a stop at the end of the driveway.  I feel myself getting excited as he comes up the steps.  A moment later the mail-slot is brushed open and a bundle of letters fall onto the floor.  I reach out and grab at the pile and flip through all the letters.

                I nearly drop all of them on the floor when I see the one addressed to me.  The script is identical to that used by J. K. Rowling in the first book.  Addressed to me.  Sealed with a red wax symbol with four familiar animals.

                I nearly run into the wall on my way to the kitchen I’m so excited.  I pop the wax seal and yank the letter out.  My hands are almost shaking as I unfold the paper and look at the words written there.  Everything’s exactly right.  The heading with the school’s name.  The Headmaster’s name and his titles.  Then the message:

Dear Mr. Fox

We regret to inform you that you have not been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  Do not think that this is due to a lack of magical ability on your part.  In fact, we have been told by a very reliable source that you bring a world of magic and wonder into her life every day.  We feel it is important for you to continue being the magical person that you have always been exactly where you are.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress

I stand there in the kitchen holding the letter for a moment.  I’m too shocked to move.  Then, slowly, I slip the letter back into the envelope.  I make sure to retrieve the wax symbol from where it fell on the floor.  From there I proceed silently up the stairs to my room.  I have a cork board hanging up on my wall across from my bed.  It’s covered in Harry Potter stuff.  Drawing’s I’ve made over the years.  Photos of me in my Halloween costumes, buying the books, and attending the only one of the movies I got to see in theatres: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.  I step up to the board and take a free thumb tack to hold my letter from Hogwarts.  I pin it up next to a photo of my Mom and I on the day I bought the first book.  My dad took the photo.  But it’s just me and my mom in the picture.  Just like it always is.  And we’re still here.

            I guess life is full of magic after all.

Sapped

Bear with me for a moment here and imagine the following scenario.  Imagine a pesky, loud, smelly animal.  Imagine this is the most annoying animal on Earth and that – for the sake of argument – it is synonymous with the very definition of nuisance.  Let’s call this animal ‘human’ so as to avoid any confusion as we proceed.

                Now, imagine that this pesky human just wouldn’t stop.  Not for a second.  It just kept going: building up towering structures, flattening the ground with concrete, zipping around in metal boxes, and the whole while doing it all as loudly as possible.  There is nothing, nothing I tell you, which makes half as much noise in a life-time as a human can make in a day.

                But we’re not done yet.  No, if that had been it I might have been able to handle it.  See, I consider myself to be more patient than most maple trees.  Admittedly, our particular breed isn’t known for our calm and collected nature.  But I like to distinguish myself from the rest of my kind so that you will know that I didn’t come to this through simple annoyance.  This is full-blown, righteously justified, annoyance.  It’s a difference of adjectives.

                So here’s the kicker, the clincher, the defining problem.  Here I am, kept where I am in the midst of a mess of human concrete, machines, and noise as a kind of aesthetic touch, and what happens?  Some pesky human, no bigger to me than a mouse would be to him, comes along and staples something to my trunk.  First off, he had to get it good and secure and so he made sure to put in six or seven staples.  As if one didn’t sting enough.  What’s up with that!?  If you’re a human hearing this, then imagine this as if it were happening to you.  Imagine a mouse swaggered up to you while you were standing outside, and sucking in some lovely March sun, and he placed an advertisement for such-and-such mouse event at such-and-such mouse establishment on your leg.  Then, before you could do anything about it, he viciously jabbed a half dozen thumb-tacks into your leg to hold the advertisement there.  I don’t think I’m being unreasonable in saying that you, like me, would be thoroughly pissed.

                What kind of behaviour is that?  What kind of utter lack of respect and decency.  It’s bad enough that many of my kind have been appropriated for various human uses (the idea of this thing called ‘paper’ makes me feel like ants are crawling beneath my bark) but stapling an advertisement to my truck?  Come on.  That’s just adding insult to injury.

