Don't Tell Me to "Move On"

Grief in the NY Times

Janice, Boston, September 29th, 2009, NY Times

"As a hospice nurse, I see grief each and every day. Anticipated grief and also grief after death, as we do make bereavment visits often. It is hard to always predict who will have prolonged grief and who will move forward. What I have found in my experinece is that parents with children who are dying have a very difficult time understanding each other's grief and are more prone to long term grief. That causes a lot of marriages to break down and even more trauma to the family. As you can imagine, they watch other children growing up and see their own deceased child as they would have grown. The pain can be unrelenting. Especially if the death was sudden.

Everyone grieves differently. I find that many of our bereaved clients feel abandoned by the medical comunity, their friends and many times, even their own families. It is if they feel boxed in by their grief and cannot find their way out. And certainly, the way out is to talk, talk and talk to people. And people just do not always want to hear it. When the bereaved go to the MD to say that they are having difficulty coping or difficulty sleeping, they are medicated. That may help one sleepless night, but it is not going to help long term.

Hospice provides wonderful support groups to the bereaved. Your loved one did not have to be a hospice patient for you to attend. Call a local hospice and ask to speak to the hospice bereavement coordinator and they can help. And it is free.

Death is not something our society embraces. It is really odd that we pretend that it could never happen to us. But it does and it will. I think that much of the problem lies in the fact that people, including family members, simply do not know what to say. So they are silent or try to change the subject. Here is some advice. Talk about the deceased. Don't worry that bringing them up will cause the bereaved more pain. The pain is always simmering. Talking about a loved one is a comfort many times. It proves they were important, that they have not been forgotten. Call a friend or family member on the anniversary of a death. Send flowers. Take them to a movie. Don't let them be alone. That is a tough day, even 10 years later. Hug them a lot. Try to understand that many times letting go of the grief feels like you are abandoning the deceased. Do not advise them to "move on". That is simply cruel.

These are questions the bereaved often ask themselves: If I am not feeling the pain or I allow myself to be happy, does that mean the death had no meaning? Shouldn't I be sad to prove my love? How can I be allowed to be happy when I have lost so much? How can I sing or dance or enjoy myself when my loved one is dead? If I move on, will I forget them and all that they have meant to me and will their lives have been meaningless? These are real questions that people struggle with every day. They do not articulate them. But they are always there in their minds each time they do anything. Be mindful of that. Respect that.

Grief is not that complicated. It hurts a lot, and it does goes on and on, some just simply cope better than others and some have learned how to hide it very well. Allowing people to grieve is the most important thing we can do. For however longs it takes."

What I am interested in is the future and the past. What joins the two? The Present? Can an infinitesimal moment be defined? Can there be a moment if there is not a person to count for it, rely on it, and lose it just as quickly? Is it the human the brings the two together? Are they a knot in the string of time that moves along? Or perhaps the knot doesn't move but time does. Reeling in that string.

A moment of creation brought about by will, force, and human existence? Does time exist without humans? Does time exist without the very thing that defines it? What else defines time? Serendipitous.

Nothing to lose, nothing to hide, and everything to gain. Wait for it and it shall come. Pray for it and it will come. Believe in it and it will be. I want things to be. I want to be what creates things into their existence with my very imagination.

I will be an aunt and my sister and her baby will be happy and healthy and have long beautiful lives with their husband and dad. I believe it so it will be.

I knew today was different.

To you, wherever you are

Upon reading a passage that moved me quite deeply, I thought of the idea of being moved. A catalytic moment, an instigation, a provocation, or a spark. Whatever it may have been or could be, I knew others had these moments. Other people had these moments, right? Surely I'm not the only one. I've read about them as others experienced them and wrote them down to report to people like myself who would one day read about it. Maybe I'd have a revelation about someone else's revelation.

But then, everyone is different. Certainly each person wouldn't react the exact same way I do. Perhaps my synapses are unique and my brain triggers at the thought of a word or the time of day bringing forth past memories and sensory feelings both good and bad. Maybe I sit in my car hearing the thundering voice of So-and-So and am moved to tears because I have the unique life I have that no other person could duplicate.

