COLORS

I feel odd, not like my usual self. Something is different; I cannot put

my finger on it. I think for a few minutes. I look inside myself. I do not

like what I see. I am an empty shell, I just sit here. I occupy space for

others. I close my eyes and just breathe. I breathe for one minute,

two minutes and three minutes. Just maybe, just maybe I am

mistaken. Maybe I am not an empty, rotten cavern. I peek again. I

whisper “Hello?” My own timid voice echoes lightly back. Is that

really my own voice? This is scary. What is going on? Where am I?

A better question would be; WHO THE HELL IS THIS?

There used to be so many colours inside of me. I am colourless. I am

nothing but air and time. Where have all my colours gone? Did I

throw them all out, was it on purpose or by accident? Maybe my

colours were snatched from me, stolen. No colour equals death.

I miss my yellow, purple, red, pink and even my blue. Without my

colours I am no one. I do not really exist. Without colours how can

others see me the way I want and need to be seen? Without colours

I am close to death. Am I dying? Who put the stamp on me that say

EXIT? I would go and find more colours but it is not that easy. No

one just randomly leaves their colours pattering around.

I need the colour yellow. Yellow is my laughter. It reminds me of

sunshine during the summer. I love having the sun bake down on my

skin. Yellow reminds me that there are priceless moments that we

live for. Those snapshots of our lives that make us feel on top of the

world! Yellow makes me smile and grateful for who I am.

I miss purple. This colour brings me hope. What a life to live without

purple! No hope day after day, after day. There would be no point. I

need to cling to purple like a raft that drifts alone in the ocean. Purple

is like my mask. A mask I need in order to face challenges.

Pink provides me with protection. Pink is what protects me from the

ugly slush that is constantly thrown at me. Not just during the winter

months either. There is such an abundance of slush. I am lucky

enough to encounter it quite frequently. The good news is the slush

is free. Just a heads up, frequent use does not accumulate air miles!

My pink is a cape with sequins that sparkle and cloak me when I

need it.

My blue has been stripped away! How dare they? This is my strength

Blue is my mojo and energy. How am I to give to others? I cannot

even breathe without my colour blue. Blue is like water, it quenches

my soul’s thirst.

Tears glide down. I blink several times. This is not a dream. This is

my harsh reality. I look down and inside myself once again. Still,

there are no colours. Inside of me is still horrid black. There are no

colours that dance around. Just a dark cavern, I am pathetic space.

Something is trying to come to light. There is something crucial that I

need to remember. It is important. Without colours, WITHOUT

COLOURS WHAT? Why are colours so important?

Someone gently takes hold of my left hand. They whisper gently into

my left ear “Do not move, just be. I love you today, tomorrow and

always”. NO COLOUR IS.....DEATH.

Water Witch

by Elizabeth Creith

Hazel held a forked willow stick out in front of her by the ends. Ten-year-old Molly

trailed her aunt across the field, their steps swishing in yellowing knee-high grass. The

stick quivered, then twisted like a cat, reaching for the ground.

"This is for show, mind," Hazel said. "Folk like to see something happening, something

to tell them you've done it. But you don't need the stick, understand?"

Molly nodded, looking up into Aunt Hazel's face. Wisps of fair hair escaped from

Hazel's braid and caught the light of the full harvest moon in the darkening sky. If

Molly stood in just the right place, she could make the moon into a halo around her

aunt's head.

The moonlight was dazzling-bright, bright enough to cast shadows. When Molly

shaded her eyes, she could see her aunt smiling, her one crooked front tooth and the

sweet, clear blue eyes. Molly's mama had those eyes, too, but Molly's eyes and hair

were brown, like her father's.

"What really happens," Hazel said, "happens inside you. You got to feel the earth.

She's got warm places and wet places, soft and hard places. You can feel the water in

her, feel it in yourself. Your feet feel damp and cool, even in your shoes, and then you

know you've got the right place. The wetter your feet feel, the closer the water."

Molly nodded again. Hazel led her away a few paces in the field.

"Close your eyes," she said, and spun the child around. She steadied Molly with a

hand on her shoulder. "Take hold. Lightly, now. That's right." She set the ends of the

stick in Molly's hands. "Now open your eyes, but don't look too hard at anything. Just

walk forward and feel the earth."

But wherever she walked, however hard she tried, nothing happened. If Aunt Hazel

took the stick, it bent almost to breaking to reach the ground, but in Molly's hands it

was dead as her mama's broom.

"Never mind." Aunt Hazel kissed Molly's cheek and smoothed her sleek brown hair.

