Shagging Flies by Bruce Emard

SHAGGING FLIES

My memory plays tricks on me these days.  Why?  Probably approaching the age of seventy-three has something to do with it.  I can recall events from my childhood more vividly in pictures than the plot of the movie I watched at the theater last week.  There is a certain benefit.  When the movie reruns on television, I am surprised by each plot twist.  Whether my memory is accurate, that’s another thing.  It doesn’t really matter.  It seems accurate to me, and the people are the same.  Another tricky thing about my memory is that all those pictures that have gathered in its recesses can pop out unexpectedly at any time.  A song, a smell, a photograph, a who-knows-what, can trigger it.  For example, just last week, I took a drive out to Arizona to catch some Spring baseball before the start of the MLB season.  I was sitting in the grandstands when a light breeze pushed the smell of grass into my nose, and suddenly,

It’s early April,1969 and I am about to turn fifteen years old. I’m standing in worn out cleats on freshly mown grass with mitt in hand waiting for the next fly ball to come my way.  Try-outs have begun for the Servite JV baseball team. Next to me is a classmate I call Irish Joe.  His full name is Joseph Brady.  He has red hair, a pale pink freckled complexion, and an in-your-face attitude.  I hear the crack of the wooden bat, a sound I’ve loved since my Little League days. The ball arcs my way.  I take a few steps to my left and ready myself to make the catch. I brace for the impact of the ball and the sting I know will follow.  As I’m about to squeeze the ball in my mitt, Irish Joe steps in front of me and snatches the ball.  “Nice try qb,” he says, “but you’ll have to be a little quicker if you want to take my ball.”  “Jerk,” I think to myself, but say, “It’ll be different next time Brady.”   Irish Joe and I spend the next ten minutes wrestling for position as baseballs continue to fly. Another ball comes our way. “I‘ll let Irish Joe take this one,” I think to myself.  Irish Joe maneuvers in front of me to make the catch.  Then, as the ball arrives, he glances back to see what I’m doing.  The ball smacks him square on the forehead.  He staggers a bit, then recovers.  I’m concerned and ready to help, but don’t let on.  “That didn’t hurt,” Irish Joe says.  I laugh and say, “Like one of your tackles.”

I’m feeling elated as practice continues.  The smell of the grass; the warm feel of the Sun on my shoulders; the sounds of cracking bats and leather smacking leather while anxious hopefuls play catch; and the idle chatter of teen boys having fun on a sunny Spring Day is intoxicating.  Suddenly, everything stops and the field grows quiet.  A crowd is gathering on the adjacent track field.  Something is wrong.  A boy in black track shorts, a white tank top, and spikes sprints over to us.  “Something’s happened to Coach Yoshida,” he says.  Irish Joe immediately jogs over to the gathering crowd.  I stay at practice, wondering what could have happened.  

I’m coming off the JV football season and loved it. Even though I didn’t start, I had a great experience.  All of the JV football players love Coach Yoshida. He led the team to an undefeated season.  He was a different kind of coach; no yelling; no shaming; no unnecessary punishment; just calm, quiet, passionate caring, competence, and leadership.  He’s been a tremendous influence on all of us players, most of whom are hoping to move up to the varsity football team next season with him under head coach, George Dena.  Between persons standing around in a circle, I can make out Coach Yoshida lying face down on the grass.  I watch as Coach Fike turns him over and onto his back.  I am beginning to grasp the seriousness of the situation but don’t know how to react.  I wait and watch.  Another boy runs over to those of us left on the practice field.  “Coach Fike is giving Coach Yoshida mouth to mouth,” he says.  Minutes, seeming like hours, pass.  The crowd begins to disperse.  An ambulance drives onto the track field.  The ambulance crew removes a gurney from the ambulance, unfolds it, then rolls it over to Coach Fike and Coach Yoshida.  They carefully lift Coach Yoshida, then place him on the gurney.  The ambulance drives away, no lights flashing.  Whispers drift among the boys.  Irish Joe trudges over to me, head down, tears in his eyes. “Coach Yoshida’s dead. He swallowed his tongue.”  

Most of us JV players attended Coach Yoshida’s funeral service, together as a team wearing our home football jerseys, with great sadness and apprehension.  We Catholic boys were introduced to a new and different aspect of life as Coach Yoshida’s family greeted us respectfully and appreciatively. Their beautiful words for their lost family member and their grieving exhibited such grace. I had never experienced anything like it in my close-knit Catholic community.