Why do we create? I feel an urge to explain why. Why do we...? The opportunity to logically think through my life and its complications and explain them away with cause and effects and perfect delineations feels empowering. I want to tackle life. When I have questions like: Why me? I wonder: If not me then who else? I feel uneasy and unsteady. I feel blank and insecure. No one can understand insecure in the way I mean it without thinking about self esteem. Even on my worst days I don't lack self esteem, but more on this later. When I say I feel insecure I mean to say that I feel wobbly and unsure. I have plans and ideas and dreams galore but those are fragile things that are like bubbles. Structurally sound without interruption. The glossy outer casing is the simple representation of the small and basic detailing or sketches of my dreams or aspirations in life. They are just outlines. They fade. They fly. They dance. They create more ideas in the process. They also falter easily with the hint of a breeze, a change in the wind. A ripple effect. I feel a ripple tearing through my life right now. It is slowing but surely disturbing all the bubbles that were gracefully gliding along just in my recent past. Some have gone altogether. I ask why because when they happen it is like my future cannot happen. I haven't imagined it, therefore it is incomplete. There is no repairing the delicate casing of a bubble. There is no turning back. I dig my heals in deeper and with more resistance as I'm being forced by time and life into the future, a future I fear because I cannot know it, plan it, or change it. It will tear through all my other corners of life with the same shallow ripple effect. I'm the same person below those waters, but it hurts nonetheless to imagine my surface sanded away by a buffeting storm that undoubtedly will return again over and over during my life.

I said I do not lack for confidence or self esteem. I am not egotistical. I am not arrogant. I am not needy (for the most part). I am not vain. I am not shallow. Now, I am guilty of all of these things to a more or less degree that every other human is. I don't equate self esteem with these traits as so many people do. How do I know this? Because I am confident I am often criticized as the guilty party to one or more of the above offenses. Honestly, if anyone really knows me for me they know I am far from perfect but I can be a humble person. Confidence for me is an idea not too far from the idea of purpose. A purpose to life, a purpose to live, or a purpose to be.

Why am I? Seems like such a silly question. Seems so small and inane and inanswerable. I am because. Just because. That is obvious. But why am I? I can lie and say a bunch of generic inspirational or spiritual drivel that amount to a lack of actual thought and meditation on the issue. I've done the before for certain. However, why am I? is not so far from why me? Why does this have to happen to me? I cannot answer the second question easily. I can answer to first with an icy clarity. I have mission statement of sorts. It is not in an articulate thought that I could spout off at this moment. I can say it is like a feeling that you get at the end of a great movie when your skin prickles and your eyes itch to cry. When you release a tension and the defenses drop just long enough to cry. I purging sense of catharsis. That's it.

A feeling of purpose is one both cultured and cultivated. It is nourished, it grows, and it is at once harvested by influences in my life. I know who I am. I know many people who cannot say so with ease. I know my every fault. I know the things about myself that both irritate myself and others and create disparate tensions and animosity. I see without filters the things that make me unlikable to some and unbearable to others. What do I do with this information? Three things. I forgive myself. I attempt to be a better person, and I do it for my own betterment. Finally, everything I do is for me, never for someone else. I am not seeking your approval. I am seeking my own. Validation, though momentarily gratifying, just creates a void that continually needs to be refilled. I don't have a hunger for validation, though I admit I crave it at times. I am only human and I forgive myself.

I have learned this last year to forgive myself. What I have yet to discover is Why me? Why do things happen to me? I found a piece of wisdom in a book I have been reading. A revelation, a cathartic feeling. "The word 'compensation.' It doesn't suggest that the losses and hardships of life can be undone. Nor does it suggest that these losses and hardships are somehow 'worth it' in the end. But it does suggest that if we know where to look we will be given something in return for them, and that we may even come to prize that compensation, the thing that our suffering brought us, more than life's enjoyments."

Why does God do ________ to me? What could I possibly learn from this? How could this pain make me a better person? The bitterness I feel is not going away. So then what? What good can come from such a loss? Nothing. The answer is always a bitter 'nothing.' But I have loss to notch on my belt and tuck away in my treasure box of losses to come. That's the scariest part. There will be more. Much more. Harder things than I can ever imagine. I dig my heels in. Time is ticking. The ripple is spreading. It reaches further into my life than I can see right now.

On the episode of blog...

I found I want to chase something. It is something I think humans are made for. The actual purpose of human life exists for the reason that I chase.

How do we find a catalyst for a mind blowing experience? Does it find us? I often think that is the case. In fact, I am always being happened upon by monumentous stimuli in the form of music, the guise of art, and the lilt of the poem. My soul is moved most when my world is challenged most. The foundation is shaken by the small incident in time. Unsettling. Uneasy. Unnerving. A delicious feeling of dissatisfaction and angst. I love the feeling the rolls over me as I realize what is revealed to me.

Never Mind, We're Good

There is always a crisis. A crisis of world ending proportions. Sometimes they are just small town sized incidents. These incidents rely on people's oblivious nature. Who really lives in a town that is bound to end, crumble, explode, or dissolve on a daily basis? If the walk around not knowing it then maybe they are right where they should be. A handful of geniuses/idiots responsible for the damage done and fixing the crises are all the fate any town needs for deciding a future for all.