"We'll try again another day. There's always a water witch in this family."

But they never tried again. Two days later Aunt Hazel cut herself canning. The wound

sickened and the poison spread up her arm in red streaks. Nothing helped her. She

died at the dark of the moon when life goes out of things and death comes easy. They

buried her in the family graveyard, on the rise at the back of the farm, where her

grandparents and parents lay, and her brother who died a baby.

Molly took the forked willow, drying though it was, and walked in the field every day,

trying to find the spot where Hazel had held the fresh-cut willow while it arched and

twisted towards water. She knew it was foolish. A real water-witch didn't need a stick,

and no stick would help if you weren't one.

When the full moon rose again, Molly climbed up to the graveyard in the evening. The

air was blue and chill with fall. Leaves made a bright rustling carpet for the little

graveyard. Molly laid the stick down on Aunt Hazel's grave.

"I couldn't do it," she said, "I tried and tried. I'm sorry, Aunt Hazel! I'm sorry we don't

have a water witch in the family now." She cried as hard for her failure as she had for

her aunt's death.

When her tears were gone, she turned and started down the hill. The moon floated

before her, and she wondered where she would have to stand to make it into a halo

for herself.

When she was halfway back to the house, with most of a field to go, the wind came

up, a little breeze that brushed over her cheek and crept through her hair to the back

of her neck. She shivered and began to hurry back to the warmth of the house.

Then, just for a moment, the breeze was a warm breath.

"Aunt Hazel?" Molly said. Foolishly, she felt as though her aunt was standing behind

her, smiling down at her. She paused, longing to turn, afraid it wouldn't be true.

Then she felt the smallest touch of cold on her left foot, through the woollen sock. The

cold spread rapidly across her sole, over her toes.

Bending, she quickly undid the laces of her shoe and pulled it off.

Her sock sagged away from her foot, dripping cold, clear water.

The Unicorn

(A Tale of Hranda)

by Steve Lockley

The Unicorn was tucked away in the back streets of Hranda, out of sight of

casual prying eyes and attracted the drinkers that other inns would not

entertain; thieves and cut throats, beggars and vagabonds. And yet there

was rarely any trouble for the landlord Piotr Garim, an incomer who had

bought the run down business many years before. He was a big man, well

over six feet tall and barrel chested, his once blond hair now running to grey.

But it was not due to him that there was never any trouble inThe Unicorn. All

the men who drank there knew that they would never be allowed into The

Black Cow or The Welcome Arms or any of the other inns scattered around

the city and at the first sign of anything getting out of hand, the trouble

makers would be ejected by their fellow drinkers. It was a situation that

suited Garim well as despite his own appearance he detested violence.

People came to Hranda for many reasons; some were looking to make a

better life for themselves or their families, others to get away from their past.

Garim fell into the second category and although he had left his former life

behind he could not forget it. The arrival of a heavy cloaked stranger late in

the evening threatened to change matters if he did not take any action.

The stranger was still sitting beside the fire when the last of the regular

customers left. Garim took the man's empty beer mug to add it the rest and

waiting for him to rise. The man showed no inclination to move though and

Garim felt his heartbeat increase, fearing the confrontation that he knew

would follow.

“It's been quite a while,” said the man.

“Sorry?” Garim said, trying to act as if he had no idea of who the man was,

though he knew that the act was destined to fail.

“Piotr Garim,” the man laughed. “I thought you would at least have changed

your name.

“You must have the wrong Piotr Garim,” Garim replied. Avoiding eye contact.

“I don't think so,” the man in the cloak said. “There are not many men who

cheat the hangman in Kaarlsgrad.”

There was nothing he could say other than try to deny it all, but that would

be useless. He recognised the man as Alex Turgov just as well as the man

identified him. “What do you want.”

“To be sure that the secret is kept buried.”

“It is already.”

“I'm not sure that I can believe that,” Turgov said, pulling the knife from his

belt and rising to his feet. “Did you think that you would be able to escape

forever by hiding away in a place like this?”

Garim backed away, fearing that perhaps his time had come when a

commotion grew behind heralded by the sound of heavy boots. Two large

figures rushed from behind the bar sending two mugs crashing to the

flagstone floor, shattering on impact and firing shards of pottery across the

room. A chair was broken a table overturned but in moments Alex Turgov

was lying on the floor with his knife sunk deep into his own chest.

Turgov slumped into the nearest chair as his two saviour righted the table

and gathered the remains of splintered furniture.

