Number 9

Here's a link to a nice review of the Australian journal that my poem, "The Flute's Song", was published in earlier this year. (The link to the issue is on this blog's menu of affiliated links. . . over there--------->).

It was my first published poem, the experience one of those special little (momentous, ginormous) events in a newbie writer's life. Etchings has an awesome staff, an impressive journal, and an elegant collection of writing, photography, and interviews (including one with Adam Elliot, an Oscar winner!) in Issue #9.

If by chance you're a writer, check out their website, read some of the free content to get an idea of what they like (perhaps buy a copy -- it's a lovely book!), and drop them a submission. The deadline for Issue #11 is drawing near. . . .

A Little From Column A and a Little From Column B

This post is probably mostly for women and about physical appearance, a topic that I avoid because there are plenty enough birds out there squawking (and definitely tweeting) about it already. Perhaps then it's also about perception, which I strongly believe is more philosophical than it is visual or physical.

What this is not: The proclamation of a feminist; the rantings/ravings of a mad woman; a passive-aggressive attack on any individual on the planet. This might be categorized as cautionary, if anything. So. If during a random sequence of events a stranger said you were ugly, and then soon after another stranger said you were beautiful, who would you listen to? Who should you listen to? Is it a matter of opinion, or is it fact?

A stranger asks with sincere curiosity, "What, are you 22, 23 years old?" Another makes a point of recommending an eye cream to you for your "problem areas." Who do you believe? Either someone is lying, and likely has something to gain from your low self-esteem, or someone is trying to get something out of you and stands to gain from your high self-esteem. Both of these options are likely, and sensible, although the latter is somewhat unlikely because a random compliment from anyone -- a stranger -- shouldn't garner much from you beyond a ladylike oh-why-thank-you smile or, at the absolute max, the shy acquiescent giggle.

Obviously, someone gaining from your low self-esteem is far more damaging. And far more common -- someone is going to be happy that you're miserable because there's a profit of some kind in there somewhere. That's just the way it be. I'd be daft to give out clichéd advice like "just listen to what your loved ones and friends say", because loved ones have your love to maintain; that is, your own mother isn't going to tell you you're ugly, and a true friend probably isn't looking to become your enemy. Neither should we take our loved ones' compliments too seriously, as we know they love us and will say things to that effect. So who do you listen to, who do you ignore.

I will say that I think the media has a corner in the self-esteem market, and generally it's looking to distort your view of yourself so you'll buy its sponsored advertisers' products. There are people out there who literally get rich off of how ugly and fat and imperfect you think you are; they need women miserable because Miserable will purchase anything that might make her Happy.

But what about Content? We are none of us symmetrical. Smile and admit. Art mimics us; it's what we'd like to be and yes, it's beautiful. But it's not real. All of the media's images and ideals, those on magazine racks and in commercials, are airbrushed with cosmetics, Photo-shopped to look skinnier, touched and retouched, or follow someone's script. When you look at that stuff, you absolutely should not believe you are seeing perfection and then start stressing about what you are lacking in comparison. If you do, you have effectively become the victim of low self-esteem, and eventually you'll become a needy, wiry little bramble of misery.

Don't.

You control how you think about yourself, you, and no one else. If you take care of yourself, and take pride in what you can do well, you can be content. You can know that you're already doing everything you should be doing to maintain healthy self-esteem, and you'll find yourself perfectly capable of deciding what's real and what isn't and who to listen to or ignore.

Marketing the Dead

Got this as a gift tonight. Yes I do consider dead butterflies as gifts, especially when they die with artistic drama. Real ones make great models for art projects like this one.


I made those last year for Halloween, and they were sturdy enough to wear again about a month ago this past Halloween. Last year I was looking around the Internet to buy a pair but couldn't find what I was looking for, and so. . . . I got like eighty feet of aluminum wire, boxes of black nylons, and four colors of acrylic paint. Took about a week and $15, really fun to do. What I was not expecting when I wore them this year, was offers for them! It seems there's a market for almost anything? Someone suggested eBay and I said hmm, interesting. . . . I've only done it once but I could probably do it again; supplies are cheap. The only foreseeable issue is that it's niche-y--and really, who wants them any time other than October?--so garnering traffic might have to be as creative a process as making the wings.

