Kamloops city council is excluding Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson from important city business, now directing all levels of government and other agencies to communicate with them rather than him.
A resolution passed in a closed meeting Tuesday also gave Hamer-Jackson 48 hours to sign documents, following his alleged recent refusal to sign a letter council voted to send to the Agricultural Land Commission.
“Whether it be the Braun report, whether it be privacy breaches, whether it be conflict of interest breaches, whether it be code of conduct violations — where do you want me to stop? — there’s a laundry list of challenges that we have had with this mayor,” Coun. Kelly Hall told Castanet Kamloops on Wednesday morning, not long after he sent out a news release on council’s behalf announcing the measures.
“For whatever reason — maybe he doesn’t have the capacity to understand the severity of what is happening and the challenges his actions present not only to council, but to the city — it’s important that we take these steps.”
While Hamer-Jackson is being removed as official spokesperson for the city, Hall said he is also being pushed out of the mayor’s role as point person on important dialogues that happen behind the scenes between city hall and various levels of government and other non-government agencies.
https://www.castanetkamloops.net/news/Kamloops/489774/Kamloops-city-council-strips-mayor-of-communications-duties-tightens-reins-on-signing-requirements#489774

I found a letter from my mother given to me on the eve of me graduating high school, ten years ago. The day we were given the information to order our caps and gowns I brought it home with a lot of nerves. I was the first one to graduate high school in my family(my mother and older sister both dropped out young and started families. I was terrified because I had worked hard to graduate with honors and a full ride to a smaller, local university and I wanted to be able to be free of my family. Still, I wanted to walk the stage and that cost money. Almost $100 to be precise. We were lot income, my mother had stopped working in her 30s due to anxiety, and I often got the bare minimum. Sneakers from the dollar store, had a few changes of clothes, and stuff to make sandwiches in the kitchen.
So when I showed her the information to rent my cap and gown, she screamed at me. It was somehow my fault that it cost so much. She said I should go to the councilors or principal to ask for assistance. She said it wasn’t fair to her. I didn’t know how to go about this process, I struggled with college applications alone, and not once did she attend a parent meeting. I told her to forget it. I cried as tears fell down my face and said I didn’t want it anymore. She kept yelling so I eventually just left the house. I went walking to breath. I was crushed, not just by the disappointment of not getting to walk the stage but because of the weight of my mom screaming. Yelling was how she dealt with stress. Even on supposedly happy things.
When I returned home my mom didn’t say a word but there was a letter in my bed. It read:
“Don't worry, I talked to [her boyfriend] No matter what happens you will have the money for your cap and gown. I'm sorry. I was so upset they give me 9 day notice. I was so afraid.
Please don’t be mad at me, please don’t hate me. I'm sorry you have to struggle because of me. I'm sorry if I’ve failed you and your sisters. I love you and your sisters so much. I want to be able to give you guys everything. I'm so proud of you.
You are a wonderful young woman. You are perfect. Please don't hate me. I Love you. mom.”
When I got this letter ten years ago it meant the world to me. The first time she truly apologized and showed remorse for her actions. I thought it was a turning point.
It wasn’t. She treated me the same. She watched me walk the stage and go to college and acted proud, but she still screamed at us for every stress she had a way of blaming everyone else for her problems. I found this letter today and cried again. She never apologized for screaming at me, she apologized for not having money. I didn’t care about the money, I cared about her screaming in my face.
I barely remember graduating after the blur and thrill of it all, but I remember her screaming at me.

He suddenly came towards me in the dirty tunnel that leads to the subway, up the stairs from the mall, dressed in Adidas pants and a puffy duvet jacket. His breath steamed in the cold. A woman stumbled next to him, in broken high heels. They looked like they were in a hurry, to get away from someone or something. Destroyed faces, but not because of age or starvation, they looked young and healthy.
He should’ve been at least twenty years older now, I told myself it couldn’t be him and looked away without knowing if the man had seen me or not.