Looking back today as I put this memory into writing, Coach Yoshida’s untimely death at age thirty-four remains one of the great mysteries of my life.  Had he not died that sunny spring day, would my Servite football experience have been different?  Would our varsity football team have fared better for his leadership over the next two seasons?  Would our team have stayed bonded and confident under his watchful eye?  Would I have enjoyed playing football more?  Would I have stayed connected to my teammates over the years?  I can’t answer these questions, no one can.  However, it seems to me those circumstances and fate contributed to shape my character during my formative years.  I realize today, playing football didn’t matter.  It really was just a game.  What mattered were the people I met and with whom I interacted while playing the game.  Today, Coach Dena is gone.  Brady is gone; so are Stoneman, DeMuri, LaChance, Reed, Chesik, Salgado, and others.  I’ll join them and Coach Yoshida one day, but until I do, I’ll wait for the next picture to appear in my memory.

What If...? by David Molina

 What If...?

by David Molina

My particular generation is named the Boomer Generation. My eldest son is a Millennial, and my youngest is called Gen Z. My grandchildren are Generation Alpha - you know, the one’s who were born taking selfies of themselves.

My generation’s claim to fame is that after WWII, horny, sex-deprived soldiers got right off the boat and into the beds of horny, sex-deprived young women. Lots of booming, lots of babies. 

My family’s boomer babies were six in all, which seems to be average during our booming era. One of the things I notice about us is that we are all different, yet similar. Mark, the youngest, is the tallest, six feet. My brother John and I have the darkest complexion, and are the two siblings who look the closest to each other, both 5’9’’. My oldest brother, Tony, is the shortest, the most fair-skinned, and balding,  5’6”. My sisters were one fairer, one darker, both in skin color and hair. Anne-Renee, the youngest of the two, was two inches taller than her older sister, Terrie. 

My parents were the culprits. My dad was tall, dark, and handsome. Black hair, brown eyes. My mom was a college girl, looking like a Hollywood movie star. Light brown, fine hair, fairest of the fair skin, and blue eyes; a petite 5’3”. Between dad’s brown eyes and mom’s blue, all six of us had hazel. A generation later, our first three children had hazel and voila - our fourth had his grandma’s Picard blue eyes, the very first in two generations. 

A generation before, families were often much larger. My dad’s mom had 7 children. 

Two generations before, my dad’s grandmother bore 17 children. Several died in infancy. 

The genes my mom and dad produced (2), and then my two pairs of grandparents (4), and then four pairs of my great-grandparents (8) spans former generations after generations in an exponential travel backwards.

150,000 generations, it turns out, assuming humankind began 2 million years ago. What if any one of the gazillion mothers or fathers died before they were able to do the deed, share the happy moment?

What if you were never born?

1. You wouldn’t be reading this story
2. You would miss a lot of other stuff too.

What if you were never born?

It seems impossible, doesn’t it? Yet the odds were stacked against you even before you were born. 

The chance of your parents ever meeting was 1 in 8,300,000,000 - the total number of people inhabiting the earth currently. Not so great odds, but that is just for starters.

When you were conceived, 300 million sperm (a single teaspoon - ) were whipping their flagellae in an upstream race.  Only one made it to the finish line. Over the course of a lifetime, your dad produced 2,000,000,000,000 little guys, and you just managed to get that one.

Dad’s lucky sperm torpedoes towards the target with a payload of 23 DNA strands, consisting of 200 billion atoms arranged into 3.2 billion base pairs. At this point, you can blame Dad for your overbite, obesity, height, and intelligence - or lack thereof.

Your mama was born with 2 million oocytes (single cell eggs). Every one of those 2 million eggs was formed before your mama was even born! She grew them while floating around in a salty amniotic waterbed inside her mother’s womb (the belly bulge that belongs to Grandma). Mother Nature decides our unborn mama’s stash of all those eggs would never amount too much - which to say YOU. That is not to say you were one in a million. Don’t let them short-change you. You were one in two million, right?

Wrong. Half of you are one in two million. 

That egg half of you needs a sperm half of you, a Mr. SpeedoTorpedo, who is a one in three hundred million kind-of-guy. The odds of you becoming your present you is 2,000,000 times 300,000,000, which adds up to 600,000,000,000,000. (I can’t possibly advise you to place a bet on you with these kinds of odds.) 

Alas, these idiotically foolish odds now mean your two single-cell lovers - let’s call them Romeo and Juliet - must somehow match up despite 599,999,999,999 other possible couples waiting in the wings. Thus, when your mama and dada say to you, “Honey, you are so special!” that are not kidding.

The you package you opened is truly a miracle, an absurdly unique package of two cells bonding, mating, and within 9 months goes from two cells boinking each other to a complete human being ready to burst out into the world. 

The ordinary is possible. The extraordinary is unlikely. A good miracle should be impossible. You and your two gametes are a piconanometer short of impossible. 

What if you were never born?

That tiny bit of impossibility that actually was possible allowed you to grow up and propagate more humans. Darwin harped about survival of the fittest, and people believe that even though it is not true. Fate trumps fitness. The buff bodybuilder walks out of the gym and gets run over by a truck. QED.