The Teller of Your Time

Maybe you were meant to bring truth to all. I see the way you believe in all to do, say, wear, or breathe. People seem to be put off by you though. What is it about your unsettling facade that scares a person to the core.? Don't worry. We will misunderstand you in life and mourn and capitalize you in death. Be sure, this is what it is like for everyone. They came for you. You were meant to change us, as all those before you meant to do. They've gone. Their deaths mattered most. Not how. Not why. Upon reflection we realize your worth. We are a greedy people. We won't miss you until you are gone. You were ours. A possession to be used and abused. Once you were gone, the truth that some valuable treasure has slipped our reach will enrage us and we'll reenact your life plenty for you. As if you were here. You made the facade to protect yourself and to trick us. We only now realize the truth you can bring. As a teller of truth of your time you reveal to us a truth we resent you for. We will scorn you, hate you, and love you until it hurts. You may even die at the hand of our love. But isn't that what you wanted all along. For certain, stepping into the spotlight made you a perfect pariah of our time. Our scorn only elevates you more in death (though we won't remember it that way). We won't apologize for any rumors we fabricated and perpetuated. You chose this life. We won't apologize for what we drive you to do. We will make you ill and sick with the fame of your celebrity. Don't worry, you won't see the impact you had. Though, now that I think of it, I doubt this is what you intended. Oh well, we are in charge of your legacy. It will be much much more profitable now that you aren't in the way to muddle it up. We can venerate you to a status of sainthood while remembering the monumentous talents you shared by staking claim to them and remembering the moments you always said you did it for us. We rock ourselves to sleep remembering the love we thought you had for us before you died at our hand.

Methinks

Giving an addict a choice is not always the rude awakening supporting family believe it would be. In all fairness, the addict often has a world constructed in their mind that is safer, cleaner, and happier than it seems from the outside. Can they realize the boundaries they cross with their family, friends, or even the law to get a high? Those facts are not on their mind. That is, not always on their minds. The mind of an addict at the very worst could care less if death came knocking. However, moments of clarity and moments of revelation come to their door step too. Times when they see the truth. Those who hate themselves and feel unworthy of love see they did not deserve the abuses of their past the medicate in the present. Some have an anger at the very thought of realizing the truth. They know it and don't care. Some wallow in the truth but lack the courage or ability to change that would get them off the path of destruction they are on.

My job as an interventionist isn't to be understanding or to make deals. I know that the deals made with a drug addict will just be hot air so they can get to their next fix or get me off their back. That is the game of it. The drive for something that can erase those bad feelings, those lonely feelings, those pathetic feelings is nearly carnal. Some are more aware than others. The trickiest patient to work with are those who know perfectly well what they are doing. They know the cost. They know the pain it causes. They know the future they have. I have seen they go two ways. First, they may resist to the very end and deny getting treatment. Most die at their own hands whether overdose, vehicular accidents, or medical issues due to the irreparable damage they did to their body. The other option happens infrequently, but when it does, my job gets really hard. This person volunteers to be a patient. They commit to a program. They give their family a show. The intervention looks the smoothest it could go. Everything is still on the water's surface. This patient has a plan. They manipulate and they control. They lie. They are the worst when it comes to trust. I learned with my first tag that this type of patient is the most dangerous because they are the smartest, the most vile, and the easiest to trust. So I distrust now, why? Because in the very end, I feel responsible for the tag's recovery. And my first tag that betrayed me tried to kill me dead. He hadn't succeeded but neither had I. I had seen a future for him that scared me not because it was so violent but because it was a slow and agonizing lonely path. He would betray anyone to feel the power of gaining trust and then breaking it. He never really grew up from the spoiled child he was. It hurts deeply to have the trust broken.

My job as an interventionist and a muse liason is actually to recruit. Offering rehabilitation is just a bonus to the life altering path the tag could chose. And it was always a choice. To choose the boot camp Ryla offered meant losing yourself. The "you" that you were as an addict- gone. The "you" you were before your addiction- gone. A fresh start with a new world. Why would anyone chose that? Leaving behind who you were is one of the hardest things someone can do. It can also be terribly easy if you know leaving it means you are protecting it. Your removed presence and your ability to fight puts you on a side that is bent on preserving the world. From a distance. Quiet warriors. They are held away from the normal world to remain off the grid. The reasons for this are many. Keeping out of ear shot of guild networks is essential for the future plans and their success. Off the grid means a guarded position against any possible rogue draining your charge. There is an equilibrium each person holds. When they are full of energy they are happy. When they are drained and their equilibrium is thrown off. Keeping full on your equilibrium is essential because it is the advantage we have as charges and those who protect charges. It is also a weak link. The training I implement shows the tag how to increase their threshold of energy. To hold more. Why would we care? To have power pulled is less debilitating, but most importantly it creates a thirst for power in return. This is a secret we guard to the death. If anyone were to leak this information I would surely be the hand that takes their life. Hasn't happened. But as I said, I have a problem with trusting just anyone. So the training is also a trial period so that I can see the performance and character of a person in their purest form. The thirst I teach them is only at the very last stage. Most are able to taste just a sip of the power I can drain in tsunami form. It is a skill they have to perfect but that a person is usually gifted with before they were ever even targeted by their rogue. The people chosen by rogue are tastier and easier to siphen from. They channel large amounts of energy easily and their muses were likely targeting them with more charge for a specific reason. That person had a talented future, a path to follow, and a chance to change the human world with their creations. These people are tapped, though the rogue wouldn't know this, and given a siphen of energy unlike other humans would receive. They are expanded just by the force of the large amounts of energy given to them. It is a constant struggle for the muse. They cannot make up the mind of their charge to follow that path. They can only inspire their life force with a power to create. They cannot save them when they spiral down. They cannot even challenge a rogue who started that downward spiral. They are forced to abandon their task with their charge. They are supposed to report all rogues. So it is only appropriate that the team dispatched deal with unruly rogues were human charges once victims to the rogue pursuit. Just as it is only fitting that I, the once alcoholic who overcame addiction, am the one to help combat addiction and rehabilitate the rogue and tag alike. There is such a thing as second chances. There is always such a thing as mercy.