“Sorry,” one of the men said, more concerned about the damage done than

the fact that there was now a corpse on the inn floor.

“Looks like we were right to be a little concerned for your welfare,” one of the

men said. “When our friend in the cloak didn't come out straight away we

decided to go around the back and make sure you were alright.

“Thank you,” Garim said, feeling the words were inadequate.

The other man knelt down and pulled the hood from the man's face to reveal

the ugly rope burn scar around his neck. The only man to cheat the

hangman, and the hangman the only one left to identify him.

“Never seen him before,” said Garim and he knew that at last he could start to forget.

Clawbinder

by Marlena Frank

Her large leather boots crunched down onto the gritty earth. Saira could

taste blood in her mouth from where the beast had slammed her into one of

the rocky cliffs earlier. She held her breath, and lifted her eyes skyward,

pushing her blonde hair aside and shielding her eyes from the glaring sun

above. For a moment she saw nothing, but then the dark shape appeared

over the rocky outcrop. The giant bird’s wingspan easily blocked out the sun

as it flew through the clear blue sky.

She let out her breath slowly, fighting off the cold terror in her chest and

gritting her teeth in determination. She had thought she’d lost the fearsome

creature known as Rajani, but as she watched its giant form tip in the sky

she knew it was coming back around. For her. Saira moved quickly down the

rocks, tiny pebbles skittering away from her feet. She could do this; it was

what she’d been trained to do: fend off the Giant Ones such as Rajani. But in

training they’d only been a fraction of her size and not nearly as clever. A

single blast from the Power Crest would frighten the little ones off easily, but

not the mighty Rajani. Saira doubted that even three blasts would prevent

her from being torn asunder by the bird’s giant claws.

Her left hand was shaking, clutching the large ruby of her amulet as she

scaled down the cliffs. It was absorbing the energy well, but it had to be

stronger if she had any hope of scaring Rajani away and she was running

out of time. In front of her the giant shadow swept across the canyons and

Saira heard herself whimpering with every breath. Rajani was moving closer,

her wings slicing through the air above.

Just as the shadow came within meters, Saira leapt over what she thought

was a stony crag. As she flew over it, she realized with drowning despair

that the crag was actually a gully. There were many strewn across this

desolate place, but she hadn’t seen any as large as this one. Her brown

eyes went wide as she started to fall into a dark pit far away from the

sunlight above.

She pulled her left hand away from her chest and flexed the fingers out

before her. “Carpo!” she cried, her shrill voice bouncing off the cavernous

walls. Then a dark ruby light erupted from her palm and black hungry tendrils

flung out into the walls all around her, securing themselves into the rocks.

Her body was suddenly pulled to a halt and she blinked in shock as she

realized what had happened. Her heart was still pumping madly in her chest,

but the Power Crest had saved her. She started laughing to herself amid

giddy gasps for air. What might have been her doom, the pit base, was far

beyond the long reach of the sun; there was no telling how long she would

have fallen before slamming to her death. The sides were craggy and the

soil dark, meaning it had been here for some time. She looked back to the

tendrils of the Power Crest, still gripping firm into the rock. They were strong

but she wasn’t sure how long they would last. Then the light within the tunnel

was darkened, and she looked up already knowing what she’d find. Beyond

the gaping opening she saw Rajani’s huge form moving back and forth in

front of the entrance.

“It is I be laughin’ now, child!” Her deep voice flittered down on a breeze as

her orange eyes narrowed. “You sure be a fool for comin’ here – into my

very home!” Rajani lifted her beak to the skies and let out a horrid screech to

the winds. She pulled her massive body up and flapped her wings down at

the cavern. Saira was bombarded with a wind so powerful that the tendrils

were stretched taut against it. She looked helplessly to the anchors within

the walls, but they held firm. She only hoped they would stay.

Finally Rajani relinquished her assault and crouched low. She poked her

long beak slightly into the crag’s entrance. “I be stayin’ here all night, child.

Just for you. And next when you plannin’ to escape, I’ll be waitin’ right here!”

She cawed into the blue sky, her eyes wide with glee and excitement. Saira

could feel her own hot tears pouring down her cheeks before she knew she

was crying.

“Please Rajani,” Saira’s voice sounded small and meek compared to her

tormentor’s. “Great ruler of the skies – please, I meant no harm!”

“No harm! You takin’ Rajani for a fool?” She preened at a few stubborn

breast feathers. “I do not believe in such lies. ‘Specially not from a scrawny

child come to steal my precious babies!”