If You're Evil and You Know It

Tonight I stumbled -- and by that I mean searched for -- a certain writer's blog. Interesting things there. In one recent post he was addressing the fact that one of his readers -- of the 1st book of his trilogy which shall remain nameless -- insinuated that to write such evil heartless characters he too must be a bit evil and heartless. He went on to defend himself valiantly, stating that he didn't think thriller writers, mystery writers and the like were actually like the characters they wrote. 

 

....Which is funny, because....I always kind of thought they were. Neil Gaiman at times manages to write himself -- perhaps by injecting his voice -- into so many of his stories, and with a highly effective subtlety. I always imagine him as the Sandman (maybe it's just me), and Dave McKean seemingly lent The Dream King Neil's punk rock hair in homage. 

 

Jacqueline Carey's Phedre, in my mind, is poised like an avatar for the author herself. Her voice is so seemingly close to my ear that I imagine the tale comes from Carey's perspective, and although the tale is gorgeously obviously fictitious, there is enough of her voice in it to give Phedre a distinct human texture derived from experience, human error, love, etc. 

 

And let's not even get into Laurell K Hamilton, who (so I have heard) not only has a license to carry a gun in her purse -- tres girl power -- but somewhat looks and acts like her 25 year old serial-dating vampire-hunter Anita Blake. 

 

Octavia Butler blended techno sci-fi with young black heroines who suffered social injustices or who lived through abuses to tell; Charles Dickens famously wrote about himself and/or people he knew; Poe did the same; Orwell took themes of oppression and tyranny from society then blended in characters with his own -- at the time, very rebellious -- thoughts ingrained. Juliet Mariller is a Druidess, and all of her books center around Druids and ancient mystical rites and magic. Blake Charlton is an author who had to overcome learning disabilities, dyslexia specifically, to become an MD, and his character Nicodemus faces similar challenges, overcoming them the only way the author himself knew how, which he presumably acquired through personal experience.

 

And finally-- I made up the character Gianni with myself in mind, not the part about being a boy and getting ass-raped by da Vinci, but the part of him that felt crippled by his own mother and the jumpiness and aloofness he exhibited thenceforth. Also the way he refuses to trust the world, the way he questions the motives of everyone, yet will risk himself and spend himself to nurture the right person. We are too empathetic and we know what the cure is but we pretend we don't. I wrote me into him consciously. I was aware and that was the point; it made him authentic and it made him mine. 

 

What's the point. All authors write, to some extent, what they know, because you have to know about something rather intimately in order to write about it convincingly; either you have to have experienced it or you spend a great deal of time studying it to put yourself in your character's shoes. I studied the Renaissance period extensively, in and out of class, in order to capture the right feeling in Eye of Narkissos; ergo, I had to study one facet, and then derived the rest from what I've gone through. There are self-evident themes and thoughts and demons in my stories. I suspect they are in every author's stories, unless of course they are writing 500 word childrens' fables or Curious George books, and even then the monkey's adventures have to be based on something that someone either a) knows about personally, or b) studied to some extent. 

 

So, I feel like this author made a candy-coated pathetic attempt to deny his own evil, when he might have easily embraced it and pawned it off as- we all have tendencies, and writing is fucking art, and art reflects human nature. What about Bret Easton Ellis, author of American Psycho? He obviously put a personal touch on Patrick, perhaps even Evelyn, as he sculpted the David of sociopathic yuppie serial killers. No one cared how much of himself he put into it. It was controversial, it was genius, enlightening, maddening, and reflection: at one time or another we have all wanted to kill; if not, you are a slug or a side-dish veggie. What about Edgar Allan Poe? What about Stephen King? H.P Lovecraft? Harlan Ellison? That's why horror movies (like Saw and Vacancy) and violent videogames (most if not all are violent) dominate in entertainment, and Law and Order and NCIS and Criminal Minds are always on some channel at some time and probably on now as I type. 

 

I adore this author's work, honestly, and possess a great deal of respect which is why they remain nameless. However in my opinion, which this, my blog, is the enchanted land of, this author came off as inauthentic and graceless. He scuffed the human textures of his characters, so to speak, in an attempt to defend himself against one oddball opinion. You write a book about a villain, and of course you're evil inside; you've got to be. But inside. Where it's okay to think you're own thoughts and be yourself.  Perhaps I should be more upset with the fan, who posed the question in a near accusatory way. . . . Not sure.

"Eye of Narkissos" - Chapter 1 from my novel

Chapter One

Your mother loves you, and never meant you any harm.