Ponder this - for the previous 150,000 generations here on planet Earth, every single man and woman copulated successfully at least once in their lifetimes. That’s better than the average of batting averages in the major leagues. And then somehow, their offspring did the same, and then their offspring’s offsprings, and then over and over for 150,000 times successfully. If your great-grandfather died the day before his happy moments could have been conceived, the following generations just got wiped out. 

And then we all disappear.

There are a few things to point out. 

1. We are all pretty damn lucky to be reading this 
2. We should be thankful to all our predecessors for doing their job for us
3. As impossible as all this, it gets even more impossible.

This is a shocking cascade of single cells looking for a date. But even more shocking are the human people who were born and survived long enough to be able to procreate at least once. Yes, your mama and dad did it, and their parents did it - and a whole bunch of your ancestors for the last 3 million years. In fact, all of them did.

Consider that before our last two centuries, there were constant famines, wars, disease, and poverty. No education, no science, no potable water, no hospitals, high birth mortality, But through it all, your ancestors managed to get it on and onto generations beyond generations, 150,000 times without fail.

What if  your great-grandpa Gronk,  a 10 to the 12th power caveman, got eaten by a sabertooth just before the ten minutes he was going to relieve his girlfriend of the oocyte she’d be carrying around for 14 years? Just ten minutes too late, that moment of bad luck, and we all disappear!

What if your grandpa, Gaius - a not-so-bright Roman foot-soldier - was wandering to gather the spoils of victory in town? Minutes before he got to choose grandma at the market, he failed to notice his buddy, Tarquinius, had dumped a chest of jewelry out the window he was standing under. If he had only stepped one step to either side, he could have been a grandpa - one of the lucky 150,000 guys. But he didn’t look up, and he didn’t step to either side. Grandpa Gaius is ignominiously relegated to Could-of-Been Grandpa. Too bad he ended up being a fateful target rather than getting to bang grandma. Gaius missed out, Grandma missed out.  And worse, we all disappear. Thanks, Gaius.

What if somewhere in your lineage, some guy thought that girl would never look at him twice? What if a couple of lovers decided that Romeo and Juliet stabbing themselves wasn’t all that romantic, in fact, pretty dumb? What if your ancestor decided he could never marry his ancestral wife-to-be, but only because he would be forced to live  with a horrendously horrible mother-in-law, but bit the bullet for better or for worse? What if that ancestral wife-to-be’s parents felt her husband-to-be’s dowry was too little for their expectations? What if an ancestral man decided to join Napoleon’s artillery battalion, and unfortunately had his balls blown off before the last night’s wenching instead of after?  A single bad break, one way or the other, and we also disappear.

What if your great-great-grandfather was on the first line of fire at Gettysburg instead of the second? What if your great-grandma (38 generations ago) survived the Black Death in Scotland because she married your grandpa (38 generations ago), who was hobbled by his mare who stepped on his foot while in a secluded farm in the Highlands? By the time he was able to walk, the plague passed them by. Had he not, we all disappear.

What if over the course of those 150,000 “happy moments,” every single one of your ancestors was able to not die in the harshest environments in order to reproduce in an unbroken chain? A single break in the chain and you’re not here.

What if all these musings, all these possibilities that we conjecture, what if the real stories of those who brought us to life are so very much more wonderful than our guessing?

Albert Einstein put it this way.

“There are only two ways to see your life; one is as if nothing is a miracle. The other is if everything is a miracle.”

What if... Einstein is right?

What If Walt Went West Instead of South? by Jerry Flanagan

A Series of What-If and My-Best-Guess Suppositions

By Jerry Flanagan

What-If the Los Angeles Examiner headline on July 18, 1955, read:

The Day Magic Became Real: Disneyland Opens in Canoga Park

Walt Disney, founder of the animation studio bearing his name, opened the gates to Disneyland in San Fernando Valley’s Canoga Park yesterday. The theme park welcomed 33,000 visitors on this first day.

Have you ever wondered where we would be today if Disneyland had opened in the San Fernando Valley instead of Anaheim? 

Before Opening Day

It was September 1953 when Walt Disney announced plans for a new Disneyland Park in Southern California. Canoga Park, on the west end of the San Fernando Valley (SFV), was a strong candidate for the park’s site because it was within reasonable proximity to the Disney Studios in Burbank. At the time of the actual announcement, my Dad was in the navy working as an airplane mechanic on Coronado Island, and we were living in naval housing where UC San Diego is today. Just 5 months earlier, my Mom gave birth to twins—me and my sister Janice—and my sister Judy would follow soon thereafter. After his discharge in 1954, Dad and Mom moved back to Los Angeles (LA), where they grew up, and Dad worked in construction while attending college to get his degree in police science. My parents were 24 years old and expecting a fourth kid when, seeking a path to a suburban Promised Land, they identified their future home in a new subdivision in West Anaheim about four miles from what would become known as “the happiest place on earth." The house was under construction when they somehow scraped together the down payment for their $10,000 dream home with 1100 square feet and three bedrooms and two baths. 