His face, as I remember it, spoke of his past addictions. No traces of serious violence, but at the same time deformed as after a fight. The proportions seemed wrong. Symmetrical, but swollen. I saw the tattoo on his neck, on the left side facing me, the outline of an animal head. Kåres' tattoo was red, this man's tattoo shimmered in purple. It could’ve been a bruise. A milky haze surrounded them, except for the man’s white sneakers that shined sharp against the gray concrete. It looked like they were living on that thin line between partying and homelessness. I was sure he was dead.
When they’d passed by, a sour smell of adrenaline hovered in the air. I stood there, in my own thoughts, long after I’d missed my train, looking down at my blurry hands, as a whole inner world of sadness and trauma started to open. I wanted to think that I had buried what happened that summer somewhere deep, deep down, where it had been crushed by the weights of new, better memories. But the man with the tattoo dug it all up again. I looked at my own hands and felt I was going into dissociation. Right there and then, I promised myself to write about it.
I met Kåre in the late summer, my first summer without Dad. I lived alone in our apartment on the Red Line towards Norsborg. When I think back to that summer, I see the broken living room clock before me. It stopped working long before when Dad was still alive, but it reminded me that something had stopped in me too.
Summer was happening somewhere out there, slipped in through the cracks in my closed blinds, it felt like time was rushing by without ever touching me. I went out sometimes, sure. To the mall with some friends, to the park or the empty schoolyard. We climbed up the fire escape ladder and carved swear words into the brick wall.
One day in the beginning of August we drove down south, me, Eli and Sindra. I remember how we cranked down the windows and it was claustrophobically hot. Eli put on a playlist called Happy Hardcore. Songs with frequencies as high as the summer sky.
I leaned out the window. Pine trees, red cottages, and wheat fields smeared together by the speed. When I saw the landscape dance past me I remembered Dad’s crosses. He took me out in the woods. Pointed out pits, hills and ditches and said they were graves, fireplaces and traps. Dead shapes, waiting for the right time to wake up.
Dad was a janitor, but he dreamt of becoming an archeologist. He leant scientific books and read them to me like bedtime stories, instructions about how pendulums and squares can be used as instruments to find ancient monuments.
He believed in Earth radiation; the theory that lines make out a checkered pattern around Earth. The past generations knew a lot of things about this radiation. Old amphitheaters and cairns are strategically placed around ethereal force fields. Where the lines cross each other in X:es, a swirling energy arises, whose original purpose was lost a long time ago. Sometimes, when we were out in the woods and came to a particular glade or grove, he’d lift me up and put me down in the middle of one of those crosses. I stood completely still, barely breathing while he measured with a pendulum to see if Earth’s radiation made my aura bigger or smaller. Dad was so proud of my aura.
We stopped at a pizza place. Eli and Sindra had to go get gas, so I went in by myself. When I stood in line for the bathroom, that’s when I saw the horse head. It looked down at me from the wall, with bulging eyes made out of glass. I wondered why they used it as decoration. It looked bizarre and sinister, in every way unbearable.
When the bathroom was available I quickly ran inside and locked the door. I leaned against it, and tried to focus on my breathing, like Dad had taught me. Where the mirror should’ve been, someone had written "horror vacui” with a black marker. ”Fear of the void”.
I washed my wrists with cold water. The water took the uneasy feeling with it in a swirl down the drain. When I felt better I went out to Eli and Sindra, who were already in the car.
We drove on. The evening came. One of those blue, late summer evenings when the light deepens and the air cools down. The road narrowed down. I got nauseous, it felt like we were moving inwards, in a curve. We parked on the road and I looked up at the stars. I pointed out little bear, but they didn’t care. They were trying to locate the music in the woods.
I didn’t really feel like they wanted me there, so I kept my distance. After a while the ground thinned out into sand and the smell of pine trees mixed with sea salt. I saw lights glimmer where the trees opened up to the ocean. Some people were dancing, others were just squeezing through. Eli and Sindra stood further down the beach, next to a fire. They tried to be cool but they looked so tense. I remember how obvious it looked, how they were flickering just like the flames. I turned around and walked into the woods again.
I found a hill that looked good to sit at, and that’s where I met him. Kåre.