Such was the last line in every letter that I've ever received from the village of Hera-Sfakiá. The simplicity of the words never ceased to gall me, for there was something I needed more than love that my mother owed me. What had she meant me; if not harm, then what? She had mangled me, damned me to obscurity, cast me out my homeland. Cruelest of all, she had gone on living. Why didn't she write me? For all of my piteous queries, none were ever answered. My cousins wrote instead of impending war on our isle of Kréte, of strident patriotism as their final stand against God-fueled tyranny, whilst they ever evaded the one thing I needed to hear in order to forgive my mother and begin living. I stashed the letter away with thirty-some others--two a year since I arrived to the countryside of Firenze.

It wasn't that I didn't care what happened to our land, our faith. Mayhap it is that I only see the situation from one side, for you see, I have but one eye.

The early letters told me I was born with two, one blue and the other brown. They told me that nine moons after my birth, my mother gouged out the blue one in accordance with her inner demon and was forced by the Public Elder, my own Christian father, to sell me to a foreign slaver. I was the man's seventeenth bastard son, my mother's one and only. They wrote she was his chambermaid, a sorceress as beautiful as she was loveless. Loveless indeed, for my mother, mistress of magickry and men, sold her one-eyed babe into a pious country befallen to the witch-craze. Thus, she damned me to persecution, solitude, and subsequent bouts with madness, which have driven away or alienated everyone I have ever loved.

No matter the pain or humiliation of a memory, I never forget. Of my toddlerhood, the memories have since sharpened, and to remember is to slash at the persona I have labored to perfect. Well and good; I narrate for those who have ever passionately loved a place, a faith, a man or woman, painting or song--and whilst, never loved himself. But I jump ahead when I intend to pour my heart out for you in a slow drip, lest you believe I am easily defined and my story a mere cautionary tale for the narcissistic fool.

Contrary to what most believe, babes are actively aware of their surroundings, and, if properly meditated upon, the adult can later recall vivid memories of smells, sights, sounds, and their affects upon the psyche. And so it is: From the age of four I remember choppy, seasick days and nights, voyaging by Venixiàn merchant galley from Kréte to Italia. I knew much in those days; I heard it forever afterwards that children who fed on the breast milk of their kin, rather than drink the milk of cattle or herd, were smarter and resistant to all types of flux. Or, as my tribe believed, it was because I was touched by the goddess who favored blessed souls. And so I was a bright child despite my deformity, and over-active, highly interested in the conversations of adults and the details of my surroundings. I remember the near forty other orphans onboard, all of us trembling and pale with hunger. I remember the sway and bob motion that I grew quickly accustomed to, while it made others retch in the creaking shadows.

Though the ship made several layovers, we were allowed on deck but the first day of the voyage and the last; only two days, out of two years, to squint at the blinding skies over the endless sea, to wallow in untainted air. Children, of course, we knew no better, and were told nothing of our destination. Every child passed a dreary birthday aboard ship; some passed two. And every one found friendship with one or another; all save me, for I was too little, and though I knew not at the time, I was unforgivably peculiar.

We docked in Venixia at what the sailors onboard called The Arsenal. Untold that the footing was treacherous--for the pier was rickety, mildewed by constant moisture--I went hands and knees onto slimy, ragged wood. Before I could scrunch my face, my wetnurse, Tethys, lifted me, rubbed my knees, and wiped my hands on her skirt. A solemn child of four years in her arms, I cooed in awe of the majesty of the Great Canal. The dead-fish stench of the inland waters was nigh unbearable, but nothing compared to the un-scrubbed chamber pot we had shared aboard ship.

The Doge's palace frightened me: like a golem squatting on the water of the Canal. I demanded down from Tethys's embrace, and stood paralyzed, staring. Our handlers urged me to walk, and as we neared it, I saw intricate characters carved along the arches, zodiacal images such as the galloping Taurus bull, the left-clawed Hermit Crab, and the Sagittarian archer. I imagined that the palace brimmed with gold and jewels, and housed the world's greediest man. I decided then that I hated anyone who seated the lap of luxury, uncaring whilst babes were stolen from their parents. Little did I know then; such little.