We moved to Anaheim in 1956, and the LAPD accepted my father into the ranks of law enforcement, where he worked and retired as a detective in Robbery and Homicide after 25 years. During those years, they stayed in the same home, and Dad, as a DIY carpenter (with some help from me), doubled its size to accommodate our growing family that would soon become nine. Oh, and he did this and paid for Catholic school educations for all the kids by working a side gig as a bouncer on weekends at the “World Famous” Pantry Café in LA. They never refinanced the house and proudly paid off the original mortgage after 30 years. My father died in that house in 1999. 

Opening Day in Canoga Park

So that is our history in Anaheim, but What-if Canoga Park was chosen as the site for Disneyland? The Stanford Research Institute (SRI) produced an extensive report for Disney to study the options for the park’s best location and delivered it to him in 1953. Multiple San Fernando Valley locations were strong candidates, with Canoga Park being the strongest. If Disney selected Canoga Park, then My-Best-Guess is my parents would have settled down in SFV with their burgeoning new family because the commute to work for my Dad would have been more manageable. Besides, both of their families still resided in the city and SFV was a short drive through the Hollywood Hills.

If they wanted to keep that four-mile distance from Disneyland-Canoga Park, My-Best-Guess is we would have ended up in one of the local communities like Chatsworth or Reseda. And instead of our parish being St. Justin in Anaheim, then My-Best-Guess is it would have been St. Catherine of Siena in Reseda or Our Lady of Grace in Encino. But then there was high school.

Servite High School?

The Baby Boom was in full force in the early 1950s, and the population in Southern California was exploding. Cardinal James McIntyre headed the archdiocese, and he invited the Chicago province of the Servants of Mary to assist with Catholic education in the region. Servite High School opened in 1959 in Anaheim, but What-If my parents wanted to maintain a proximate distance to LA after Disneyland-Canoga Park opened? Then My-Best-Guess is I would have attended Notre Dame High School in my freshman year in 1967. The Servants of Mary would have discovered that the market for Catholic boys' high schools in the San Fernando Valley was saturated, since Notre Dame High School had been established in Sherman Oaks in 1947 by the same religious order that also founded the university in South Bend, Indiana. 

Instead of Friars as our mascot, we would be the Knights.

Instead of a costumed monk, it would be a leprechaun roaming the stands at football games.

Instead of school colors being black and white, they would be green and gold.

Instead of Friar Writers (as labeled on our current website), we would be known as Knight Writers.

Instead of our archrival being the Mater Dei Monarchs, it would be the Crespi Celtics of Encino.

My high school classmates would have hailed from far-flung communities like Burbank, Glendale, Van Nuys, and Encino instead of Fullerton, Whittier, Newport Beach, and the Mojave Desert.

College and Beyond

And then there is college. What-if I had not met my Servite and Cypress College friend, Andy Prendiville, who suggested I join him in transferring to UC Santa Barbara and rooming with him, Tony Passante, and Ron Briggs (class of 1970) in Isla Vista? If that hadn’t happened, then My-Best-Guess is I would have attended Pierce Community College and then transferred to either CSU Northridge or UCLA and missed out on an adventurous coming-of-age experience that, as Mark Twain describes, “is just before the 'inevitable tragedy' of responsible life begins.” 

I was always a geeky nerd and wore glasses since the third grade because I was very nearsighted. But What-if I had normal vision and I had not majored in chemistry but instead majored in the humanities or social sciences? My-Best-Guess is I would have followed the same path as all my college roommates! Law School! No offense to attorneys reading this, but…Gag-Me-With-A-Spoon! 

Since I used a Valley girl reference, What-if I had not met my wife Mindy at UCSB? My-Best-Guess is I would have met and “totally” married a Valley Girl. “Oh my God," life would have been so different!

What-if Mindy had not hailed from San Diego, where I followed and married her and raised our family? My-Best-Guess is I would have found a career in science or engineering in SFV and worked at a firm like Rocketdyne. Who knows, I may have become a rocket scientist!

Disneyland Again

Back to Disneyland. It was 1953, and after reading the SRI report and seeing Anaheim as the top site recommendation, What-If Walt Disney had not hopped in his car, bounded south on Interstate 5, broken through Los Angeles’ smog-shrouded downtown, and entered the flat, peaceful valley of farmland with blue skies and clean air that was covered with orange groves and walnut trees? SRI consultants called the area around Ball Road and the I-5 freeway “the amoeba" because it was a broad, freeway‑centered zone for projected population growth.

This German-founded town had ample land for growth, and it was reasonably priced. He discovered a city eager to create something distinctive, free from bureaucratic obstacles, and featuring a user-friendly municipal electric grid. A small town that reminded him of his hometown of Marceline, Missouri, that he could replicate; in the entry, a magical, serene downtown Main Street that would fit his vision of welcoming visitors that took them back to the turn of the century and buffered them from the complexities of modern life. 