                What am I driving at here, you might be asking.  Is this just some rant about the audacity of humans?  What should I expect, you may be thinking, they’re human after all!  They are synonymous with annoying.  They can’t change their nature any more than I can change mine.

                Well, I reserve the right to be angry about it.  I reserve the right to get mad about it and shout about it and…oh, dang, hold on.  Speak of the devil.  It looks like a few humans are coming over now.  Probably going to jab some new advertisement into my trunk.  Once one appears a dozen more usually follow.  Lambs following the flock.

                Wait.  Hold on.  What?  Um…okay, so, those of you who have kept with me this whole time.  They’re…these humans, a few of the female kind, just removed the notice that was stapled to my trunk.  They’re also using something to pull the staples out too.  I’m, um, not sure what to…Now they’re sitting beneath me.  Making their noise.  But…my trunk does feel a lot better now.  I guess this kind of noise…isn’t so bad.  Um…

                Okay.  So, maybe some of them aren’t moving so fast after all.  Maybe some of them are learning to slow down.  Slow down, and suck in the March sunlight.  Maybe we have more in common than I thought.  But don’t tell anyone I said that.  I hear they’re prone to pride.

The Salamander

The salamander runs on crooked legs through the city

welcome and applauded thanks to minds eager for fireworks.

It does not need to hide in the shadows, forcing its

opponents to seek shelter there instead.

The dim glow of a reading light beneath the covers

illuminates black text inked into nutmeg scented paper

thin as the breath between my teeth as I absorb

more than the sum of the words but the sum of the ‘I’.

The salamander is our hero, the best friend of bliss.  It alone

can promise not to compromise smiles with unfiltered reality.

Its tongue darts faster than the eye can follow and before long

Huck is off his fence and the white paint has spilled over everything.

Somewhere far off a siren wails but it is as if it is in another

land far beyond my reach.  Blinking becomes an infuriating

necessity that delays my overcharged brain’s feast.  I engorge

myself on literature.  Asimov, Orwell, Tolstoy, and Stein.

The salamander hunts without tire.  It compromises the machine,

the printing and the printers, the publishers and the published.

Talons work from the inside, pushing the former gods out

and replacing them with fifty shades of hollow replicas.

Montag flees the Hound, McMurphy suffocates beneath

the pillow.  And the I beneath the sheets sweats and feels visceral

and finds on every page I and I and me and I.  The pages

are soaked in humanity as I am soaked in humanity evermore.

The salamander is my enemy.  The salamander sniffs the air with

its tongue and looks for me.  It fears me knowing my I.  It fears

others knowing theirs.  It wants us to smile and laugh until we

can’t be anything else.  The salamander burns away the I in us.

The fires are already burning.  I seek to douse them in ink.

Inspiration

I lie on my bed with my fingers poised,

Hovering over a keyboard, waiting for that clicking noise.

But words do not spring to my finger-tips today

And I search all around me for something to say.

Tree leaves flutter against light afternoon wind

And a gray layer of clouds refuses to be thinned.

Engines hum as cars drift on by

And birds chirp faintly as they touch the sky

Bed springs knot and ping as I shift my view

To look at shelves of books whose numbers are not few.

DVDs and movies rest on brown wooden shelves,

Testaments to our attempts to entertain ourselves.

Then, a white doorway leading out to the hall

Followed by a closet, a backpack, and a deflated football.

My desk rests in shambles, debris piled up high.

I can never keep it clean, as much as I might try.

Inspiration is tough to come by, sitting on your bed.

I have a laptop, and keys, but nothing in my head.

The dark enemy is writer’s block, holding me back.

But maybe the answer lies in a folded laundry stack.

We search this wide world, for some new stimulation,

Feeling ourselves lost in some unholy stagnation.

But, inspiration can be found in the glint of window glass

In the heart of a loved one, in the smell of newly cut grass.

We call out for something to unhinge our emotions

But sometimes one only needs the simplest of notions.

I can feel the cool breeze drifting over from the ocean,

A call of inspiration for many a Nova Scotian.

So, good-bye to writer’s block holding me down.

I can find my afternoon muse in what is around.