Blog for the blog of it

Reading: The Whole Five Feet: What Great Books Taught Me about Life, Death, and Pretty Much Everything Else. A young man's desparate task to read all the volumes of the Harvard Classics. The good oldies like Don Quixote, Plato, and Milton. Bacon, Franklin, Penn, Woolman, etc. A memoir about the arduous but rewarding task of reading all those stuffy books meant for cigar smoking elitist armchair figures. No vampires, that is unless they appear in the Grimm's Tales. No zombies, that is unless you can try to see Hamlet as a blood fest that it is with a zombie like cast.

Watching: The Nines. It is bizarre. It blows your mind. You think.... "Huh." Best word to describe how you feel after watching it: quizzical. Imagining a world just like our own but not our own. Great movie, but I'd only recommend it for those looking to think. This is not a mindless adventure/thriller/comedy. Could we be creators of a virtual world? Could someone create our world and we are just virtual beings? Could someone who created us be addicted to us, our world, and the drama within it like so many are addicted to role playing games like the Sims?

Listening: Regina Spektor and her cd Far. There is a song of hers that encapsulates the whole feeling of The Nines actually. After seeing the movie the song made sense. She is also a light hearted, fun, philosophical music master.

Looking at: Recycled art. Houses built from scrap, garbage, recyclables, bottles, picture frames, and nature.

Being? A connoisseur of beer and all things brewed. I will have more news on what I drank soon...

Drove off into the sunset

As she rode in the front seat, the girl, the beef bag, and Gracie sat in the back. Unfortunately, Ryla knew the beef bag's name and asked him a silly even inane question she knew the answer to already. "Are you willing to give up this rogue business, rehabilitate and be put on probation? One time offer. It comes from on high. Lacy herself pronounced it. I am the only person who can offer it. It is not absolution. It is hard work. A century probationary period. I am also not going to give you time to think about it or ask twice. Now or never."

Ryla's obvious skepticism and cynical tone practically showed on her face, but she was beyond emotions at the moment. This was business. This was war. She had a script she recited and tat was that. She wasn't going to go soft for just anyone who may trick her, bait her, or betray her. She would know if they were lying. She had the ability to feel the electricity that charged each muse. Electricity is the only way to think of it. If she were into mysticism, she may consider it an aura. But, to her surprise, there actually were electrons whiring around each muse. A transfer of those electrons is essentially what a muse does. A good muse infuses. A bad muse defuses. In between, she had been struck by a blast of lightning from her love Dan and ever since could feel the field of force and the pulls of energies. Not life forces, they could not kill. They could certainly tip the scales though. She felt him. She felt Yosef tingling with a chrystalline edge. She wouldn't reveal that part because only four people knew. Herself, Dan, Gracie, and Lacy. She was like Death for the muse race. A mythic figure. Yosef would hardly be missed as a rogue. People would whisper. The real trouble is when a rogue is not entirely off the gird. When a rogue goes rogue they become lone wolves like their past forms millennia ago. They stay off the grid, they stay within hunting range, and they mistrust anyone. However, mistrust does not mean they don't want power. They can align with a guild as a free lance contracted spy. They drain to keep the powerful guilds and their respectively powerful charges busy in the business of interguild rivalry. They were small victories and always resulted with the rogue either caught without trace of guild ties or they are give higher ranks closer to the guilds. Not all guilds refolded the rogue back into their society as it was taboo. But a black market, a criminal circuit, and rogue syndicate are just names of the game learned from humans.

