The First Arktoi

"Don't tease the bear."
"Don't get the bear drunk."
Two variations of the same admonition. Did we children listen? Most did. I did not. This is why I stand before you blind and maimed.
My brothers were appalled by my mauling and carried clubs and spears to its den. There they quickly had it slain. This raised the hackles of Artemis, goddess of all things wild and lunar. She called upon all young girls to become little she-bears - arktoi - for one earth orbit cycle, so that they may atone and commiserate.
I was the first to act the bear. I now worship Artemis and do not tolerate intolerance.

Old Gods

Those old gods were bad gods but they were our gods just the same.
They were good enough to allow the crops to come in, they were good enough to let them grow.
Their gifts were bountiful but their wrath was stern.
They allowed us a harvest the one year, brought locusts the next.
They were god enough to bestow and god enough to turn angry and deprive.
Without malice they starved and drowned and smote the innocent.
Offerings were made to placate them.
These were accepted and expected, though often rejected and ignored.
These were not your predictable gods.
But they were our gods.

Just the same, had they accepted our petitions and granted our prayers,
bestowing bounty in plenty upon the lot of us,
wouldn't we recall fondly the doing without? The going about without?
Wouldn't we miss drawing down, battening hatches, digging for or bailing water?
Shouldn't we light a candle for them now?

Evolution

Perhaps because we are born and later die, we perceive life all wrong. In Erutan, our parallel universe, death comes first, and so evolution proceeds from the advanced to the basic. There, men go from complicated organisms that are so estranged from their environment they destroy it, to simpler childlike lifeforms that live in harmony with their surroundings. Go far enough forward and see man become single-cell organisms, atom clusters and eventually black matter, the life force of the universe. Could be ours is the shadow world, ours the abberation.

Diary Entry 4

Today a woman came into the store, she was a tiny little thing, no bigger than three feet tall, couldn't have weighed more than 50 pounds, though I didn't lift her, mind you. She was needing batten for some bunting she was sewing. Anyway, all the other clerks went their own ways when they saw her coming, so I had to wait on her. Wasn't no problem to speak of, except sometimes, she gave me a funny look on account of I was looking at her a lot. Anyway, it turns out she wasn't with the circus or anything, she was just a small person. You coulda knocked me over with a goose feather, but I had no idea there were such things outside of the circus or the Wizard of Oz. If that don't beat all.

Drusus

With a brother like Caligula and a mother like Agrippina, you might think Drusus Caesar had bad things in store for him. And you'd be right. That is, if being thrown into one of Tiberius' dark dank dungeons is bad, if being forgotten there is bad, and if it's bad that you dine on your mattress stuffing until you starve, yeah. You'd be right.

Captain Death vs. the Zombie Cretins

The brand of justice Captain Death meted out seemed a tad harsh to the Administerial Board, but nevertheless, they approved his plan to preemtively engage the natives of seventeen minor planets in Sector J. One of those seventeen, Emplofamia, was overun by a freakish race of zombie cretins. As fate would have it, the overwhelming flaming z-ray firepower of the forces mustered by Captain Death proved useless in battle with the Zombie Cretins of Emplofamia, for the Zombie Cretins were already dead and hence, somewhat immune. Conquest of Sector J was thus postponed.

Will Rogers

"Things ain't what they used to be and never were."

Motel the Tailor

There's noting else to say but this is Motel, formerly of Anatevka, fabric stitcher, husband to Tzeitel, nemesis to Lazar Wolf the butcher, and son-in-law to Tevye.
A good egg.

Mosaic

Detail of mosaic using Arkansas River stone and opalescent glass.

Installed at New Hope Baptist Church, Sparkman, Arkansas.