The rustle of curtains, the dust on the shelf,

These are all I need to inspire myself.

Forgetting

Beneath my fingers and thumbs

the flat keys wait, lifeless and still.

Heaney rode backwards through time, riding

on the memories of father and grand-father,

for the past was his concern, not the future.

But I will look forwards to the times of my children

and my children’s children, to how the world will change

and how the words and the writing will change

as technology advances.

Will my children write essays snug in their beds,

with eye strain caused by hours gazing at their iPads,

breeding a need for prescription eye-glasses?

Will they remember paper and pen

or will those be relics of the ancient world of their father?

You may laugh at the thought, but we have iPhones and Kobo ereaders

and even Bluetooth control for our cars.

Will my grandchildren think their words and watch them

spread across the holographic screen, bringing new meaning

to stream of consciousness writing?  Will they even know

what foolscap is?  Or lead pencils?  Or pink erasers?

Or will writing have passed out of style with a new medium

rising to illustrate the need for story and word

to express the interior thoughts and emotions

of this race of humans, flawed but fixed by tech.

How will my children write?  Will my grand-children write?
By the time my great-grand-children are born will they be a part

of a world that has forgotten the pen and the pencil

that allowed us to express ourselves with this written, divine language?

Beneath my fingers and thumbs

the flat keys wait.

What will I choose to remember with them?

Atlas Tripped

“I think we should stay in Europe but all the politicians who destroyed this country should leave.”

-          Katerine Apostolaki, 20, Student

Fire reflects off of shields held high

as soldiers march like Marathon remembered.

But they grip shields of polycarbonate

instead of ones made of iron and bronze.

They are no Spartans, though valiant they may be,

for there is no glory to be found here.

No Simonides lives now to write an epigram

for the epitaph of a nation.  Besides,

the coffers are too bare to spare

the (useless) coin needed to commission

such a project.  Oh, woe to the west

where anyone can be at the scene

of the dust and the smoke and the rage

simply by turning on their phone

and googling a nightmare half a world

away.  It is possible to look but impossible

to see.  As in an age long past

there are three hundred who stand

against an onslaught numbered

in the billions (of euros).  Three hundred

representatives attempting to preserve

posterity (and posterior) with austerity.



(http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-news/amid-flames-greek-parliament-approves-crucial-austerity-bill/article2335517/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=World&utm_content=2335517)

Culpa

Hey guys, this is a story I wrote from the perspective of a character mentioned/introduced in another story written by someone else.  It was a writing exercise I did and I decided that I'd share it here!  Enjoy!  Post comments!

Culpa didn’t even remember what Puna’s face looked like.  She couldn’t remember her parents either, or what had happened to them.  They’d been children when the task force attacked the compound where their kidnappers had taken them.  Their kidnappers, but their liberators as well.  The task force ended up becoming the true kidnappers, the separators, the ones that took Puna away from her.  For all that Culpa knew, Puna was dead.  Or worse.  She knew what their rescuers had done, could do, and would do.

                The bomb.  The first one dropped a year after Puna was taken had done untold damage and killed thousands.  It was enough to look on the devastation of that village to turn Culpa’s heart to stone.  She could no longer call herself one of them.  Not after that.

                She stopped being a quasi-prisoner that day and went in for recruitment.  After the bomb, knowing what the enemy could do, she was hardly turned away.  Her liberators became her squad mates.  Veritas, Equitas, and Mendacium became her closest friends as they dove into the trenches together.  They had each other’s back, they had each other’s front, and that bond was closer than anything Culpa had ever known.

                It was a year after the first bomb was dropped that her Commanding Officer told her why the enemy had chosen that particular village for the first bomb drop.  He had told her it was because of its position, not strategically, but geographically.  Situated in a valley surrounded by mountains, it was the perfect location to gather data on the effects of the bomb.  Culpa’s heart had already turned to stone.  It was that day she felt the magma begin to press against it, like the capstone on a volcano.  She didn’t know how long it would hold.

