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Sunday, April 3, 2016

The Fence: flash fiction

I've been encouraged to expand into different writing styles.  I do write poetry and fiction as well, though I enjoy nonfiction more these days.  However, with my schedule the way it is, doing research (especially at the level I feel is appropriate, which is a bit overkill) can be super time-consuming.  So here's a little flash fiction I dashed off yesterday.  Hope you enjoy!

View this post on reddit.com/r/nosleep

~~

The fence had been there for 50 years. It was made of wood, but wood will last for ages if you build it right. Sturdy oak logs had been felled by a farmer, the sort of man who makes more with his hands than you can with a bulldozer these days; the sort of man we don’t have around anymore. It stretched around the pasture for his beef cattle, big brown steers who moved languid and slow, lowing at the moon.

The fence watched with knotted eyes when the first girl came. She was sweet and sallow, with the seams of her stockings running up the backs of her thighs. The man had watched with eyes of stone, and pounced when the light was dim over the oak grove. The girl lay at the west end of the fell, the fading light red over her blank eyes, for seven days; and on the seventh day, the farmer found her.

The fence watched with knotted eyes when the second girl came. The man had to be more clever now; he was careful to catch her when she was pedaling home, rubber bands collecting her dark wash denim around her ankles, brunette curls tousling down her back. He turned the smooth stone over and over in his hands, waiting, and at just the right second threw it at her tire and caused her to crash. He cradled her lovingly in her arms, left hand over her mouth before she could make a sound; and in just a minute they were back in the fell near the fence.

He had chosen the rope carefully, a silk blend so the ties wouldn’t hurt so much, and he carried out his duties as he had to. But of course, all things must come to an end, and this was the way it had to be. And when the light faded from her eyes, he packed up his things and left; and the fence watched with its knotted eyes, and the cows blinked their lashes slowly, and the light crept over the oak leaves, ashamed.

The farmer was concerned when the third girl came. It had been so long, they thought this might be over with. He didn’t want the bloody stains on his name; to this the cattle would’ve said that he dealt in plenty of blood, could they do anything but blink their long lashes and sigh. He consulted with police, who recommended setting up surveillance, but of course to set up a camera he would need a light, and to set up a light he’d need to run electricity out to the fence, and the farmer was a simple man who didn’t have the money for such extravagances. The police drove by more frequently, their headlights like question marks piercing the thick night, but the man was waiting for them.

The third girl worked in the city and cut her hair in a bob, bleached blonde and processed just like the rest of her. Her mother said she should find a man, but she thought she knew better; she fancied herself a strong modern woman, but a man found her instead. She fought and screamed and scared the cattle and the birds in the oak trees ruffled their feathers, wondering what the humans were up to now and couldn’t they just quiet down so a robin could get a moment’s rest. She clawed and tore up the ruby red manicure she’d so carefully painted on last week, clawed up skin and dirty and musty earth. But soon she was gone like the rest, and the fence watched with knotted eyes as the man hitched up his pants and strolled off into the night.



Surely it had been too long, thought the policeman, hand in hand as he scratched his forehead. The farmer was an old man now, housed in a nursing home; his son owned the field now and never came by. The last herd of cattle had gone to slaughter a decade ago. But here she was, the fourth girl in the fell at the west end of the field, her blue eyes staring blankly at the sky, lips slightly parted, as if she had been saying something just a moment ago.

It didn’t make any sense. How could there be another?

The birds eyed each other awkwardly, wondering if any of them should say something to the policeman. A whippoorwill cooed the answer helpfully, but the policeman paid no mind to the sound.

The fence creaked slightly in irritation as the techs came, with their plastic bags and their tweezers and their grid-line box-by-box search. The M.E. bent over the girl, a disinterested frown on his face as he noted the temperature of her touch. One slender white hand gripped the post of the fence, smooth milky white skin clenching tightly around the dark wooden bark. Try as though he might, the M.E. couldn’t move it, and finally had to break a finger just to move the girl on.

The fence groaned, as though it had lost a friend. It was lonely in its old age.

The man arrived at one past midnight, pacing up and down the west side of the field. Insomnia had seized him; he could not sleep, not by day and not by night. He did not miss it; he would never rest. His shimmering legs cast long shadows among the wild grasses. He would find another.

The fence watched with knotted eyes as the spirit flowed into the night, searching.

Monday, March 28, 2016

Setagaya update!

I've finally updated information relating to the Setagaya mass murder case.  You can view this on Reddit and join in our discussion here.  I will be rewriting my original post with these new details; perhaps I'll be able to get that up later today.


Thursday, March 24, 2016

Entartete Kunst: Struck from the list


"Struck from the list," Paul Klee, 1933.

Klee painted this after a Nazi paper outed him as a Galatian Jew, causing him to be fired from his position at the Dusseldorf Academy.  His melancholy is evident in the monochromatic color scheme with the almost-but-not-quite-abstract figure crying.  In total, 102 of Klee's works were seized from public collections, and 17 were displayed in the Nazi's "Degenerate Art" (Entartete Kunst) exhibit.  Some were subsequently destroyed.

This, and other super-depressing stories, will be featured in my next article.  I hope you're happy, degenerates! 

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Finally back home again!

It took two full days of a travel and wading through a lot of snow, but I made it.

Swiggety swooty.


I have a lot of getting situated to do, but I have some free time until my job begins full-time, so I intend to get some research done.  In the meantime, here's the Tokyo PD's English-language page on the Setagaya family murders.

Happy hunting!

Monday, January 25, 2016

Chicagoland!