I remember the hill was covered in strangely shimmering moss. When I turned around he looked at me with small pupils through the haze. The tattoo on his neck, some kind of animal head, so red I thought it was a wound at first. It looked like a children’s drawing, or back in the day when they used to stuff animals without knowing what they looked like, so they just made something up. I pushed away the memory of the horse head in the restaurant, and instead, I thought about that embroidery, the one in Dad’s office. I was scared of it as a child, I never wanted to go in that room alone. I wondered what had happened to it, did I still have it? Grandma made it for him, isn’t that what he said? I looked at the tattoo again and shivered, it had the same, bulging eyes.
Kåre smiled at me, and I looked down at the hill, speckled with moss. It grew in spirals, I’d never noticed that before, that moss curves, turn after turn, like a swirling paisley pattern. Kåre put something in my hand. It was a green pill, and one side was pressed with a symbol, looking almost like a human gut.
“That’s a trojaborg”, I said surprised. “The symbol, it’s a labyrinth. They actually exist, near the coast, by mountains and the ocean, like here.” I looked up at him.
I used to worry about my high-pitched voice, it sounded like I was always trying to get attention, but now I just sounded rough, like someone else was speaking through me. “Some people think it’s a Christian thing”, I said, “because they think that they put the stones in the middle down first like a cross and then built the paths after that. But it’s not a cross, it’s just an intersection with two lines. The cult surrounding labyrinths is way older than Christianity. We had labyrinths in Scandinavia before, long, long before, when the ocean was like a highway up here…”
Kåre lit two cigarettes and gave me one. I smoked with him and started to feel euphoric. It felt so good to speak without restrictions, to put together things I must’ve heard once, like Dad always did.
“There are labyrinths in marble floors and on wooden doors of old houses. The symbol became a Christian thing, but it was used in old rituals long before that. Sometimes they call it the ‘virgin dance’, and that sounds like a ritual to me. They sacrificed things, too. Think of it as, like, a dance.” I did a little swirl. “Some people think the word trojaborg comes from the word ‘troj’, which means twisting. Rotation. Spinning something around and around and around…”
Kåre dropped his cigarette and stepped on it, leaned down and looked at something metallic. He had a thin mustache that didn’t match his boy-like body. I didn’t know if he was listening, but I kept talking. “Labyrinths exist in every culture, or at least stories about them”, I continued, “they’re a symbol for the uterus and death at the same time, a spiral towards the ethereal.”
I didn’t feel any shame, I just wanted to keep talking.
“Some trojaborg’s are built at places named after bears. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but bears symbolize resurrection ‘cause they sleep all winter but wake up again in the spring. The Saamis bury dead bears sometimes. The farmers pushed collectors and hunters away but they never stopped sacrificing, they came back. They always do.”
I closed my eyes and leaned against the stone. The woods were full of sounds, music and someone's high-pitched voice. When I opened my eyes I saw a red Bengal light down by the water. I looked at it for a while, before continuing.
“People are superstitious to this day. When fishermen were going out to sea and didn’t want any bad luck, they ran through the trojaborg before they left. When they’d reached the middle they ran straight out, without following the paths. They thought the bad luck would get stuck in there. Absorbed by the force.”
Kåre stroked my arm with his fingertips. I breathed out, felt a tingling warmth in my chest, and I didn’t say anything else for a while.
“What did you say about horse cemeteries?” he asked when the sun was starting to rise, and I saw that what was lying on the ground was small pieces of aluminum foil.
“You mean bear cemeteries?” He nodded.
“They are often found near the trojanborg’s, some think they were built with stones from old ruins. Graves from people that lived by the shore and hunted seals and whales. Those who came here first, and hunted in the moonshine.” I looked up at the stars that were starting to fade.
“The labyrinth was a manifestation of the sun cult and later Christianity, a definitive way to shut them out. But I don’t think…”
“What do you think, then?” He smiled. I didn’t know what to say. I remembered what Dad said. About certain places that generate darkness. Places that make things move around them, wander in cycles. He always told me to watch out for the intersections, the crosses. We’re drawn to them, attracted by the invisible forces, but we have to watch out.
“If you’ve made sacrifices at the same place for over a thousand years, I don’t think you’ll leave it in the first place. It takes a lot... ”
I tried to look Kåre in the eyes, but he was busy picking up foil from the moss-covered rocks and putting it in a zip bag.