                At present, Culpa found herself looking up from her journal as Veritas entered her tent.  It was the fourth day of the enemiy’s most recent push into the Eastern held territories.  Artillery strikes were hitting almost every hour, but luckily the bulk of her division’s tents were far from the intended targets.  She felt no envy for the soldiers closer to the strategic compounds and command bases.  Though they were heavily bunkered, it would be no picnic, and you could absolutely forget about sleep.

                “Commander says we’re going to try to push on their left flank,” Veritas explained.  “That particular regiment took heavy casualties in an engagement with 9^th platoon a couple hours ago.  Another regiment’s come in to defend them but they’ve been forced back by General Compelo’s tank division up.  If we take this regiment by surprise while they’re weakened we’ll have a significant advantage.  We’ll start pushing them away from the river, their only water source.”

                “Sounds like a plan to me,” Culpa nodded, picking up her rifle.  She was a good shot.  No, screw that, she was a hell of a good shot.  She had outstripped Veritas, Equitas, and Mendacium in every target shooting drill they’d ever been subjected to.  It had earned her the nickname Plink from Mendacium to describe the sound that she made every time she zeroed in on the tin cans that were set up for her.

                Equitas and Mendacium were waiting for her outside the tent.  Their faces were stained with ash that coated their cheeks and made their eyelashes look gray.  She was certain she looked the same, coated in the dust of war.  She tried not to think about how much of it was the remains of people who’d been blasted apart next to her by explosions, or killed by incoming fire.

                Equitas took point as they dipped into the trench and began to work their way towards their target.  Machine gun fire from the 3^rd Platoon was drawing the bulk of the enemy’s fire, distracting them as Culpa’s squad linked up with a  couple of other four man teams.  The machine guns would only work for so long, but it still felt good to be moving through the trenches without the sound of bullets dividing the air over your head.

                Culpa did a quick pop up over the lip of the trench to get an idea of the enemy’s deployment and could already see soldier’s moving into position to intercept them.  The distraction hadn’t lasted long.

                “They’re on to us!” Culpa barked just as the first bullets began to rain dirt and grime down on their heads.

                “Goddamnit I hate this part!” Mendacium barked.  “Plink, give me some covering fire!”

                Culpa nodded and waited until she heard a break before snapping up and putting a bullet into the shoulder of one of the enemy soldiers.  He had been exposing himself too much.  The shot hadn’t been hard.  She tried not to think about his screams as she ducked back down.

                “Again!” Mendacium cried, hefting his light-machine gun.

                Culpa popped up a second time with Veritas at her side.  They both fired a shot.  Culpa’s hit the target, causing a woman to spin out of her machine gun nest.  Culpa never saw if Vertias’ shot hit, she only heard the all-to-familiar sound of a bullet’s buzz before it made contact with skin.  And then Veritas was falling beside her.

                “Mendacium!!” Culpa roared.

                “Equitas!  Cover me!” Mendacium screamed.  He popped up over the side of the trench wall, opening fire so that the sound of his light-machine gun shredded the air in all directions.  Equitas was up beside him, popping off shots like a mad-man.  Culpa knew that only a few would find their targets, but her thoughts were entirely on Veritas.

                She fell to his side, her knee sinking into wet mud, and she quickly located where the bullet had entered.  Right side, between the ribs.  It had passed through as smoothly as a blade, not even breaking any ribs.  But blood was flowing from the wound relentlessly and Veritas was coughing up blood as his lungs began to fill.

                “Veritas!  Veritas, stay with me!  Don’t you die on me you bastard!” Culpa roared at him, putting pressure on the wound.

                “Culpa…Cul…Culpa…” Veritas gasped between coughs.

                “Shut up you idiot!  Hold on, just…MEDIC!”

                “Culpa…your…your parents.”

                “Shut up you stupid fuck!”

                “We…shot them…the day we took you.  Equitas, Mendacium…and me.”

                Culpa sank back against the trench wall and buried her face in her grimy hands.  She had dropped her rifle somewhere.  She couldn’t remember.  When she pulled her hands away, Veritas was dead.