The girl was protected for now, because Yosef had been encased by magic not known to him. Dan had given each Gracie and Ryla the means to switch off all pull and push of power. The girl was healing. She was repairing. She absolutely glowed at her core and Yosef and Gracie knew it. Yosef didn't know Ryla could practically taste it. The girl could easily have been shrouded with Ryla's gift from Dan and kidnapped. That would defeat the purpose of the rouse altogether. The girl wouldn't have made her decision offered in Ryla's ultimatum and would have sought out the drain of a rogue. Yes, she had to be rehabilitated. Her energies would recover over night with a powerful healing muse at the facility they were headed to. Then she would learn what she is and what she means to the muse war on rogues. She would be invited to fight with them or... well there were no other options except house arrest.

Yosef chuckled, "Why do I get the feeling you think I'll deny you?" Ryla did not move or even show she had a reaction. "I'll take your offer. And I'll tell you who sent me. I want in again, half a century. Fine, I'll earn it, but I'll bargain."

"I don't bargain. If you want the deal take it. If not we'll neuter you." She smiled evilly because she knew he'd fold. He didn't know, neither did most of the muse community, that is was possible to give them an existence without their abilities. Being shunned, hunted, and raped of power themselves was the extent of punishment for hunting human charges.

"Neuter? Yeah, right. I'm scared of you? A little human? Let me speak to Lacy now. She'll hear my offer and beg me to tell her. I'll win this at the very least."

"Ha Yosef, nice to see you." Lacy startled him from the back seat appearing from the very air without a whisper. While the muse felt a human energy like it were a frosting on a cake, thick and delicious, they couldn't precieve shifts in the electricity in the air like Ryla and Dan could. Well, and Lacy too, but that is because Dan gave it to her like he did to Ryla. The two women where the only people to know his real form. Not even Gracie knew any better.
"Holy shit!" The large man jumped but recovered his composure quickly. " So? What will you give me to know who sent me?"

"Nothing. Maybe a kick to the head, but I'm tired. Long day." She blew out her breathe showing disinterest and checking her nails without making eye contact. Ryla knew she was mimicking a human behavior because a hangnail would never ever happen to Lacy's perfect figure. So the gesture was even more dismissive. "I'm beyond whom. I know my allies, but I don't trust them. Ryla, show him."

Ryla turned to him for the first time. She reached a hand out passively, almost flirtateously. She looked innocent and calm. She exuded love and that tough edge she always held as a recovering addict, a mark of her recovery and training. He reached out to touch her without thinking. She zinged the very power he had stolen from the girl and lapped it up like a dog on a summer day. She felt exhilirated and knew if she could, she would glitter. He took in a sharp breathe and cursed.

"What are you?" he demanded.

"An ammalgomation. An accident. Fate. Your God. I don't know. Pick one. I can make or break you though and I will if need be. Reform your ways Yosef Aiel." It wasn't a suggestion, it was a demand. "Or I can show you the other gifts the world has given me if you like. They are fun, yet sadistic." She feigned excitement and silliness as she tapped the tips of her fingers together in a sterotypical evil pose. "Like a roller coaster ride. Only you are left barely alive at the end." She was being flashy and sadistic with her power and the threat of her capabilities, an enthusiasm that she faked and it showed.

"Do it again." He begged under his breath looking either on the verge of attack or pining. He panted like a dog hanging his head low in a sickly fashion suggesting starvation and thirst that could kill him or make him kill. Ryla screwed her nose up at the suggestion. He enjoyed it. No one enjoyed it.

"Ahhhh no, no, no, no, no. Lace?" She was losing composure as the bald headed Yosef had creeped her out with a response no one ever had to her ability to steal the electric charge. "I don't do fantasies Yosef. I can save you from yourself though." The last part, though she hated it, was more tender than she meant it to sound.

"Your path spells self annhilation, you just don't know it yet. A time is coming when your kind is given an option much harsher than the one before you. Don't ask me how I know. I know what the future holds much like you do. You know the ball is rolling and you know the clock is ticking."

"The last time I saw anything ahead of me with centuries ago. Nothing changes that much. You are bluffing. It will be as it has always been. An end is not near, but if you think so, prove it. How could you though? Oh yeah, you are human with the freaking power Azella has. Another freaking human bitch-"

"The who? Who has what?" Ryla stammered fully losing her outter appearance of death angel. "Lacy?" She looked to her muse with an asking look.

Lacy's posture alerted Ryla that no one in this car knew what he was talking about. That is except him. He didn't know that yet and didn't see Lacy's look. Lacy pretended to know, though her lack of knowledge, any knowledge needed to be a card she carefully guarded.

"Ryla, there are things I just don't tell you. Why would I reveal something so impossible to you? I would have far too many questions and honey, you are too far down on the food chain to get answers. But now that the cat's out of the bag..."

Ryla's face pinched with worry and confusion, which was convincing enough for Yosef who thought better than to turn back and look at Lacy. Gracie wasn't even listening as he texted away on his mobile device to some unknown cutie Ryla would surely hear about later. The girl was entranced by the entire display.