Saira shook her head. The Giant One was right. She had attempted to steal

an egg. One of the precious few that Rajani would create all year. But she

had to think of something to tell her. Eventually the tendrils of the Power

Crest would give out and she’d fall to the bottom of the gaping pit.

Eve's Diary

SATURDAY -- I am almost a whole day old, now. I arrived yesterday. That is as it seems to me. And it must be so, for if there was a day-before-yesterday I was not there when it happened, or I should remember it. It could be, of course, that it did happen, and that I was not noticing. Very well; I will be very

watchful now, and if any day-before-yesterdays happen I will make a note of it. It will be best to start right and not let the record get confused, for some instinct tells me that these details

are going to be important to the historian some day. For I feel like an experiment, I feel exactly like an experiment; it would be impossible for a person to feel more like an experiment than I do, and so I am coming to feel convinced that that is what I AM -- an

experiment; just an experiment, and nothing more.

Then if I am an experiment, am I the whole of it? No, I think not; I think the rest of it is part of it. I am the main part of it, but I think the rest of it has its share in the matter. Is my position assured, or do I have to watch it and take care of it? The latter, perhaps. Some instinct tells me that eternal vigilance is the price of supremacy. [That is a good phrase, I think, for one so young.]

Everything looks better today than it did yesterday. In the rush of finishing up yesterday, the mountains were left in a ragged condition, and some of the plains were so cluttered with rubbish and remnants that the aspects were quite distressing. Noble and beautiful works of art should not be subjected to haste; and this majestic new world is indeed a most noble and beautiful work. And

certainly marvelously near to being perfect, notwithstanding the shortness of the time. There are too many stars in some places and not enough in others, but that can be remedied presently, no doubt. The moon got loose last night, and slid down and fell out of the scheme-a very great loss; it breaks my heart to think of it.

There isn't another thing among the ornaments and decorations that is comparable to it for beauty and finish. It should have been

fastened better. If we can only get it back again --

The Blue House

I'm leaving the court house, now. There are people all around, lights flashing, things like that. It's strange. With everything that's happened in the last few weeks, all I can think about is how newspaper cameras still have flashes that could blind you from a

hundred yards. That's all I can think of, along with thinking about how that's all I can think of. I feel a bit light-headed, like I'm drunk. There's someone behind me, pushing me through the crowd and down the cement steps. I can barely keep my balance.

Somewhere, way in the back of my mind, I'm aware of the fact that the mob around me is shouting questions. They're not all

directed at me, but some are. There are lawyers behind me,

pushing, pushing. I can hear their voices, droning on with 'No comment, no comment.' Jim's voice isn't among them, but that's not surprising. Part of his job is to deal with the mob on days like this. I wonder what he's saying.

I wonder if he's telling them that he thinks I'm a bad person for what I've done. I doubt he is.

I wonder if he's thinking it.

Down ahead is a car. It's a nicer car than anything I could ever

afford, but that's where I'm headed.

There are police keeping the crowd away from the car, letting us get to it. Every now and then the roar of the scene leaks through the cotton that seems to be stuffed deep into my ears, and it's overwhelming. But then I'm shoved forward again, tipped

off balance, and I'm underwater once more.

I look up, past the car, and I see people. The people gathered behind the car are the real ones. Not reporters or lawyers or police, but normal people, without a job to do here, or a

professional agenda to carry out. Jim had told me about them, these people who gather outside courts to see scenes like this. He had talked about them as though they were rodents or insects;

pests. But I understand them, a bit. Their faces are mixed, one big blur of approval, disapproval, sympathy and malice. Some think I'm a bad person, some think I'm a wonderful person. Some don't care, they just want to see me walk out. That's fine, I suppose.

Eating Vinegar

Sadie glanced down at her feet. The windblown dust from the Loess Plateau, along with a layer of local coal dust, had settled on her shoes. She watched as her husband leaned to the side of the busy road and hopped off his bicycle. The green leaves of a bunch of leeks poked out of a plastic bag that hung from his handlebars. In greeting, Sadie held up a complementary bottle of black vinegar.

"Ni hao," he said.

With her free hand, Sadie put her arm around Heng's waist and felt him stiffen. She pulled her arm away, remembering that she was in Western China, where a husband and wife must keep at least a foot apart while walking out in public.

"How was your day?" he asked.

"Terrible."

"You must try to get along with Ma."

"I do try. I really do. But your mother hates me."

"How many students did you tutor today?"

"Only about five, but it felt like a hundred."

"The students are poor, and yet their parents pay you very well."