I am on a business trip out-of-state now, and will be away until mid-February.  I will try to get some posts up while I am away.

I was just contacted by a Japanese researcher who's looking into the Setagaya murders.  The internet is such an amazing place!  We'll be talking, and I look forward to sharing whatever I learn with you.

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Vancouver, Vancouver, This Is It!: The eruption of Mount St. Helens

David A. Johnston never expected to be famous.  He was a vulcanologist, after all.  While important, it's rarely a newsworthy career.

Sadly, David was an exception.

The iconic image of David A. Johnston at Coldwater II.

David completely his undergraduate work in geology at the University of Illinois, and followed up with his master's and doctorate work at the University of Wisconsin.  In 1979, the 29-year-old joined the United States Geologic Survey, or USGS.  Johnston's specialty was in gas sampling.  He hoped it would allow scientists to identify hazards before they violently erupted.

Johnston's work took him across the Pacific Northwest, and he was at his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin, when Mount Saint Helens woke herself from her 123-year rest with a shudder.

The first earthquakes struck on March 15th, 1980.  Intrigued, Johnston contacted his mentor, Stephen Malone, who immediately allowed him to escort reporters to the area.  Johnston was the first geologist on the scene and remained a leader of the team studying the mountain.

By March 24th, the vulcanologists were confident that the earthquakes were the precursor to an eruption.  On the 26th, a phreatic, or steam, eruption burst forth from the mountain.

This phreatic eruption took place on the 30th.

On April 17th, a bulge appeared on the north side of the mountain.  Concerns arose that this could become a lateral blast, which is exactly what it sounds like: a blast erupting from the side, and not the top, of a volcano.


This series of photos from Scientific American shows the growth of Mt. St. Helen's "ominous bulge":



It seems surprising in retrospect, but Johnston was one of few people to share this opinion.  Though it was obvious the mountain was close to erupting, the questions of where - and when - remained a mystery.

Governor Dixy Lee Ray declared a state of emergency on April 3rd, and by the 30th, a "red zone" was declared around the volcano, allowing only people with a special pass to climb the mountain.


David Johnston takes a sample from the mountain's crater lake, April 30, 1980.  

Despite the bulge, which was growing at the rate of 5 to 9 feet per day, the north side of the volcano still wasn't producing much vent activity.  

This is a vent, or fumarole.

Wrongly assuming that this meant an eruption was further off than they thought, the USGS instead warned residents about the potentiality of landslides from the north face.  Johnston was the one who issued the warning to the press.

By this point, Johnston was downright scared of the volcano.  It was ready to pop at any minute.  It was incredibly dangerous to be anywhere on the slopes of St. Helens.

And then the volcano went silent.

The phreatic activity slowed. Between May 10th and May 15th, the only change in the mountain was the growth of that looming bulge.  On the 16th, the phreatic eruptions stopped completely.

At this time, Johnston was mentoring a student, Harry Glicken.

Harry Glicken

Glicken had been monitoring the Coldwater II station, using laser ranging to track the growth of the bulging mountain.  After working six days straight in the tiny trailer, Glicken needed a day off to visit with his professor for his graduate work at the University of California.  He was supposed to be relieved by geologist Don Swanson.  Swanson, however, wanted to meet with a graduate student who was returning to Germany the next day.

Glicken bumped into Johnston in the hallways of USGS and asked if he would take his place on May 18th.

Johnston was extremely reluctant.  He had issued the most forceful warning to the public to stay away from the mountain, and had been scolded by his superiors for it.

"I don't like this at all," a newspaper quotes him as saying.  "I'm not trying to be an alarmist, and I'm usually pretty calm around volcanoes, but I'm genuinely afraid of this thing... I think it would be wise to get out of here."

After heavy hesitation,  he accepted the job of the post at Coldwater II.  It was six miles away from the bulging north face, after all.  Surely whatever happened on the mountain wouldn't reach him.  

Just before he left, Glicken snapped the photo of his mentor in front of the tiny trailer, notebook in hand, grinning at the camera.






At 8:23am in the morning of May 18th, Mt. Saint Helens erupted. 




David must have dove towards the radio.  He screamed his last words into the microphone.



"Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it!"


Seconds later, the signal from his radio was gone - and so was David.

Amateur HAM radio operator Gerry Martin saw the blast as well.  He broadcast,  "Gentlemen, the uh... camper and the car sitting over to the south of me is covered.  It's gonna get me, too.  I can't get out of here..."

Then his signal went silent, as well.

A recording does exist of Martin's message, but I can't seem to locate it at this time.  Please contact me if you find it!

Robert Landsburg, a local photographer, already had his camera on a tripod.  As the mountain burst forth its fury, he pumped out four photos, unwound the film, and threw it into his backpack.  He then dove on top of the backpack to protect its contents.

His pictures survived.










Glicken was devastated and guilt-stricken.  He convinced three separate helicopter pilots to fly over the mountain, but there was no sign of the trailer or his mentor - they had completely vanished.

Don Swanson found Johnston's parka and backpack.

It wasn't until 1993 that the trailer from Coldwater II was recovered, but the body of David Johnston was never found.

A touching tribute to Johnston and the other scientists who perished that day is located here:

I will admit this: I cry. Every time. Every time I catch sight of the geologist he was, and realize anew what we lost that day, I tear up. He furthered our knowledge; he saved lives by being one of the voices saying that St. Helens was still dangerous even when she fell briefly quiet. He demonstrated an ability to bring science to the public as he spoke to the media regarding her antics. He was an amazing man, a hell of a geologist, and he'll never be forgotten: not just because he died on the mountain that day, but because he was so very good at what he did.