Without looking up Gracie said, "Azella is the pet to the Maldrid coven of the Essex Guild. She was nothing like Ryla to begin with. She was an oracle they brought back. She's out of her time. She is also very very old. She's easily nearly a hundred and bed ridden. Her usefulness was a powerful tool, that is until she fell into a coma. Not so useful as a vegetable anymore." He never looked up.

Lacy and Ryla were stunned and without words, but their faces lacked the shock that Gracie would know such as thing as so many of the guilds were heavily locked down and non communicato. The Essex guild is run on the east coast in all of New England. The covens assembled therein were not official, they were the black market communities of rogues and muses bound to the power. They were vicious and they cared little for the human. But they were not entirely in violation of any muse rules.

"She wasn't always old and she wasn't always in a coma. I knew her at her peak. Oh the things I could tell you." He was catching on to the gem of information he held despite Gracie's knowledge of who Azella was. "Let me in, 50 years probation, and I'm your man. Truly reformed and all," he said with puppy dog eyes. The attitude wasn't fitting for a giant muscle man bound for some truck stop or bike rally instead of the middle seat of a mini van. The driver of the mini-van was a shuttle service Ryla used often. The driver was deaf and asked very little of her. She paid well, he turned his hearing devices off. Though he wouldn't hear the muse end of the conversation, he'd most likely think she was speaking to her tag. The tag being the girl she snagged for rehab and the driver's knowledge ended there.

Ryla knew Lacy couldn't lose face in front of Yosef so she threw herself down on the gauntlet.

"If I take your terms, I have some of my own. You will follow my lead at all times as I will train you personally. You will answer to myself, Lacy, and Dan, who you'll meet later. You are a flunkie for the next 50 years."

"You won't last that long human, so what then? You don't have the strength to overcome me." But his last words were strangled from him as he doubled over and the air is sucked from his lungs and his fists grasped his stomach. The exhalation of power surged from him to Ryla.

"Oh, and not only will I personally train you and keep you under a close watch, you will disclose all and any knowledge of your past guild experiences, forays, or stints. You will have an apartment in my complex, so don't cry yet. You will do body guard service in your time as a time bound creature to make a human wage to pay for your way and to support our cause. You will commit to our guild in full. And listen to me when I say I will destroy you if you cross me, us, or our guild." Ryla was serious beyond her years with the knowledge of the heart ache ahead. "I know what is to come. I foresee you as a useful player."

"Again," he gasped. "How would you know anything about what's to come if you are stuck to time like I am?" His question was valid but one that Ryla couldn't explain to most and wouldn't dare for many. She had to trust him and that just wasn't going to happen soon.

"Short version. I'm not entirely a human woman as you would believe me to be. I have history, experience, and gifts that make me a special weapon or a special tool for fixing the challenges that are racing straight for us like a speeding train. I am, like I said, your god. I can make or break you, so how would it surprise you or make you feel any better to know more than that. I can see the future because I say I can. And rule number one is don't ever question me. I will reveal what is necessary. The other options include stripping you of your energy for good or feeding you to the wolves we both know other guilds are."

"You aren't just black mailing me and threatening me. No. I see what is going on." He was a happy person for such a miserable looking figure. His abuse from Ryla seemed to make him glow with anticipation and her offer was not yet refused. Though confused, Ryla knew he'd accept if only to pursue what seemed to be his weird masochistic fetish. She could also see it in his energy and even a bit in his eyes he was weary from the lonely prowl of a predator. Thing were escalating and aligning with a power guild meant he would be protected. His energy felt desparate and even a little sad. He was lonely. Being a social pariah is tough.

"You are offering me a position. You are actually recruiting." Bursting forth with laughter at the look of consternation on Ryla's face, Yosef was smarting than he looked. Damn. Sure she'd always planned there to be a heist or a capture of the rogue as a tactic to startle and scare them into submission. No one ever guessed she'd been filling her ranks of an army of ex-rogues with rehabilitation, an education, and a chance to start new. Like she said, she foresaw his usefulness and he was a key player for her side. Seeing as the future was never set in stone, which would make sense considering Ryla and Lacy had teamed up to prevent every possible terrifying future scenario from materializing, than she may be wrong about Yosef.

The car slowed to a crawl, and the scowl that drilled into Yosef only made him smile more. In fact he was wriggling with fits of laughter. Lacy was rolling her eyes. Gracie's eyes never left his texting. The girl, whose name was incidentally Ally, was checked out. Ryla's job wasn't over yet. She was a girl going into withdrawl very soon and lots of plans to enact for her as well.