“I don’t believe in coincidences”, I said, “maybe there was something, like something in the ground that made people seek those places out... And seek them out over and over again.”
We stood up and walked down the hill, side by side, into the haze of people dancing and screaming.
The sound of laughter, an exaggerated, broken laughter, woke me up. I was lying in the backseat with my throbbing head in Kåre’s lap. He tried to speak over the music, almost screaming, I remember hearing him say something about how he couldn’t stand up straight anymore. Because it was so strong now, so fucking strong.
I couldn’t see Eli or Sindra, the guys sitting in the front seat were complete strangers to me.
The broken laughter-guy interrupted Kåre. “Hahaha! You fucking freak! You fucking hippie!”
The other one, the one driving, asked for coordinates. Kåre answered: “That place has no price. You just gotta have something she wants. You have to deliver.”
“Deliver what? What does it cost?” the other one asked skeptically.
Kåre sighed. “Do you know what ‘the left-hand path’ is?”
A silence, before that repulsive, broken laughter exploded again. “Hahaha! You fucking weirdo! You fucking psycho!”
“Didn’t think you’d know anyways”, Kåre said.
The car stopped at a road barrier and we got out, squinting in the bright sunshine. I’d never met them before, and they both looked much older than me, a few years older than Kåre. We climbed over the barrier and started walking down a path. It seemed to lead us nowhere, until the woods opened up and revealed a red little house. Kåre went around the house to the front door and pulled out a key.
Broken laughter-guy said: “But like, I don’t believe in that kind of stuff! The fucking hocus pocus shit!”
I stepped onto the porch and found myself just standing there, looking at an old dartboard. It reminded me of something. It was speckled with marks from the arrows but also some darker spots, so scuffed you couldn’t make out the lines between the different scores.
My thoughts were interrupted by sounds coming from the other side of the house. It sounded like something falling and breaking, like the deafening sound of iron pipes rolling down concrete stairs and Kåre screamed: “For fucks sake!”
I looked down at the cracks in the wooden deck and fell into a melancholic state. Thoughts of summer evenings here with people that have been dead for many years, or maybe are sitting alone at a retirement home somewhere with nothing but memories left. Fantasies blending in with my own summer memories, and stories my Dad used to tell me. Summers with his Mom, things that might’ve been just dreams, or someone else’s memory, I don’t know whose.
A chair with broken legs was standing in front of the house. I poked at it with my foot, it wobbled a bit, and in a swaying, slowdown of time, I remembered. I was completely sure. I’d been here before.
Kåre had finally managed to open the door. He smiled at me from inside the house, through the window. It was dark in there, but I could see stacks of books and piles of electronic devices, TV:s and stereos. Leaning against the walls and exploding out of the drawers.
Kåre gave something in a Coop bag to the broken laughter-guy and they shared a squarelike hug. I observed them through the window. I could see their lips moving, but I had no idea what they were saying to each other. They looked over at me with a big grin, before they disappeared out of my vision and I could hear the front door opening, and eventually, the car driving off.
I followed Kåre into the woods, down towards the sea. We took our shoes off and ran barefoot through the sand. The sea was quite big, surrounded by compact trees reflecting in the black, shining water. We waded towards a cliff. This was the ocean two thousand years ago, I thought to myself as I climbed the big stone. We took our shirts off and layed down, close to each other.
“It’s really weird”, I said after a while, “I feel like I’ve been here before. On this cliff, and in the house too. I feel like that sometimes, like I should remember something, but I just can’t.” The sunlight was blinding me, I squinted at him. “I was brought up in a way that make you different.”
“Make you different”, he mimicked, but I ignored him.
“It was just me and my Dad, we didn’t have anything else. He never told me anything about his own childhood. He blamed it on his bad memory, but I never believed him. Maybe you inherit it, the pushing things away, the suppression.” I leaned back on the warm stone. “I’ve always felt rootless.”
“Me too”, Kåre mumbled.
“How did you find this place, do you know people here or something?” I tried to seem unbothered, didn't want to dig up something dark in him.
“I leant it from an old lady, she lives in the woods now.”