                The magma was coming to a boil.  She could feel the stone quaking, ready to burst, ready to let it all come out.

                And she wanted it to.

                Culpa stood up, unconcerned with her own rifle, and pulled her side-arm from its holster.  She jabbed it point blank against Equitas’ cheek.

                “Culpa, what the fuck are yo-“

                Equitas’ face exploded, the bullet catching Mendacium in the shoulder next to him.  He roared and stumbled to the side, losing his grip on his light-machine gun which sputtered out.  But the buzzing was still in Culpa’s ear and she couldn’t get it to stop.

                “Culpa!! Don’t!!”

                But she didn’t stop.  She emptied her pistol into Mendacium’s stocky frame and grabbed Equitas’ rifle off the ground.  She popped over the trench wall, not caring anymore, not caring about anything.  She saw one of the enemy soldiers racing towards her across the dead zone between them, screaming.  She put him down, his head exploding like a popped grenade.

                She worked the bolt and looked for another target.  She hated the enemy.  She hated them for abandoning her.  For taking her sister from her.  For leaving her alone.  For letting her parent’s die in a splash of blood against the side of the house she dreamed over and over and over.

                Then she saw her.  Puna.  Across the impossible gulf, forever out of reach, with the enemy.  Culpa dropped the rifle.

                “Puna?”

                Then, the buzz of that all-to-familiar bullet before it hits its target.

Committed Epilogue...Sort Of!

Committed Chapter 25

Ariadne sat at the desk, waiting.  She had changed into a blue sun-dress which hugged her frame nicely.  She adjusted the straps for the fourteenth time, wanting to ensure that the dress always cupped her breasts so that they would always been a visual pleasure for Janus.  She knew he would want to enjoy her while she was still in this young body.  She almost shook with anticipation of their first night together.

            She realized that in this life she was a virgin.  That would make Janus extremely happy.

            She heard the window open behind her and stiffened slightly.  Her hands began to sweat.  She bit her bottom lip but didn’t turn around.  She felt so uncomfortable.  She adjusted the folds of her sundress and took in a slow breath.  She could do this.  Her love for Janus was strong enough to get her through this part.

            “Ariadne…?”

            Ariadne stood and turned to face Paris Montague.  He had climbed through the window into Janus’ study, a twenty-by-twenty room with the same red and gold colour scheme to the walls that had been present in the entrance hall.  A desk of dark mahogany, pristinely maintained by Janus’ servants, lay between them.  The walls on either side of them were lined with shelves of rare books, their cold brown and black spines lined up like soldiers.

            “Hello, Paris,” Ariadne said, smiling sadly.  “You shouldn’t have come.”

            “Okay, okay,” Paris nodded, glancing down at her hand.  “So, this is all going as part of the plan, right?”

            “Paris, you need to listen to me…” Ariadne began.  Paris started to walk around the desk and she stumbled back in fear. She caught herself and forced herself to stand still.  She needed to do this.  For Janus.

            “Paris, listen.”

            “I’m supposed to smash the ring,” Paris said, his eyes still locked on her ring hand.  “This isn’t you.”

            “You’re not smashing anything,” Ariadne insisted.  Hearing the words from Paris’ mouth, knowing that he had every intention of following through with this sick, demented plan, was more than Ariadne could bear.  “You won’t do it!  I won’t let you!  I love Janus too much!”

            “No, Ariadne, you don’t,” Paris said, looking up at her now.  He was begging, Ariadne realized.  How pathetic.

            “I do, Paris.  That’s what you need to understand.  I love him completely.”

            “I can’t do this,” Paris said, turning around, forming a tepee with his fingers in front of his mouth as he began to pace.  “I can’t smash the ring.  Not when you’re like this.”

            “Exactly,” Ariadne sighed, feeling that the worst was over now.  “Paris, I understand that you are upset, but what we had was a lie-“

            “You have to smash the ring yourself.”

            Ariadne blinked in surprise.  “That’s never going to happen, Paris.”