"And you?" Ryla asked the girl. She was stupefied and beyond responding to the situation in front of her. If she were anything like Ryla, she'd have a nervous break down and be admitted be to a mental health institution by night fall. Ryla's first go with the muse thing resulting in her hospitalization, memory loss, and encountering one of the most powerful and devious rogues. The rogue was one of the original nine sisters, a mousia, a pierides. She was Ellafayathin, or Elle. She was siphening from Ryla the most intense surges of energy ever known. Why? Ryla held more charge than any human ever had before. She's beat all thresholds and created an ability to recover quickly from the drain. Though siphening resulted in a terrible head ache, it generally was relieved by drinking. Ryla's addiction was a manifestation of her victimhood. That and her loneliness after her husband left her. These memories were even a bit lost in the haze of her recent past as she had been here, there, and everywhere in the aftermath of some pretty fateful events that shock her world.

The girl flinches as she thought. Underneath the filth of a drug addicted exterior of living home to home and from dealer to the family she leeched on for money Ryla knew there was beautiful sweet girl with a blonde flow of hair that shined around her pink face and long lashes. She'd have a gorgeous smile that bespoke innocence known and innocence lost, but a hope for some innocence still remained. She wasn't broken. She didn't know that yet because her state was low and fragile but Ryla found her before she was targeted by some rogue really bent on doing damage. To siphen her dry would have been a victory for the wrong side. The problem? The rogues had lost the ability to see the cost of their actions. Those power hungry muses that would prey on the rogue lack of foresight are bent on the goal of creating, of finding new sources of power, and destroying the calibrated system of the muse universe that currently was pretty evenly balanced between good and evil.

Road to Recovery

When you think of the cliche "road to recovery" for the addict you think of rehabilitation centers, therapy sessions, relapses, parole officers, and sometimes court orders. There are so many conceptions of recovery which are medical, physical, and mental in health. The ninety days away from all friends and all family was meant to give the recovery its fullest potential. Loved ones give in willingly, despite their intense feelings of protection and the nagging sense that although they are willing to do anything they are losing the one they love. They may even feel they are contributing to the fallen soul's downward spiral. So when it is demanded for "recovery" that all contact cease, families think the change is final and the decision made. What will be will be. Their guilt, in some ways, will ease with the fallen family member out of sight and out of mind. These family members are actually ones weaker in resisting rogues dredging their life force from them as a sickly sweet icing on the already steady drain that was the addict. Once the rogue is absence so too was the drain on their will to survive. Some may feel even more afflicted, though their feelings are real, they were the strongest to resist the leeching presence of the rogue.

No, the recovery is again different because of extenuating circumstances. Those circumstances concern the muse world. The fight between good and evil. The protection of the human charges caught in between. The power hunger rogue looking to leech all the life and love from any human they were created to protect and nourish. The good guys were still not united under one ideal in the fight against the overwhelming rogue numbers of the recent years. There were precisely nine factions which hadn't been aligned as one for nearly two millennium. In fact, finding a healthy identity for all muses hadn't been high on the to do list. The schism which created the nine separate sisters transfigure into their beautiful forms also left each one vying for their own territory. They agreed to separate, spreading across the globe and calling all loose muses form in their misty ethereal states to come forth and realize a solid form and a state of mind. They coalesced and came forth when called, though not all came easily or at all. Most fell in line in the marching bands of organized chaos that resulted from the schism. That schism was one that shock the muse world. Previously just energies that lacked all law and order, the muse pre-schism was a violent creature like a lone wolf that could conform to pack hierarchy and fight for territorial power, or the muse could leave for the world of humans. They could watch and take pleasure. They could help or affect their lives. They tended to be happy alone and without community. Their were very little in numbers that ventured into the human world, but those who did progressed in mind and spirit taking on the form of their charges. They imitated, for lacking the power to create, they could manipulate their form and they could gain power in a new form of community that set an elite race of muses apart from their nomadic, anarchic, and wild counterparts.

There was little to see at first, but those with heightened senses in the human world could fill the holes in their imagination concerning the forms, purposes, and actions of the muses misty visages. Some were benign and loving. Some came to see monsters and devils.

