Hauntings
Gone, they said, gone forever
No coming back, they said
No-no-no never again
that is, except as a ghost
Do I want that?
Want to see your dear face an unmoveable mask?
To see your handsome frame grown threadbare?
But what if your eyes are still yours?
Lovely and loving?
Still portals to a soul worth loving?
Then I say: Haunt me
yes, haunt me by day or by night
let the seal between us be your glance
your eyes
the portal to Eternity
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© EC
If anybody of the female sex have been sporting what I see as a very distinctive "English Lady-Look", then it is Helen Violet Bonham Carter, Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury (1887-1969). Not much sprightly womanhood to be found in those sort of elonged and rather stiff facial features. No, she is a lady of the old, genuinely, English stock, and it shows in all photos of her. To me she looks like a prudish, humorless and rather dried-up tea-drinker which isn't what I like women to be. One shouldn't suspect that someone like her might be the grandmother of the very sprightly, vivacious and charming actress Helena Bonham Carter who've made many fictive characters stand out, especially in movies by her former husband, Tim Burton. Nonetheless, the stiff-faced baroness is the grandmother of sprightly Helena. However, I came to realize that I'm biased and shouldn't go after looks and demeanor as they all too often prove to be misleading: The fine lady may not look or behave like her granddaughteer, but she had qualities of her own.
Mary Boleyn (c. 1499-c. 1543)
She was the sister of the second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, who met a gruesome fate in the hands of the highly skilled French executioner who was commissioned by the king himself to execute her. Something which happened on May 19, 1536. Also, Mary was the mistress of that same king who had her sister killed, and that has led to certain guesses by historians for ages: Was King Henry the biological father of her two children or were they the true offspring of her husband, William Carey, whom she married in 1520? If they were the king's children then the Tudor-genes survived and were preserved in future kings and queens, like for instance queen Elizabeth II and her son, king Charles III and his children.
I suppose it shall never be proven beyond any doubt whether the bloodline really is the one of Mary Boleyn and king Henry VIII or not. Anyway, the mother of Queen Elizabeth II, the wife of king George VI, the so-called Queen Mother Elizabeth, was a descendant of Mary Boleyn's daughter, Catherine Carey (1524-1569). As said before, whether Catherine was a biological daughter of the king or not, we don't know for sure, but she was without doubt the first cousin of the King's daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, her maybe-half-sister. As neither the king nor his daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, claimed her as a close relative, I take it that it is more of a rumor than anything else, but it is what has kept the interest alive even today. After all, neither Mary Boleyn nor her daughter, Catherine Carey, were all that interesting in themselves, but the possibility of their being closely connected with the Tudors, and not only through Anne Boleyn, turns the searchlight on them and their descendants.
Wikipedia
The Gang of Amazons
One of the detectives investigating what has been nicknamed "The Gang of Amazons" has said that this Russian, family-murder-squad was the most cruel and sick one he had ever encountered. The gang members didn't feel any remorse at the approximately 30 murders they had committed over a time period of six years. The main point for the gang was what most often is the one for people engaging in this kind of serial killings, namely money, but they didn't always get what they wanted. For instance, their first murder spree only brought them a coat and a remote television controller. Not very impressive, but that didn't deter them as they went on.
Inessa Tarverdiyeva
The matriarch of the gang was 46 years old Inessa Tarverdiyeva. Others were her two daughters, Viktoria and Anastasiya, as well as her husband, 35 years old Roman Podkopaev, and their son-in-law, Sergei Sinelnik. It's not well-known when they started out on their mercenary serial killings, some say 2007, but there are indications that they started as early as 1998.
https://www.toptenz.net/10-bone-chilling-stories-of-serial-killing-families.php
Wikipedia
- How ugly she is, Lynne thought, when Rosie came to see her after class. Is that grey stuff on her cheeks dirt or old make-up? And why doesn't she smile, usually they do when they ask favors ....
Rosie stood still, all quiet, didn't move, until she was sure she had caught Lynne's eye and that she didn't disrupt her work with the essays from the students. Her essay wasn't in the pile, she knew that full well, but what could she do, after all it's impossible to be in two different places at the same time.
"All right, Rosie,"Lynne said with assumed friendliness, "You wished to talk to me so how may I help you?"
Rosie stood staring at her shoes as if they were very interesting objects and she didn't have ears to hear what Lynne said. Lynne browsed one more essay and after a while she heard Rosie say: "I'm sorry I didn't have time for the essay, but ...."
"All right," Lynne said, eager to get it over with, "you know you have to prove your writing and spelling skills. Otherwise I can't let you pass. After all, people must know that you can what you're supposed to be able to do as a naturalized citizen."
"Yes, I'm very sorry," Rosie said, "but this week was impossible and then I thought that I might give you something else I wrote some time ago. It's not an essay and nobody has seen it before, but I wrote it when we read those nice English poets in class."
"Shelley, Byron and Sylvia Plath?"
"Yes, those are the ones ...."
"What do you mean that you wrote them when we read them? Did you write down what they wrote or what do you mean?"
Rosie looked at her in disgust. "No, certainly not, but I had never read English poets before and they inspired me."
Lynne looked askance at her middle-aged student, at her derelict clothes, her brownish (dirty?) hands and face. She even took in an unmistakable odor of dirty, used clothes and a not too clean human being. By doing so she felt very brave and compassionate, a real humanitarian "social worker".
"Well, woun't you sit down, Rosie and let me finish these essays. Then we can talk about it ...."
Rosie sat down at once which convinced Lynne about her being as tired as she looked. Again she looked down at her downtrodden, derelict shoes.
- Too much, she thought, to be like that, a bum no less.
Soon after having sat down Rosie's eyes closed and it was obvious that she was about to fall asleep. Lynne shrugged at her small, thin frame which made her look older than she most likely was.