"Yes, I know. But they use free chat to criticize me."

"You could do with a little self-criticism."

"What do you mean?"

"You have to constrain yourself. You're not in the U.S. any more."

"But, Heng, the students hassle me. They ask me if all American wives have lovers and if grown kids refuse to care for their old parents."

"It's true in America that old people are put in institutions or abandoned. Didn't you tell me about Granny dumping?"

"Yes, but that's no excuse for them to mock me. They point out how big I am. They stare at my feet and then they giggle."

The Lady Or The Tiger?

In the very olden time there lived a semi-barbaric king, whose ideas, though somewhat polished and sharpened by the progressiveness of distant Latin neighbors, were still large, florid,

and untrammeled, as became the half of him which was barbaric. He was a man of exuberant fancy, and, withal, of an authority so irresistible that, at his will, he turned his varied fancies into facts. He was greatly given to self-communing, and, when he and himself agreed upon anything, the thing was done. When every member of his domestic and political systems moved smoothly in

its appointed course, his nature was bland and genial; but, whenever there was a little hitch, and some of his orbs got out of

their orbits, he was blander and more genial still, for nothing pleased him so much as to make the crooked straight and crush down uneven places.

Among the borrowed notions by which his barbarism had become semified was that of the public arena, in which, by

exhibitions of manly and beastly valor, the minds of his subjects were refined and cultured.

But even here the exuberant and barbaric fancy asserted itself. The arena of the king was built, not to give the people an opportunity of hearing the rhapsodies of dying gladiators, nor to

enable them to view the inevitable conclusion of a conflict between religious opinions and hungry jaws, but for purposes far better

adapted to widen and develop the mental energies of the people. This vast amphitheater, with its encircling galleries, its mysterious vaults, and its unseen passages, was an agent of poetic justice, in which crime was punished, or virtue rewarded, by the decrees of an impartial and incorruptible chance.

When a subject was accused of a crime of sufficient importance

to interest the king, public notice was given that on an appointed day the fate of the accused person would be decided in the king's arena, a structure which well deserved its name, for, although its

form and plan were borrowed from afar, its purpose emanated solely from the brain of this man, who, every barleycorn a king, knew no tradition to which he owed more allegiance than pleased his fancy, and who ingrafted on every adopted form of human

thought and action the rich growth of his barbaric idealism.

Ili-ili Tulog Anay - Visayan Folk song

(p or piano, meaning "soft") Ili-ili tulog anay,

Wala diri imong nanay. Kadto tienda bakal papay.

Ili-ili tulog anay.

—English rough translation—

Sleep for a while.

Your mother is not here. Went to the market to buy

bread. Sleep for a while.

SI FILEMON-ILONGGO LYRICS

Si Filemon, Si Filemon namasol sa karagatan

Nakadakop, Nakadakop, sang isda nga tambasakan,

Guinbaligya, guinbaligya sa tindahan nga guba

Ang iya nakuha, ang iya nakuha guin bakal sang tuba.

Manang Biday

Ilocano Folk Song

Manang Biday, ilukat mo man

’Ta bintana ikalumbabam

Ta kitaem ’toy kinayawan

Ay, matayakon no dinak kaasian

Siasinnoka nga aglabaslabas

Ditoy hardinko pagay-ayamak

Ammom ngarud a balasangak

Sabong ni lirio, di pay nagukrad

Denggem, ading, ta bilinenka

Ta inkanto ’diay sadi daya

Agalakanto’t bunga’t mangga

Ken lansones pay, adu a kita

No nababa, imo gaw-aten

No nangato, dika sukdalen

No naregreg, dika piduten

Ngem labaslabasamto met laeng

Daytoy paniok no maregregko

Ti makapidut isublinanto

Ta nagmarka iti naganko

Nabordaan pay ti sinanpuso

Alaem dayta kutsilio

Ta abriem ’toy barukongko

Tapno maipapasmo ti guram

Kaniak ken sentimiento.

Tuba (Pandanggo Visayan) Tempo: Allegretto Condansoy, inum tuba Laloy. Dili co moinom, tuba pait aslom Condansoy, inum tuba Laloy. Dili co moinom, tuba pait aslom Condansoy Ang tuba sa baybay Patente moangay, Talacsan nga diutay Ponoang malaway Condansoy Ang tuba sa baybay Patente moangay, Talacsan nga diutay Ponoang malaway.

TYPES OF

CLOUDS

TYPES OF

Weather

TYPES

OF

Weather

TYPES

OF

Weather

TYPES

OF

Weather

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