My parents dreamed of a brighter future for their children and embraced the Disney vision, which revolved around this place, "Where Magic Gets Real." Although I never got to ask them how much the Magic Kingdom influenced their choice to live in the shadow of the Matterhorn, I am grateful they moved to Anaheim to escape the stifling city life of LA. 

A Place and a Time 

I have read the accounts of those on this blog who had brushes with the Viet Nam War draft after our 1971 graduation. My lottery number was in the high 100s, but What-If if my father served in WWII vs. the Korean War, and we ended up in Reseda in 1951 instead of Anaheim in 1956? By broadening the focus from solely place—Disneyland and Anaheim—to include time, the concept of place itself would necessarily be redefined. There was no lure of Disneyland as the suburban Promised Land; instead, it would have been to maintain proximity to the city of LA that had widespread appeal with growth fueled by the GI Bill, Hollywood glamour, and ample jobs. What-If our family’s parish was St. Catherine of Siena in Reseda? I would have attended grade school there, memorized the same Baltimore catechism, and become a dedicated altar boy. My-Best-Guess is I would have attended Notre Dame High School, graduating in 1966. The cultural orientation would have been conformity, social norms, and respect for authority, accompanied by John Glenn, John Wayne, and Sandy Koufax as our high school heroes. My-Best-Guess is that my musical heroes would have been Elvis, Ricky Nelson, and Frankie Avalon. And let us not forget the Viet Nam War; the reality of seeing combat in Southeast Asia out of high school would have been very real. 

What-We-Got 

But then in 1963, the Kennedy assassination shifted consciousness in ways that had significant downstream consequences. I would have been a freshman at Notre Dame in 1963, but just five years later, in 1968, our freshman year, What-We-Got were two assassinations, MLK and RFK, the Chicago riots at the Democratic convention, and Richard Nixon’s election. Technology advances gave us the Apollo 11 mission, and we watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon on our TV sets during the summer of 1969. 

Our heroes changed too: Jerry West, Tom Wolfe and Jack Nicholson became the cultural figures we looked up to. And let us not forget the music. What-We -Got was The Beatles' release of Sergeant Pepper and The Doors' first album in 1967. Followed by the Stones, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Creedence, Grateful Dead, and the Who, who would release landmark albums later. The new emerging LA sound with the Eagles and Byrds defined our high school experience, and Iron Butterfly would play the Servite homecoming dance.

What-If Walt Disney had not taken that drive down I-5 on that fateful day and these events had not happened? I do not think I would be posting this essay to the 71WAnon site and planning for the next Zoom call here in 2026. And now we have notifications in our inbox of a 55-year reunion party that I do not believe other classes typically celebrate. We are fortunate to have these moments, and those afforded by telling our stories and reading these essays from our Friar brothers at this stage when our lights are inexorably dimming.

Overall, I would not trade the place and the time where and when we grew up in Orange County. We managed to avoid a draft for a war we did not want, we survived political upheaval, and most of us transitioned into a normal college experience and career path. For my part, I am pleased that the headline in the July 18, 1955, Los Angeles Herald read something like:

The Day Magic Became Real: Disneyland Opens in Anaheim

 

The Golden Warrior by Don Taco

 The Golden Warrior by Don Taco ©2026

 

         Tierna, Abeth, Marga, and Bek faced each other around the campfire, north, east, south, and west, idly whining about the weather. "Zombie weather," Marga muttered. Bek snorted, while Tierna started making that hissing sound that strongly suggested that this tired old joke wasn't funny any more. Don't let anyone try to tell you that all elves are lighthearted and jolly. This one isn't. The smoke drifted carelessly into Bek's face, but he sat stoically, since the smoke always drifted into his face, and he knew moving would be pointless. Abeth had once said to him, "The smoke loves you. The gods alone know why, since no one else does." A split second later, Bek was behind her, and his blade was at her throat. "My mother loves me," he said, in a dangerously calm, quiet tone. Abeth very quietly declined to mention that she was joking, and never commented on it again, but she continued to observe that the smoke did indeed seem to adore Bek and want to be near him. She assumed it must be some minor curse, since she could simply not fathom it as a random event, and even less as a blessing. Bek seemed resigned to it, though he did sometimes drift randomly around the fire, rather than huddle nearby for warmth.

         Hours later, after the sun had sunk behind the distant ridge, and the sky was not quite dark but merely gloomy, Tierna stood abruptly, peered attentively into the middle distance, and raised a palm for silence. The others immediately picked up the weapons they had laid nearby. It wasn't always Tierna who first spotted trouble brewing, but it was never a surprise. Elves have the most acute senses, of course, but the others agree, behind her back, that she's naturally quite paranoid. No one is complaining. It has kept them ahead of deep trouble many times. Tierna indicated a direction, and waved Bek and Marga towards the nearby bushes, a flanking maneuver. They had scarcely reached cover when the first of the zombies shambled into the clearing.