            “It has to happen,” Paris said, suddenly rushing forward and grabbing her hands.  How had he made it so close to her?  “Ariadne, you don’t love him.  A few hours ago we were running from him!  You hated him!  You have to remember that!”

            “I wasn’t in my right mind!” Ariadne cried, yanking her hands away from him.  “I was sick!  I love Janus!”

            “No!  Ariadne, no! No, no, no!  You love me!”

            For a moment, Ariadne said nothing.  Then she started to laugh.  She laughed so hard her sides felt like they were splitting.  She felt forward, bracing her hands against her knees, and laughed.  Paris just stood in front of her.  Somehow, the sight of tears rolling down his face only made everything funnier.

            “Why would I ever smash the ring?” Ariadne giggled.  “Why?  It’s the reason I remember every time.  It’s the reason that Janus is able to find me every time and make me remember.  We belong together.”

            “No,” Paris whispered.  “He stole you.  Not from me but from yourself.  You deserve to choose for yourself and he has taken that away from you.  He has used this magic to steal you from me, every time.  He has tricked you into thinking you love him.  But you love me.”

            “I don’t love you,” Ariadne shook her head, wanting to laugh again at his arrogance.  “I don’t understand how you could possibly think that I love you.”

            “Because you told me.”

            “I never said anything like that,” Ariadne said, thinking of Paris’ pathetic declaration of love beneath the city.  How had she ever allowed herself to go down into that filth with him?  It boggled the mind.

            “No, not this time,” Paris shook his head.  “But before.  The other times.  Before he made you forget what your heart really wanted with that ring.  With that stupid, evil, cursed ring!”

            “What are you…” and then Ariadne remembered.  Her eyes widened as the memories came back into focus.  It was tough sometimes, having the memories of thousands of lives in her head.  She found it really hard to deal with them all.  Thus far, she hadn’t.  She did remember that she usually avoided thinking about her past lives.  Why think about those when she had her current one to make new happy memories with Janus?  But now, she remembered what Paris was talking about.

            Names flashed through her mind.  Theseus, Paris, Romeo, Eros, and countless more.

            “You’re…”

            “My brother,” Janus said, stepping into the room, suppressed pistol pointed at Paris.  “Well, not in this life of course.  But back when I was Cain…”

            “I was Abel,” Paris nodded.  He lifted up his left hand so that the light flickered off of the ring there.  Ariadne looked at it as he twisted it around so that the Mark of Cain, the same one on Ariadne’s ring and on Janus’ ring, was pointing upwards.

            “I haven’t really had a chance to tell you how impressed I am,” Janus said.  “I thought I’d gotten rid of you for good in 1945.  Used all of my the money I’d acquired through…what’s the word for it now?  War profiteering?  Anyway, I thought I’d made it so that you’d never find Ariadne.  Moved her to Canada, made sure that nobody in your family knew that her family had moved there.”

            “I tracked down the records when my platoon was storming one of the concentration camps in the Fatherland,” Paris replied.  “I survived, so the ring passed on, and I had the memories of where you’d sent her.”

            “As I said, impressed,” Janus grinned, still pointing the silenced pistol at Paris.  “I also thought you’d die in that war and some eager German officer would pilfer that ring off your corpse and save a lot of trouble.”

            “You wouldn’t have really wanted that.  The whole point of this ring was for me to suffer throughout eternity knowing that you’d enslaved Ariadne, the woman I loved.”

            “She has always deserved to be with me!  Not a weakling like you!” Janus roared.  The pistol shook in his hand.  “Get out here!”

            Paris stepped forward calmly, filing past Janus into the entrance hall.  As he passed, Janus pistol-whipped him over the head.  Ariadne flinched as Paris cried out, falling to the ground.

            Paris kept moving forward into the hall and Janus followed.  Ariadne continued after them, feeling too confused to say anything.  Memories of past lives came to her.  Her life as Juliet, in Italy, with Romeo, now Paris.  She remembered keenly the realization that they’d never be able to escape from Janus, then, in some bizarre irony, known as Count Paris.  She remembered their joint suicide, the only escape they saw from him.  The only chance to avoid the nightmare of another lifetime with him.