We made through a labyrinthine series of high stucco walls and narrow stairways, and crossed an arching bridge high over the Canal water. I envied the older children who were big enough to peer over the edge, and imagined what the landscape of Venixia sprawled to the north and south looked like--countless chimneys and spires and bell towers and crosses scraping the sky. Bored, I observed passerby locals and scholars, many Greeks and Romanos touring the city, walking with children or hounds, partaking of street vendors who called out their wares with savvy phrases and promises. Such a city swelled the senses of a toddling Hellene, especially one native to Hera-Sfakia, where the cave rituals, forests, and gods were older, quieter. I concentrated on the heels before me to keep pace with the group, and tried to time my gait with theirs.

Aroma of spiced sausages, baked fruits, and pastries--my stomach cramped with hunger. Our grave-faced handlers, most of whom spoke Romano that I did not understand, made an example of a would-be thief, a boy not much older than me, and to the rest of us gestured to the effect that we would get the worst of it. We were but live cargo, like chattel; although, even then, I knew that horses or sheep would've been led to graze and drink. A naturally complacent child, unlike the others, I made no complaint.

Down a dark passage of stairs, the archway opened onto the Square of San Marco, and thus to the outer courtyard of the Doge's palace. There, the street pavement was patterned, marble white on gray, almost like the Hellene key-pattern. Locals tossed onto it fodder for doves; and since most of us were very young and thus restless, our Venixiàn handlers allowed us to frolic amongst them. I ran about sprightly and snuck up on a horde of the cooing birds whilst they pecked about--only for the thrill of being brushed by their wings as they took flight. White feathers floated down, and all around me wings shuffled like playing cards back into the sky. I spun beneath them, laughing, until one of them squirted his offal on me--like a dollop of white paint--on the indigo sleeve of my coat.

Time and again my wetnurse scolded me for not wearing that coat, telling me she exchanged a favor for it with a peddler back in the port-city of Xania. I gave it no thought at the time; of course, when I remember now of how comely Tethys was, I realize with regret the nature of that favor.

I stopped dead-still, dizzy, and stared at my sleeve, horrified.

One of the other orphans, another to be sold into indenture like me, laughed and pointed. To this day I cannot forget her bouncing ringlets of hair, the same copper as Tethys's, but closer to gold. I thought her divine and couldn't understand, then, how her kinsfolk could have given her up--but she wore a small bronze crucifix on her collar, dull and tarnished.

"Come along, kid," she said in Greek, "before they scold you."

I stumbled alongside her, my gaze on our handlers--big bearded men whom I remember as tolerant but stern. All of us walked in lackadaisical single file, the orphan girl on my good side--the one with the eye. I recognized her from the galley, but had been too young to know her. She was nigh two heads taller than me, her dress drab, but her lace-up boots near new. Countless string-thin metal bracelets jingled on her wrist as she covered her mouth and giggled. Her lips were the pink of camellia buds.

She said, "I will become a nun here in Venixia someday, and from there, mayhap, a Saint. I am Rhebekka."

The pride in her voice took me off-guard. "I am Gianni . . . ."

"Such a simple name; did the handlers give it?"

"My nurse." Tethys was not far. I pointed.

"Ah, you are the one still on the breast. Your kinsfolk are traditional Sfakíanous, then." The word sounded evil on her tongue. She lifted her chin then peered over her nose at me. "They are the only ones who still believe that a child must be nursed till age five. How embarrassing, you poor thing! There is only one other Kretan like you among us, but he is seven. I," she said lifting her nose, "am eight. I have five Christian sisters back home, and they are older, so Father sent me abroad to learn about the Messiah."

Later on, I pitied her. At the time I said nothing, but stared at the menace on my arm.

She smothered a giggle. "They say 'tis good luck when a dove does his bad deed on you."

As tears dampened my lashes, I held out my arm. "Can I wipe it off?" She wriggled with laughter, piercing, musical, almost infectious--until an unfriendly breeze moved my hair. She saw my eye. And uncontrollably, a tear made its line down my cheek.

I remember too vividly how the emotion and blood ran from her face, how she instantly changed from winsome to grotesque, her teeth gnarled, then her hand coming up to stifle the scream as it skidded up her throat; the other clenched around the hilt of her crucifix, knuckles white as chalk. "A demon--everyone look--demon!" Her tone chilled me to the marrow and siphoned the attention of passersby.

I froze, bewildered and innocent; crouched to my heels, grimaced at her screams. Others in our procession bumped into me from behind. When I saw someone out the corner of my eye falling to the pavement, I sprang headlong into a run, stumbling in my oversized shoes. I must have looked crazed, this one-eyed toddler screaming through the greatest square of Venixia like I'd seen a ghost. With sincere gratitude for the incident, I smile on it now, but back then it seemed rather like the first thunder one hears before a great storm.