         Abeth moved quickly back from the fire, turning her back on the obvious danger, and scanning to be sure nothing else was coming from an unexpected direction. It was uncommon for the undead to exhibit any real cunning, but the group hadn't survived all this time by being careless. She knew Tierna would catch up to her soon. Tierna was backing away slowly, allowing the creatures to get in range of her senses. There were at least four of them. Possibly no more, unless some were lagging and still in the cover of the forest. Unlikely. She could easily see that the broadswords they wielded were rusty, and therefore not silvered, and once they were close enough, she could detect no magic on them. She barked out, "No magic!" and darted back until she rejoined Abeth. Seeing her, Abeth remarked, "Looks clear so far," turned, and loosed an arrow at the first of the pack. Then spun around to keep watch behind them as she nocked the next arrow. Tierna began preparing a spell.

         Marga stayed in a kneeling position behind her chosen bush, tripod-stable, and she too loosed an arrow, but at the second zombie. Luck was with her, and she pinned its arm to its side, causing it to drop its shield. Bek finished shifting into wolf form. At Tierna's call, he gowled with deliberate menace, and launched himself at the leader. Marga readied a second shot.

         Knowing that none of the attackers could hurt Bek without magical or silvered weapons, the others played it safe, and let him do the dirty work. Marga and Abeth each launched another arrow, and watched for additional combatants, or other unpleasant surprises. Abeth's trick shot, an attempt to pass through the neck of two of the zombies, neatly zipped past them both. "Ah, well," she thought to herself. "At least I won't have to clean that one."

         Bek reached the leader, and with a howl and a leap, bit furiously into one arm, and ripped it half off. Rolling to his feet, he spun around to charge again.

         "Down!" yelled Tierna. Bek flattened himself into a crouch. Lightning arched out from Tierna's fingertips as she completed loosing her spell. It crackled intensely as it passed through the first zombie, narrowly missed the second, continued until it struck a boulder, bounced back, and petered out at the sixty foot mark without hitting anything else. That zombie crumpled to the ground, both lifeless and inanimate.

         Without a second's hesitation, Bek charged the second zombie, leaping fully into its chest and knocking it to the ground. Marga and Abeth each let loose another arrow, doing only minor damage, since the remaining enemy weren't much more than skeletons. Tierna began preparing to cast again.

         In less than a minute, the four undead creatures were torn apart and no longer dangerous. No others appeared. Bek lay curled up on the ground near the fire, soft growls and whimpers coming from his throat, involuntarily it seemed. From long experience, the others knew to bring him water and let him be until he recovered. Forunately, it wasn't daylight, and he hadn't stayed in were form long. These transitions could be much more difficult at times. There were tales of those who had turned for too long and gotten stuck, requiring a major curse removal to regain human form.

         In the morning light, they looted the corpses. Corpses of corpses. Enough coppers and silvers to buy perhaps one good meal. A number of trinkets the undead had inexplicably been drawn to, and stashed in what remained of their pockets. The weapons and shields, and the one worthwhile breastplate, were piled up and tied into bundles for each of them to carry. "This is such a pain," Marga complained. "There's no value in these, and no one to sell them to anyway." Tierna replied, "We've been through this. The entire area is overun with undead, and if we leave these lying around, it's just as likely we'll be arming them against us." "We could bury them, instead of lugging them around," Marga answered. Tierna, with a characteristic touch of impatience, went on, "If we arm the citizenry, as we find them, they're better off against these attacks. And the blacksmiths we've found are more than happy to have the metal. The decision has been made. Whining won't change it." Abeth sighed heavily. Bek, as usual, just snorted.

         "What, in the name of the Nine Hundred Gods, do you think got us into this mess?" Abeth wondered. Bek snorted. Tierna answered thoughtfully, "My best guess is that some powerful necromancer raised an undead army to dominate these lands. And whoever passes for authority around here, or used to, fought them off. And both sides lost. We've passed any number of obvious battlefields. But no sign of a surviving force, and no one controlling the undead. Just farm-folk and townsmen trying to eke out a living from hard soil in deperate times." "I'll drink to that!" Marga responded. Abeth smirked, "You wish! When was the last decent tavern we found with anything but sour beer?" Marge muttered, "Whoever that guy was that said 'Go south, young man' ought to be roundly cursed."

         They shouldered their burdens and headed once again into the face of the south wind, hoping the next settlement wouldn't be too far away.