The heat from the sun beamed at my spine, but I still shivered. He rummaged in his backpack and pulled out a Coca-Cola. I drank so fast I choked, but it didn’t taste of anything at all, just a hint of rust.
“There’s something in the woods I think you’d like to see”, he whispered and stroked my hair.
We stuffed his backpack full of beer and cigarettes. I borrowed a fleece jacket that smelled of gasoline. Kåre had a coat with dark stains all over the chest. When he leaned against the wall and rolled a spliff, as I kneeled in his shadow to tie my shoes, we looked like a bad sign, an omen, two outgrowns on the same darkness. I remember feeling like we were directed towards a swirling hatred.
Kåre kicked rocks as we walked down the road. The sun was still shining bright, coloring the clouds. We reached a field surrounded by small, timbered cottages. It seemed abandoned and forgotten, but as if something was kept awake there.
Kåre and I were the only things visible in the dark windows. I asked him about the old lady he leant the house from. Who was she?
He kicked away a big stone. “Do you really want to know?” he asked.
I thought about it for a while, not really knowing why I wanted to know, or even what I was doing here with Kåre in the first place. But there was something about him, something about the way he distracted me from everything else.
“I usually don’t experience this”, I mumbled, “I usually remember, but when you were in the house and I waited for you on the porch, I just knew I’d been there before. Maybe I’ll remember more if you tell me about her?”
“Sure”, he said, “if you want to remember. She used to slaughter the small animals on the porch. That says a lot about her, I guess. She found it practical. I helped her clean it up afterwards…”
“Wait, what do you mean, slaughter the small animals on the porch? What does that mean?” I tried to look him in the eyes, but he looked away.
“She’d slaughter the big ones by the sea.” The way he said it made it sound neutral, like he couldn’t care less about the animals.
We walked into the woods again, towards the mountains. The dried moss crunched under our feet. It became softer at places, and the ground gave away. Rocks, pine trees and moss repeated themselves in a landscape without landmarks.
When I slipped and fell I found myself just lying on the ground for a while. The woods were still now, and the only thing I heard was a faint rumble from far away, maybe it was the highway that sounded just as lonely as the sea. I closed my eyes, the tiredness made me feel soft. When I tried to stand up again the world flickered before my eyes and I had to lean against a tree.
In my memories, that’s when I heard the scream. It sounded like an animal, or any creature dying a painful death. It made me completely lose my perception of reality. I couldn’t breathe, like after getting punched hard in the stomach and I had to sit down again. When I tried to locate where the sound came from, it disappeared.
I stood up and felt the weight of something hard and cold in my hand, a stone. I must’ve picked it up from the ground, but I couldn’t remember doing so. Shaken by adrenaline, I started running in the direction I saw Kåre disappear in. I caught up with him. He stopped and stood with his back turned towards me.
“Did you hear that?” I looked into the woods. “It sounded like an animal”, I continued. “A big animal… It sounded sick, so fucking sick. You heard it, right?”
I pulled my hand through my hair and crushed a bug that I smeared on my jacket, disgusted by the texture. He didn’t answer. He looked at something, something I couldn’t see. The realization that I was in the middle of nowhere with a crazy stranger suddenly struck me.
“We have to go back. It’s getting dark.” I tried to raise my voice but I sounded like a pathetic little girl.
He didn’t answer, instead, he kneeled down, leaning forward, his hands intertwined behind his neck, rocking back and forth. His ears looked so small. It looked like he was crying, something shiny over his cheeks.
I lightly put my hand on his shoulder and stroked down his arm. He grabbed my wrist, as fast as lightning. I screamed and tried to break free, but tripped and fell backward.
That made him relax. He leaned over me in the dark woods like he was about to say something, but I’ll never know what it was. I struck the stone as hard as I could and hit his temple, a dull sound echoed through the woods. He stumbled back with his hands around his head, and I stood up and started to run.
It felt easy, even though I was running uphill, every step felt irresistible like something was pulling me forward. Soft shadows grew out of the gaps in the rocks, trees and stone blended together. I remember seeing a pine tree that stood bent with its crown growing down towards the earth instead of up towards the sky. A tree that grows like that speaks of something so wrong, something so sick, and twisted out of itself. And I can't say why I continued running in that direction.