            But why had she thought that way?  She loved Janus.  She loved him completely and utterly just like he loved her.

            The man whom Janus had hired to find her, Achilles, was still in the entrance hall.  There was nothing to read on his face as he watched Janus pistol-whip Paris again so that he fell on his knees in the center of the hall.  Also present were the police Officers Seth and Antenor.  Antenor watched the scene with a wicked grin on his face.  Ariadne didn’t like him.

            “You thought you could get her to choose you instead of me!” Janus screamed at Paris.  He pistol-whipped Paris across the jaw and blood flew out, blending into the floor as Paris collapsed onto his hands.  “She’s mine!  She belongs to me!  She has always belonged to me!”

            “She never belonged to you, Cain,” Paris whispered, pulling himself back up onto his knees.  “She never belonged to me either.  You tried to buy her, to own her, and that drove her further and further away.  I loved her, and she returned my love in kind, of her own free-will.”

            “No!” Janus screamed.  He struck Paris in the side of the head this time.  Blood was now running down the side of his face.  Paris groaned, and took longer to pull himself back up, but he managed it.

            “You couldn’t stand it.  Couldn’t stand knowing that Ariadne, the woman you, in your own demented way, loved had chosen me over you.  You had woman falling over each other to be owned by you but of course you wanted the one who refused to be owned.  Refused to give herself to you.”

            “You stole her from me!” Janus screamed.  He struck Paris across the face again.  And again.  Ariadne felt herself flinch with every blow.

            “She loves me, Cain!” Paris roared, forcing himself back up.  One of his eyes was beginning to swell shut and his lip was fat and bleeding.  But he kept talking.  “She loves me, every time.  Thousands of tries, and no matter how hard you try you can’t make her love you for real.  So you slip that ring on her and you make her become this puppet that you can own.  You killed me back then, thinking it would make her love you but she still didn’t.  She hated you even more.  So you cursed us.  You possess her every time Cain, but you know it’s not real.  You feel it in your heart and that’s what kills you.  Because you know that no matter how many times you slip that ring on her finger, if it were up to her, she would reject you.  And she would choose the person she really loves.  Me!”

            Janus roared with rage and began striking.  He landed blow after blow after blow.  Ariadne saw Achilles begin to move but Antenor already has his weapon out and pointed at him, forcing him to stop.  Seth cried out, trying to get Antenor to drop his weapon, but he wouldn’t.  He started yelling at Seth.  Then Seth’s weapon was out, pointed at Antenor.

            Through-out it all Janus just kept hitting Paris.  Blood was coating the butt of the pistol.  He was going to kill Paris at this rate.

            Just like he had killed her mother.

            No, he did that because her mother wasn’t strong enough to get her to him.  He did it because he loved her.  Loved her completely.

            “Janus, please, stop.”

            She wasn’t sure why she said anything.  Maybe just because she couldn’t stand to see Janus kill someone.  That wasn’t necessary.  He had her.  Did Paris really have to die too?

            “You have me, you don’t need to kill him.”

            Janus crossed the room in two strides and struck her across the jaw with the pistol.

            She fell.  She hit the floor.  Her mouth was agape and her eyes were wide.  Achilles began to move towards her but Antenor was yelling again for him to stop.  Everything was fuzzy and the sound seemed to be drowning out of the room.

            Ariadne reached up and wiped her hand across her cheek.  It came away with blood.  But it wasn’t her blood.  It was Paris’.

            “Don’t ever speak to me like that.”

            Janus’ voice came through to her crystal clear.  She turned and looked at him.  She didn’t see Janus though.  She saw a monster.

            He loves me, she told herself as he turned and walked back over to Paris.  He does it because he loves me.

            But then another voice struggle into her mind.  Another voice whispered to her.

            Does he really love you?  He had you kill yourself as Dido rather than leave you for Paris to try and steal from him.

            He loves me.  He loves me.  I love him.