 

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         Tierna stood in the farmhouse kitchen with Alecki and his young wife Mylinda. Alecki repeated himself, "I don't get it. Why store these things if we can't use them? I can't plow a field holding a shield. Or waving a sword." Mylinda placed her hand on his arm, and quietly said, "Maybe if you'd give her a chance to explain, instead of protesting so much." Tierna went on, "No one expects you to run around armored. But this gives you the chance to, if needed. If attacked. And that's happening. You know it is. Also, we hope that distributing this equipment will keep it out of the hands of the zombies. They're dangerous enough unarmed." Mylinda said, "Why would the zombies pick up weapons and arm themselves? Aren't they basically brain-dead?" "We don't know," Tierna replied. "But all the undead we've been running into seem smarter or more disciplined than we would ever expect. As if they'd had some training, or instruction, and maybe are now just acting out of habit. It's a puzzle. For whatever reason, they all seem to be armed and armored. In any case, you're better off having these and not needing them than needing them and not having them."

         Alecki fell silent in the face of her logic.

         In the farmyard, Abeth and Marga were running the teenaged twins, Bill and Phil, through some basic exercises, designed to get them past the initial enthusiasm, and to a point where they were less likely to hurt themselves or each other with the unfamiliar weapons.

         Alecki sighed. "We're burning daylight, and I have wheat to harvest. Probably more than we can handle before those storm clouds defeat the mountains and sweep over us." Uncharacteristically, and to Tierna's surprise, Bek spoke up. "I reaped wheat as a boy. Can you use a hand? Eight hands? We can sleep in the barn, and we're used to slim rations."

         That night in the barn, Tierna asked, "What did you think of the boys? I didn't get much chance to watch them." Bek replied, "Farm boys. Used to hard work. Muscled. Disciplined. Good parenting, I'd bet. They'll be fine. Oh, maybe a small scar or two." Marga chimed in, "I was younger and smaller when I first learned to hold a sword." Abeth reminded her, "Yes, but you had actual training under actual masters." "True," Abeth replied. "But I saw real potential in those boys."

         In the closet-sized space they called their bedroom that night, Alecki confided to his wife, "That elven woman is disconcerting, to say the least. She doesn't look at you when she speaks to you." Mylinda replied, "That's not what's going on. She never takes her eyes off the horizon. She expects an assault at every moment. That must be a harsh life. Harder than ours, and this is no picnic."

         Four days later, after a surprisingly hearty meal, Alecki thanked them profusely. "I'd have lost at least a third of that crop without you." Mylinda presented them with a three pound sack of ground flour and a small bag of dried apples. Tierna protested, "This is a fortune!" "Well worth it," replied Alecki. Abeth chimed in, "You'll spoil us. We'll be dreaming of bacon next." Mylinda laughed. "Can't help you there."

         As they shouldered their packs and headed off down the road again, Mylinda walked with them to the nearby crossroads, lit a bundle of herbs, blessed the four directions, and told them, "Go with God." Tierna thought to herself, "Ah, but which god? All my gods seem angry or distant these days." All she said aloud was, "Thank you." Monotheists are notoriously easy to upset and quick to be insulted, and she had no desire to offend this obviously good woman. Mylinda turned her steps to home and the group continued their travels.

 

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         The twins had been sent back to the house to help prepare dinner when the attack came. They were in the barn, idly peeling potatos and dreaming of the upcoming harvest festival and a rare trip to town for fun instead of business. Mylinda was at the kitchen sink, scrubbing the scalded milk from the bottom of a pot she was done with, her eyes casually scanning the horizon, when she saw the undead lumbering out of the forest, swords in hand. "Oh my God, Allee's out there alone," she thought to herself, dropping everything and dashing to the hearth where the dented but polished breastplate had been propped up. Scrambling to get it on, she screamed, "Boys! Swords!" at the top of her lungs.

         Responding instinctively to a level of panic and desperation in their mother's voice that they had never even imagined, the twins sprinted to the old barrel they had stored the weapons in, grabbed a sword each, and headed out into the yard, where they found Mylinda headed at the speed of despair towards the fields. They fell in behind her, unable to keep up.

         When the first zombie lumbered into view, Alecki was caught completely off his guard, with nothing more dangerous nearby than a hoe. He swung wildly, out of sheer panic, and caught it in the side of its knee with the corner of the hoe. Flesh ripped and tore. The mostly skeletal remains clattered to the cround, deprived of balance, and of a working pair of legs. Horrified, Alecki watched as it continued to crawl towards him with barely diminished speed. "My God," he thought to himself, "They're moving at half speed, and I can't keep up." He backed away rapidly, a move he instantly regretted, as he stumbled into a second zombie he had not seen. It may have saved his life, though, as he stepped inside the arc of the creature's swing. The sword, near the hilt, bashed into his elbow, sending a wave of pain up his arm and a numbness down it. He fumbled with the hoe handle, trying to keep it in his grasp, as he spun and attempted to elude his attacker. That's when the third zombie caught him alongside his scalp with its broadsword. He went to his knees, losing the hoe, his senses reeling. The hand he had unthinkingly raised to his head came away bloody. He tried to think whose blood it could be, as he tumbled into the dirt. As the world began to spin, he saw a golden warrior charge into view, glowing like the sun and swinging a sword like it was a toothpick. He wondered if it was the Angel of Death, coming to take him to Heaven. Or Hell. Blood from his head wound trickled down into his eyes, sticky and warm. His vision faded. Something thumped into his side. He heard the tremendous crushing ring of steel on bone. And departed into the grey mists of unconciousness.