I kept on running up until the ground hardened and the woods thinned out. Some light birch trees circled a glade next to an uphill mountain. It was like stepping into a room, separated from the hungry rocks and dark pine trees. The ground was covered with small, yellow flowers, almost shining in the dark.
I started regaining feeling in my legs again. I breathed in hoarse gasps and my eyes flickered in every direction. The direction felt crucial, but at the same time it felt like the choice wasn’t mine, there was something else, something beyond.
I started climbing, in a desperate neither one of them, straight up the cliff. I climbed in small jumps and bent tree roots. The higher I climbed, the more targeted I felt. I tasted blood in my mouth. On the inside of my eyelids I could see Kåre standing down in the glade, picking up stones and throwing them at me. I imagined him grabbing my foot to try and pull me down, tearing at me like an animal. It was only when I’d reached the top of the mountain that I dared to turn around.
Space howered deep blue over the trees. The glade was empty, but down there I thought I could see the shining flowers like small, yellow eyes staring up at me where I stood, swaying on the edge.
I turned around. A cold, bare mountain plateau opened up in front of me. My gaze was immediately drawn to an uneven circle further ahead. It took a while for my eyes to adjust and it started taking form, swirl after swirl, curling like a snake. The trojaborg.
Dad would’ve thought it was magnificent, with stones as big as human heads in the cross towards the center. In the dark, the proportions felt bigger and the paths cleaner than in the ones he’d shown me as a kid. Shadows fell over the entrance. I squinted, it looked like something was laying there.
A rush of dark euphoria made my eyes water and my mouth stretch out in a big smile. I had found it myself, stumbled upon it in the middle of the woods, it had chosen me. I straightened my back and took a couple of steps towards the labyrinth, but when I saw my long shadow I realized how visible I was, standing alone on the big, empty cliff. The rush became fear and I started moving backwards instead, very carefully.
The place radiated a static tension. Just to be there felt wrong, like an act of violence in every step I took. When I reached the edge of the plateau a strong, nauseating smell made me freeze in a violent body memory. We were out in the woods one autumn, me and Dad, when it started to smell just like that, intestines and death, the smell of a ripped animal. We heard dogs barking, I froze in shock and Dad had to carry me back to the car. But now there weren’t any dogs, just the wind.
I looked at the trojaborg. The dark and shapeless shadow in the entrance had grown and now appeared sharper. I slowly moved closer, pulled in against my will. I saw what it was just a few meters away, when it was already too late, too late to back down. It was a horse, or what once was a horse. It still radiated body heat. A bulging eye stared up at the sky.
Dizzy with feelings of dissociation, I just stood there, unable to look away. Its belly was ripped. Intestines spilling out against my white sneakers. A few meters away, in between the trees, something coil-shaped with an unborn’s unfinished features in a coat of mucus and blood. I felt my disgust turning into panic, like when a phobia turns psychotic and violates reality.
I looked down the cliff. If I tried to climb down in the dark, I’d likely break my legs or my neck. I considered following the plateau into the woods on the other side, but I knew I couldn’t go further into the woods. Something or someone out there was capable of ripping a pregnant mare open.
My thoughts were interrupted by a melodic sound, like the echo of distant voices. I crawled backwards up against a rock and imagined a group of people or someone talking to themselves, or maybe calling for a dog. The sound came from the woods on the other side of the cliff. I pressed myself against the rock and crawled into a cave under it. All of my focus was turned towards the trees, I listened out into the silence and tried to make out the sound again. My fear wanted to confirm it, decode it as something with a natural explanation, but every time I thought it would come back I was met by silence. The hope that it could have been voices slowly faded away.
I lied there, frozen for I don’t know how long, just listening to the silence. I started to relax and my thoughts began to wander. I thought of Eli and Sindra, and the life that went on parallel to this. I saw them in front of me, bored, waiting for the night bus or just for something to happen. They had probably forgotten about me, or in which case they wouldn’t miss me.