The dark inner archways of the Doge's Palace, the white columns sunken into the pavement, looked like monster teeth, yet they beckoned me. The nape of my collar was quick met by the grip of one of our handlers.

"Best get used to it, lad," he said in my tongue. He swung me in the ring of his arms then released me toward the comforting folds of my wetnurse's skirts, where I clung for dear life. I didn't cry, I never do because my single eye can hardly make tears; but buried my face and trembled with my arms around her legs, until she lifted me in her arms. I snuggled my nose behind her ear, relieved that her hair was loose, for it hid me well.

Best get used to it. Stunning words to a child.

"Calm down, my love. Tethys is here now." She shushed me, her breath on my cheek warm and sour from lack of food or drink. "Oh, you tremble so! What happened to you, Gianni?"

The world knows how hard it is to soothe a toddler's woes. Tethys began singing, humming, really, a song that would remain with me for the rest of my days. Tethys--not only a wetnurse, but a priestess of the Heraion Sisterhood back in Kréte--spoke not a word to the others, only glared at them and tucked her pendants and talismans inside her collar. Whenever she sang sweetly to lull my eyelids, she sang of a heartland being drained of its glory by the One God legions; of a forgotten messiah returning to liberate enslaved minds, minds that had forgotten The First Ones. And thus, I learned that "traditional" Sfakianous were cut off from this world not only by a ring of protective mountains, but by their worship of the Old Gods.

She had once put it to me like this--and though I was but four, how can I ever forget?--"The way in which we worship the gods changes over time. Primitive peoples worshipped them primitively, offering brutal sacrifices that their crops did well, that their ills were banished, their sons returned from voyage or hunt. Modern people worship modernly, offering up fanciful song and poem and painting and love that enlightenment is gained." Such was the way Sfakianous worshipped the Old Gods, with subtle rites that were lost on dull-witted peoples. Whether or no it was coincidence that many dullards were Christian, I know this: they cowered from any god older than theirs like it was demonic, with no care for our intense devotion, no matter how poetic or beautiful. For a time, when I was ignorant, I thought them enlightened. But, at my coldest life lesson--the one to render this one a mere training wheel--I remembered Tethys's song, her passion when singing of Kréte to me, of exalting the old gods with the greatest form of love, which was creativity. And I've since grown wiser.

From her blouse she loosed an engorged breast. My childhood teeth pinched the tip, and she yelped, a sound that quickly dropped to soft, melodic lyrics. I loved her for singing to me, loved that my bright-eyed recognition pleased her. Betimes I still dream of her singing sweet as syrup, high, trembling, and vulnerable. Mayhap she is the reason I am bewitched by tortured songsters and poets now.

After the harsh lesson I learned from that bratty insignificant child, Rhebekka, I grew my hair long to hide my flaw. Socially, I became an actor, cheery and tolerant as could be, so as to conceal the resentment when someone did a double-take on my eye. And I do not believe that I remembered, at the time, to wipe the bird's offal from my sleeve; not that it mattered, for my ill luck but flourished from there. I only wonder now if some of it rubbed onto Tethys's sleeve as well.

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So there was chapter one of a novel - one of a couple - that I'm currently working on. My idea was to write a totally alternate historical, to take a situation from the Renaissance that actually happened, only put a bit of spin on it and add some spiritual magic and bratty attitude. EYE OF NARKISSOS, or EoN, is my tribute to a time period that fascinates and inspires me.

In the Confessional: I'm Being Stalked

So after my brand new iPhone was hacked this past June -- and cloned, and synced to some unknown computer other than my netbook, presumably to the individual's computer who is stalking and harassing me -- then my truck's tires were slashed. Parked around the block because of No Parking In Front of Your Own Yard Thursdays, someone took a rather huge blade and slashed my truck's right-side tires -- the tires lined up against the curb. The AAA guys were baffled as to how it could've been anything other than a slashing, as having two flats on one side is very unusual and requires a flatbed lift rather than the usual tow truck. Someone also removed the distributor cap from underneath the hood to prevent the truck from starting -- or more aptly, so it would appear to "break down" perhaps when I was on my way somewhere and then I'd be stranded. This means they pretty audaciously tampered with my vehicle, and it was very illegal, and very deliberate. It was fixed this afternoon. My mechanic is the fifth person to recently tell me to get a dog for our home. A big f*cking dog. We've been looking at kennels and adoption places for rottweiler pups. And now all of my neighbors are hyper-alert that there's a weirdo in our very quiet and otherwise safe neighborhood. Two have suggested I get a Doberman. I like how big and dopey-looking the rottie pups are, though.