 

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         Bill came quietly into the kitchen, and said, with all the calm he could muster. "Mom, his eyelids are fluttering and he raised a finger. He might be coming to." She replied, "Get your brother," dried her hands on the dishtowel with a patience she did not feel, and came to the bedroom where they had carried Alecki and dressed his wounds. "Oh, Allee. Come back to us. Please come back to me," she murmured to herself. He looked as pale as before, but his breathing was deeper, less ragged. She sat at the side of the bed and prayed quietly. The twins soon joined her, slightly out of breath from running, not wanting to miss anything. "Dad?" Alecki stirred. Everyone's hopes rose.

         To their utter delight, his eyes fluttered open, for the first time since the battle three days before. The twin's excitement was palpable, but Mylinda held up her hand for silence, and they restrained themselves. "Allee?" "Dad?" Alecki shivered uncomfortably, and croaked, "Water?" Mylinda already had it in her hand. He sipped. Then managed a gulp. Sighed. "I feel terrible." "No wonder," Mylinda replied. "You were badly hurt." The boys jumped into the conversation, barely leaving room for each other to speak. "Mom was hurt, too! A skeleton maybe craked her rib!" "She just ignored it!" "You should have seen her, Dad!" "She charged in there like the bull does when he's really mad!" She kept knocking them down, and we'd beat on them!" "It was so gross!" The excitement in their voices was more than slightly out of synch with the horror in their words. Alecki shook his head in wonder. "I saw..." he started to say, then fumbled at the memory. "I saw a golden warrior flying at me. Shining like the sun. And then nothing. I can't remember anything." The twins and their mother all looked at each other, worry deepening their eyes. Alecki swallowed another sip of the water and drifted into the grey of a deep slumber.

         "God in Heaven! What's wrong with me?' Mylinda thought. "I let him talk. I should have made him eat." "Help me sit him up," she said to the boys, and they muscled him gently into a sitting position, punching the meager pillows and hoping he was comfortable. "I know it's hard, but you'd best be back to the chores," she said gently, and they nodded their understanding and headed back to the barn. Mylinda got the bowl of rich vegetable broth from the ice box, and tried spooning sips of it into his mouth, watching carefully to see if he'd swallow, like feeding a wounded baby bird. But without the cooperation of having hunger on her side. Or even a concious animal.

         Late that evening, Alecki woke again, this time with an appetite. He asked his family, "You really fought them off? With those swords?" Mylinda chuckled, and said, "You softened them up for us, honey." "Yeah. With my head," he replied. "But who was the warrior I saw?" Mylinda and the twins exchanged another worried glance. "There was no one else." Alecki shook his head, and immediately regretted it. "It seemed so real." He ate heartily, and slept peacefully, and they all slept better than they had all week.

         The following day, when Alecki woke again, he didn't seem quite himself. He struggled with their names at first, and was fitful and distracted. "I've got to get healthy," he muttered. That lower field isn't going to plow itself." Bill said quietly, "Dad, we finished plowing that field two weeks ago. Before the attack." "We did? Why don't I remember?"

 

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         That evening, in the kitchen after dinner, Bill asked, "Mom? Do you think Dad saw an angel? Do you think maybe the sun was shining on that armor you were wearing, and he just wasn't seeing clearly?" "I don't know, honey." She cupped his face between her hands and softly told him, "I just don't know. We have to remember that your father was hit in the head, very hard, and it hurt him. He might never really recover. Things might never be normal again." She turned back to the dishes in the sink, trying desperately to keep her tears from overwhelming her. Bill said, "Yeah. Hey, I was going to spread straw in the barn tomorrow, but I'm going to do it now. It could be a long busy week." He headed for the door, trying hard to hold his own tears back. Phil got up from the table and brought his plate to the sink. He placed a hand gently on his mother's shoulder, and said, "Things won't be easy, but do you remember that book you read us? About Pandora? There's always still hope down in the bottom of the dark box." He headed towards the front door. "I'd better chase the cow into the barn. Looks to be cold tonight." He turned back at the door. "It could have been so much worse without the gift of those swords."

 

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         Tierna, Abeth, Marga, and Bek faced each other around the campfire, north, east, south, and west, like so many evenings before. Marga turned to Tierna and remarked, "You seem unusually pensive tonight." "Pensive. That's a good word for it," Tierna replied. "I'm frustrated. Every day's the same. We don't seem to accomplish anything. I don't know. I just wish I felt as if I'd done some good. Helped. Made a difference in this world somehow. That's all."