My legs were numb and tingling. I suddenly couldn’t focus on anything else and decided to try and climb down the cliff after all. I carefully began crawling out of the cave, when I was almost out I heard the sound again, more distinctly this time. I could no longer dismiss it as imagination. Instead, I told myself it must be an animal, some kind of bird, a capercaillie or a grouse. As it came closer, the thoughts of an animal became more and more difficult to visualize. I heard guttural, sharp syllables, long hisses, sounds expressing wills and desires. I stared at the unbroken line of trees as if pure willpower could hold them back. A painful silence followed, as I tried to breath as quietly as possible. My breathing ceased completely when a shadow moved behind the trees and began to crawl over the cliff.
It slowly came closer, a gnarly and skinny figure, something uneven and powerful about its movements told me it could be moving much faster if it stood up straight. At first, I thought it was heading right towards me, but it stopped at the lifeless horse. Paralyzed, I watched as it lifted its head, breathing heavily as if sniffing for something. It turned its head towards me without its body moving, a faint soaring rose in my ears. The moon was shining through a crack in the clouds, and its eyes were reflecting the light - predator eyes, narrow rips of lust.
I pressed my back against the stone until I was shaking. The realization that it was her felt purely physical and had no name. The long hair covered her face in stripes. Mere disgust filled me as she kneeled over the horse's body and pressed herself against the open stomach. She lifted her bloody smile up towards the moon and in a chopping rhythm she began to thrust out what now sounded like a hymn, words with monotone, slashing syllables. Her words grew stronger, it felt like she was singing, like she was calling out for someone. The song reminded me of gale, it came from deep within and carried sorrow, but it wasn’t pure.
I tried to convince myself she couldn’t see me. I pushed as far into the cave as possible and imagined I became part of the stone. But I couldn't shut it out, the sound of steps coming closer, branches breaking. More voices, echoing between the trees out there, answering her. They came from the other side, wandering up the hill, towards the trojaborg, moving out on the stone plateau in a spider-like walk. Sounds and movements in a restrained ecstacy. They looked like mirror reflections of her, her friends, her sisters. They were connected by something more than the song, a coordinated motion. I widened my eyes and stared out into the darkness. Their naked skin gleamed like wax in the moonshine when they stretched their arms out and pulled, pulled on a rope.
At the end of the rope, a shape. I heard the whimpering of a broken vocal cord, the remains of a scream, Kåre’s scream. In an increasing rhythm, they pulled him towards the labyrinth. And with the logic of a nightmare, I suddenly understood what was about to happen, as if I had experienced it before.
They forced him into the horse's body. His voice drowned inside the animal. She laced with something shiny and sharp, an iron wire. Threaded it through the skin and started sewing it together. She trapped him inside the horse's belly. The sound of their song grew louder and louder as Kåre’s voice started to fade. I layed on my stomach with my face against the ground and tried to find the words, when all I could hear was their voices intertwining with something stronger, darker, even more evil than themselves.
I tried to tell myself it wasn’t Kåre, it couldn’t be him buried inside of the horse. I tried to think this wasn't actually happening, but my body was aching and the taste of vomit in my mouth was real. My eyes slowly closed and I faded into a slumber where everything was too late and happened too far away from me. In a way I already knew it when we walked through the woods, it pulled at me, the power beyond us, she wasn’t a stranger. The hymn, we’d sung it. I slowly began to mumble their song, I couldn’t keep it at arm's length anymore.
I was halfway out of my body when the stone started to tremble. A powerful wave as if after a thunder strike came from inside the mountain, drowning their voices in a roar. It suffocated all other sounds from the woods. Their song slowed down and turned into screams as they fled in between the trees, leaving nothing but an echo behind. I was hidden in a cave and over there in the trojaborg inside the horse's body, was Kåre.
Everything went quiet. I thought I’d lost my hearing, that the sound wave had punctured my eardrums. I got up on my elbows and started crawling out of the cave. The second wave was longer and stronger than the first one. It came from deep within the mountain, the vibrations rushed like thunder in my ears, like stone being crushed against stone. I managed to get out at the last moment, if I’d hesitated it would've crushed me.
My last memory of the trojaborg is something I’ve tried to re-evaluate in my head, I’ve tried to make it something else, but the same images always come back to me. I’d crawled to the edge of the cliff and was just about to let go when I turned around. I looked towards the labyrinth, I saw the horse so clearly, it rose on its front legs and opened its eyes.