So officially now, I have moved up in status from complete nobody, to complete nobody with a stalker. Yay.

Which brings me to the main point of this entry. I am Mykia. I have a stalker. I know who it is, and aside from the usual disbelief, skepticism, and annoyance, this deranged individual, whom I'm pretty sure I met briefly on-line in a group for fantasy writers on Yahoo!, has a rather strange fetish which gives him gratification in pretending to be me.

Here's an example of something similar, no more or less psychotic for the complete lack of sanity and common sense in the execution of the forgery. Shame on this idiot. Shame on anyone who would go so far to prove a (false) point to the world that only has meaning to the idiot, who by the way, faked his way into the spotlight and now we all know his rotten lying name.
 
Not so lucky for Syria's reputation, but lucky for the gay girl -- she doesn't really exist. I, on the other hand, do.

Many stalking forums and information sites report that this behavior is typical of the "you don't love me and/or don't react to me so I'm going to defame your character" type of stalker, the sadistic stalker, who thrives on having power over victims, which I have accepted and begun to take strides to deal with on a logical level that does not drive me or my husband insane or against each other, and also does not endanger my wellbeing.

I thank the gods for my husband, whose belief and support navigated me through the initial cyberstalking and subsequent real-life stalking. Which brings me to this: If you are going through this as well, arm yourself with information, stay calm, and confess to your loved ones. Tell anyone who'll listen so you will have help: I am being stalked, it is not my fault, I fear for my safety, reputation, privacy, and others who may become secondary targets of this sad, sick individual. Get help, become vocal, start a blog. A stalker revels in your silence and will use it against you. So start yelling.

While this is both frightening and fascinating, my first goal is to distinguish this site as my Official One. This means that I do not own a MySpace page, no Facebook, no Twitter, no LinkedIn -- no nothing other than this blog which is where I will stay and where I will document not only my trials and tribulations in the art and writing and nursing assistant worlds, but also my experiences with a "sadistic" stalker -- who shall remain nameless until there is a sufficient law enforcement against "his" behavior, lest "he" believe I am paying "his" creepy antics some beneficial attention and thus amp up "his" antics.

A note on "The Fear Eater"

I don't know how I feel about this one. Originally it was a class assignment. I never know how to feel about those. We were studying Brothers Grimm and Edgar Allan Poe around the same time. My professor assigned it on a whim because class discussion was fun that day.... Not really much else to it. I had a week to write it. I read a lot of Brothers Grimm before attempting it. It seemed to me that the majority of their fables were about death – evading it, bargaining with it, always getting caught by it. Or they were just about some ultimate defeat in some way; but how else can a tale become a cautionary tale if it doesn't have characters who learn from extremes they're given? The character's age and mental stage also need to reach out to as many audiences as they can, otherwise the cautionary message, morally essential for all of society to hear, will only be heard by a select few. That, it seemed apparent, was the key to making a fable work: reach everybody, touch their conscience or pluck moral strings.

My thoughts were always... but is it too morbid? Brothers Grimm were pretty morbid – and for kids. I just went with it. What's important isn't the “death”. What is, is the “fear.” It's about overcoming simple fear, and (I had hoped) the setting is so simple that it's some place everyone can relate to.

My First Childrens' Fable.... "The Fear Eater"

In the midst of a thunderstorm, a young girl woke from a nightmare. She had dreamed of an untimely death. An imp of a creature loomed over her bed, perched upon the bookshelf, snickering. "Are ye 'fraid yet, wee one? I feed on delicious fear; I need it!" The girl thought on her dream, of the frightening aspect of death, and how her death might be perceived by those who missed her -- her mother, her father, her baby sister, not to mention school friends and teachers. She decided she did not like the thought of them all being sad. The creature said, "Well? Where's your fear, tadpole? I'm in need of more. Feed me!" And the little girl replied, "I'm not afraid of this dream. Death doesn't have to be the end. It might mean change. That is what I choose it to mean. Good night, Fear Eater." She drifted back to sleep, and the Fear Eater vanished into the dark space between two flashes of lightning.