            No, you don’t.  You love Paris.  You love that goofy smile that lights up a room and you love the way his hair falls across his face.  You love looking at him and you love it when he looks at you because you know when his eyes are on you they see you, the real you, and nothing more.  You love him because he asks for nothing and he gives everything.  Love is something you give, not take, and Paris gives all your love to you.  And you want to give all your love back to him, the ring just makes you forget how.

            Janus loves me.  Janus loves me.  I love Janus.  I LOVE JANUS.

            No, Ariadne.  You don’t.

“Make one false move there and I’ll blow your brains out.”

            Officer Antenor continues to point his pistol at Achilles.  Seth, seems uncertain what to do, but still has his gun pointed at his partner and not at Achilles.  That was a good sign.

            “Put it down Han.”

            “You know what, I am sick and tired of this bullshit!” Antenor roars.  He pivots and shoots Seth in the leg.  Seth cries out in agony and falls to the ground. This distracts Janus from Paris, who is now down and not moving.  But only for a moment.

            Achilles takes a few more steps towards Ariadne, who is down on the ground, looking at her hand with the blood on it.  Achilles doesn’t understand what is going on.  All this talk of Cain and a curse and past lives is nonsense to him.  What he does know is that the moment that Janus slipped that ring onto Ariadne’s finger she became someone else.  She stopped being the woman he had chased.  She became someone who was owned.

            “I said stop moving!” Antenor roared.

            Achilles could feel the gun back on him and he stopped.  He was looking down at Ariadne now.  She looked up at him and held his gaze for a moment.

            “Don’t be owned,” Achilles said to her.  He didn’t know what else to say.

            His words seemed to reach Ariadne because a lot of things happened very fast.  First, her eyes solidified into the gaze he had met beneath New Carthage, the gaze that belonged to a woman who belonged to no one.  Then, she lifted her hands and she pulled the ring off of her finger.

            In that moment, Achilles ducked and pivoted, drawing his pistol from its shoulder holster as he did.  Antenor fired, the bullet cutting through the air where Achilles head had been a moment earlier.

            Achilles aimed and fired in one swift movement.  Antenor was rocked off his feet by the force of the bullet hitting him square in the chest.  He hit the floor and did not move.

            “What are you doing!!”

            Janus’ eyes were nearly red with bloodlust as he turned on Achilles.  He raised his pistol and Achilles realized that he wouldn’t be able to avoid the bullet.

            But, in what must have been an incredible feat of strength, Paris hurled himself off the ground and tackled Janus.  The pistol shot went wide, firing over Achilles head.

            Then, without warning, the pistol was gone from his hand.  Ariadne had it.  She flipped it in her hand so she was holding it by the still smoking barrel and slammed the butt of it down on the ring, which she had placed on the floor.

            “NO!!”

            Janus screamed pierced the air as the butt of the pistol hit the ring.  There was a loud crack, like thunder booming in the entrance hall, and the ring shattered, bits of metal flying across the floor.

            Achilles and Ariadne were now moving together, racing towards Janus.  Paris’ body was on top of him, limp, holding Janus down with nothing  but the weight of his body.

            Janus shoved Paris off, trying to get his gun hand around.  But Achilles slammed his foot down, shattering Janus’ hand and causing him to drop the gun.  He roared in pain as Ariadne leapt over him.  His other hand was splayed out on the floor, at a right angle to his body.

            Without hesitation she slammed the pistol home, striking the butt of the pistol against the ring on his finger.

            With another unnaturally loud crack, the ring shattered.  Janus whipped his hand to his chest, crying out in rage and sorrow.  He gaped at the finger, now broken, that had once had the ring on it.

            “No!  No, no, nonononononononono!”

            Janus crawled across the floor, desperately trying to grab the pieces of the ring that had scattered across the ground.  He held bits of them together, trying to put the ring back together.

            “Try some super glue,” Ariadne said, a cold, hard edge to her voice letting Achilles know that the woman he had seen was back.  “Maybe that’ll fix it.”