After having finished reading the essays, commenting and marking them, Lynne turned to Rosie. She found her awake, but with a facial expression of utter exhaustion. When Lynne spoke to her she smiled one of those rare smiles which Lynne hadn't seen very often. To her horror she saw that she didn't have any front teeth and always being such a coward in dental matters she suddenly understood something: This woman, a refuge from a foreign country, lived a kind of life she herself wouldn't have been able to endure. All right, she was dirty and unkempt, but also she attended a night school to better her situation. Actually, she was more of a heroine than her own soldier mother, a decorated major, no less.
"Rosie," she said, "how do you get food for yourself and your family? Do you have a job?"
"No, not really, but I know some shop keepers who let me have some groceries from the day before if I help them clean the place or fetch something for them. Then they may also pay me - that is if they don't forget."
"Tough," Lynne said and this time her statement was with conviction and even regret. She suddenly felt genuine compassion and something bordering on admiration for this woman and wished she could help her. That made her think of the papers she had wanted to show her.
"All right, Rosie, what was it you wanted me to see?"
Rosie held out some papers while at the same time shyly averting her eyes. Lynne took the papers from her hand and started to read these English-inspired poems. The wording wasn't too good, but the poems themselves couldn't be shrugged off: They were good, maybe even worthy of publication.
"Very good, Rosie," Lynne said, really impressed. "Those English poets certainly were of use for you if they inspired you."
"They did - and Pablo Neruda."
"Oh, you know Pablo Neruda? What have you read by him?"
"Everything, he was a friend of my uncle ...."
Lynne stared at her student as if she had never seen her before. "Your uncle?" she stuttered, but how?"
"I'm a fugitive, remember, and my uncle was a well known politician. Besides, I too had a life, just like yours."
All of a sudden this derelict creature sounded exceedingly proud as if she wanted to compete with her affluent and smart looking teacher. Lynne was stunned. Were there any similarities between them so that she connected with this woman in more than an ordinary teacher-pupil relationship? That couldn't be!
"Yes, I was a teacher like you, and I wrote poetry and plays before I came here."
This statement of a lost identity went into the heart of Lynne like a fire from the angel's Sword of Flames.
- That can't be, she told herself. From something like my family position to living on nothing in a foreign country?!! That couldn't happen to anybody. As this thought went through her bewildered mind Rosie produced a small set of photos from her handbag and put them in front of Lynne.
In these photos she saw a happy family, seemingly orbiting around an exceedingly beautiful, young woman who bore a faint resemblance to the derelict figure by her side.
"Yes, that's me," Rosie said as her forefinger found this beautiful woman, "I'm 21-23 here and it was just before we left."
Lynne looked from her pupil to the photo and back again and she felt like weeping, however more over Fate itself than over the individual fate of this one woman.
"All right," she said, "let me think about the poems and then maybe I can use them for an individual essay, i.e. an essay on a free subject."
Rosies face split open into rare, beautiful smile. Her eyes twinkled and the sudden beauty of her face was just a setting for what lit it up: Her very soul.
Lynne whipped out her handkerchief and concealed her tears by pretending to wiper her nose.
"Rosie," she said, "let me have the poems for some days and then I shall talk to you again. If possible they may go as a free essay, but you may have to submit something more later on."
"OK," Rosie said, looking very relieved, "I hope you shall like them."
Lynne didn't make a reply, but when Rosie rose to her feet and left right away she knew that what she felt for this student - all the mixed feelings - might disrupt her judgement as a teacher.
- I don't care, she thought, no, not
in the least, am I corrupted then I'm also challenged by meeting Fate
in the workings.
ALL rights reserved©Else Cederborg
I've often thought about the institutions of what one might call "an ordinary friendship", and I don't quite agree with the one who wrote the above list because I think it's much more intricate than it's made out to be. For instance, I find the "clouded friendship" to be almost lethal to the very idea of friendship, but it's not on the list. Most of these listed negative characteristics would turn me off way before seeing such a relationship as a (potential) friendship.
If you're drowning, symbolically as well as or in the real world, then a helping hand may be what you need, but it's not very friendly to remind you eternally about that kind of help: "Look what I did for you September 3, 1965, at 11.07", may be the right pinpointing of the time, but it's turning the help into something else than what it should be to qualify as a friendly help. Help should be of a nature to be remembered by the one who received it as something non-biased or "fake". The fake helper might blow the trumpets or beat the drums of his/her "help", hoping that it will gain him/her the reputation of also being a good and rightful person in other contexts. Something that may not be the case as the one who helps the son or daughter of a powerful boss, may at the same time be the one who kicks his subordinates.
Well, that pinpoints one aspect of friendship: One sees somebody as a true friend, although other people don't even recognize this individual as part of one's realities. Both Timmy and his mother feel assured that the one they talk to is real and a friend whom they may trust with their secrets, hopes and whatever they are thinking of. If the invisible friend doesn't deliver what they ask him for, they are prone to find excuses as they may blame someone else for his shortcomings:
As to what I call "the clouded friendship" then it's worse than "fake", it's something that is assailed by the friend's many own masses of (mostly unfulfilled) wishes, wants and claims upon fate. I suppose the main core of it is envy, but there is an aspect that resemble the "hunger of leeches": The so-called "friend" doesn't even allow one the happiness of some kind of everyday fulfillment. For instance, you may have made a pretty dress, and you feel proud of it. That's why you expect the true friend of praising your new outfit, but instead of doing that he/she says something like "the blue one from Walmart was much more becoming". A comment like that assails both one's feeling successful as a dressmaker as well as feeling pretty. The true friend wouldn't say something like that which serves him/her as a way to stab his/her friend in the back in a manner that's set out to be "a piece of good advice for your own sake".