Ultimate Ultimatum

Ryla saw the girl's movements, her posture, and her energy spell out illness. There was just sickness that stunk like the stench of skunk in the air. It hung there torpid and pestilent. She'd almost become used to the stink of the weak. The muscle meat was still casually set against the wall arms crossed and grin smirking. By this time the sliding patio door was rigged with a protection to keep the bag of meat from taking a quick exit. Gracie had dropped the short drop to circle round to the hotel door to set an identical trap. With the jug head trapped within one of the two exits, he will be forced to freeze and will lose all movement and all power. The trick was getting him to think he had just been found out and that a quick exit is the best way out of his predicament. Not many used the means she was to detain a muse. The rogues were especially nasty because they felt it unnecessary to follow any protocol that the everyday muse lived by. You don't leech off the humans that you were divinely ordered to protect and guide and charge with divine energy. If the jug head found her plan out and moved quick enough, he could drain everyone in the room. He could suck the will from each of them. He could replace their wills with despair and the illness that Ryla had smelled leaking from the girl, except in lethal doses. This wasn't the ideal situation, especially for the family. But Ryla had little choice most of the time. Bait meant the trusting rogue gave far more attention to the charge and if he or she wasn't paying attention bagging them was actually far easier. The cleaner the better. The more they believed it, the more they trusted they were safe and sound. So to cover the believability factor, Ryla actually performed interventions. The emotions were genuine, the air charged with love, pain, fear, doubt, and hope. They were enough to cover her own emotions of fear, exhilaration, and calculated planning. She had a callous edge to her emotional energy. A tough love image that bode well for her interventionist role as a "all or nothing" "life or death" dealer. She was the one to provide and enforce the ultimate ultimatum. She provided the addict with an ultimatum, though it is somewhat of a rouse considering once the rogue was gone recovery was highly likely. But to keep things genuine, there really had to be a role where the addict chose to overcome her leeching rogue, where she chose to live, and where she chose to recognize her illness. When she guessed her illness as addiction it wasn't completely true. She had a culprit and it wasn't entirely herself, though Ryla had to convince the girl that she actually was responsible. The healing that came afterward was just as healthy because the addict held all accountability and therefore held all to power to recover.

Recovery started with the intervention, then separation, then medical detox, and education. Typical rehab would include much more therapy and rehabilitation during the last phase. Education was essential though to the recruitment. Get them educated before they were worked up and started asking questions. It wasn't a point of deception. It was meant to clear away the cobwebs, shine in some healthy light, and giving the room a good sweep. If that person were confused or felt attacked they would clam up and a whirl wind of a dust storm would pick up. Defuse the electricity in the air before it starts up. It would seem obvious the intervention is the ultimatum but the real decision comes ninety days later after all the education and training is over. Take the tools you learned, leave with them,and protect yourself? Or use them to protect others and reveal the truth to those who can fight?

The fight isn't a physical brawl. Well, not always but it honestly sometimes happens. The blow outs just don't hurt as much and for as long as the real battle fought in the pull and push and the drain of power. There wasn't a metaphysical understanding to what transpired between muses. It was emotional to some. It was electric to others. It was the flow and ebb of water. It was the power of winds or the eye of a hurricaine. For Ryla and most of her muse friends they felt electricity. It was a unique feel to the power they hold. In fact it was entirely unique to Lacy's guild. The other guild sisters were yet to know the taste of their charge. Lacy had not communed with any of the nine for nearly two hundred years. For muses who could slip in and out of time like a needle in a taught tapestry this was an irrelevant number. It meant there was a camp of warriors brewing on each side as the saddled and spied and even killed to know the next move. Not all would be fighting each other and most actually could unite in the last fight, but for the time being the guilds had disintegrated into gangs rather than kingdoms. The Guild Inc. was a guild organized in the fashion of a large corporation with the hierachy of a business. Business was cold but it was also efficient. It was egalitarian and it was also all about money and power. This wasn't much different from the guild of the South, the Hardliners. They were a gun toting rough group more like a biker gang or a rock and roll bar crowd. They were rowdy but they lived by the law of loyalty. They were a passionate people that lived more like a family with the women supporting and nurturing the men to become great fighters and patriach leaders. The act of betrayal was the most unforgivable offense and it was punished harshly. It was a crime punished almost as harshly as it was in the Renoldi guild which most resembled a crime mob syndicate. Though similar to the Hardliners in so many ways, they were bound by a moral code that respected a name, an old family, and a tradition without fault. There was a patriarch but he was less likely to go to the heroic ends to save your ass as the Hardliner leader would. The twist that didn't seem to explain everything upfront but once revealed made sense: the nine sister, eight were the original of the nine, were still the highest up on the ladder. If you hit the high mousia you've made it to the top. So seldomly seen by the worker bees, she became a thing of myths for her own people in those three clan guilds. They were wholly adapted to American ways of life but it was easier to blend in that way. They were territorial, hostile, and held ideas about the other that were entirely false. There were also terrifying facts that melded with the lies, but how would anyone really know when the guilds were entirely segregated and totally isolated from one another. Communication was along lines between the sisters and even then their means of communicating were out of territories and out of time.

When the saved charge heard the options they were given the day to leave and think over their decision. It was a quit day for the trainer when the recruit was gone out of reach of their influence. The recruits who return by night fall are given the gift to see the muses as all times. Those who are driven to have normal happy human lives never return but are looked in on frequently. Though they may think they would be avoiding the same fate the muse world faced, it was likely they would eventually even in the last moments of a terrible battle join to bolster the ranks of the good guys.