I let go of the edge and just slipped down, my hands gripping after tree roots and rocks. The moss was wet and slippery but also soft and it catched me when I fell. When I ran through the forest in the darkness it felt like I was shining and pulsating from the fear leaving my body. I finally got to the highway when the sun was starting to rise and followed the road down south, wading through the soaked meadowsweet that grew in the ditches, the smell vapid, stunning me. The sight of a dead fox forced me up on the road. Eventually, a truck stopped and picked me up. I have no other memories of how I got home. I just know I reached my apartment when the sun was starting to set again.
When the door closed behind me and I had locked it, a calmness filled me. For the first time in a couple of days, I was completely alone, out of sight of everyone. Inside the silence I heard familiar sounds, the buzzing of my fridge and someone walking around in the apartment above me. The blinds were down and most of my things were already packed in moving boxes stacked up in the living room.
I felt like hugging myself. I went to the bathroom and kneeled down in the shower. Dirt and moss ran off of me and swirled down the drain. I sat there, long after the water had turned cold.
A shirt in my closet still smelled of Dad. I put it on and layed down in my bed, stared at the ceiling and took in what was left of him. I searched for a pattern but all I saw was the animal head, Kåre’s tattoo flickering in front of me. He must’ve known about the amazing force in the trojaborg, it dazzled him. He’d seen the ritual before, she’d shown him, and invited him. He’d seen the dead rise up from the ground and he wanted to use the force selfishly. I pushed the thoughts of him away and turned my questions inwards. I tried to follow a memory far back, a summer on a train, on my way with Dad. On my way home, that’s how I remembered it, but home where? Home to who? The memory split ways and led nowhere.
I had no doubts that I was Kåre’s intended victim. When we were in the car on our way from the party and I lied with my head in his lap, he said something about left-handed magic. I assumed it was just a superficial hobby, maybe he even knew less than I did.
Deep inside of me, I've always known that life requires sacrifice. Sacrifices turns your desires into actions and push deep into the webs of relations, so deep the chaos has to part ways. But a sacrifice is only a maybe, you abandon all rights to feel remorse. Kåre didn’t understand the basic principle of a sacrifice, that a sacrifice is no longer yours when it involves a strong force. My thoughts moved in spirals and drove me into a shallow sleep.
I woke up cold and sweaty, searching in my memory after someone to tell all this to. Dad's armchair was still standing in front of his desk. I crawled up in it and explored what Dad had left behind. In the top drawer I found his phone book. I started flipping the pages, page up and page down, filled with Dad's handwriting. My gaze lingered on crossed out and circled names.
A couple of pages stuck together as if someone had spilled something on them and I had to carefully pry them open. A photograph fell into my lap. I picked it up with a growing feeling of anxiety. “At mothers. Summer -79” it said on the back. Reluctantly, I turned the photo around.
The house looked newly painted and the chairs had cushions with a floral pattern, and there on the chair under the dart board I sat with my legs dangling, next to grandma. I don’t remember ever meeting her, to me she was nothing more than a story my dad used to tell me. She was sitting in such an unnatural way. Her long hair covering her face, I couldn’t make out if I saw her from behind or from the front, as if the photo had been double-exposed. I think she smiled at the camera.
I stood up from the armchair and rushed out on the balcony. Feeling protected by the darkness, I found myself just standing there for a while, trying to calm my breathing, looking down at the shadows of my backyard. Who took that photo, was it Dad? Had we been there together, with her, at her house? A light turned on in the house opposite to me. I pushed myself against the wall so I wouldn’t be seen.
In the living room stood a moving box filled with Dad's books, neatly packed up to the edge. I was overcome with a sense of abandonment and began tearing out the books. One by one I read the titles before tossing them in a pile on the floor. My outburst didn't last long, pretty soon I collapsed into a powerless fetal position. I continued to go through the last ones at the bottom of the box but it took a long time, I started flipping through the books and got sidetracked. I opened a booklet with the title "The Goddess in the Labyrinth" and looked through the text. Mostly stuff I already knew, words that Dad underlined with a pencil, and nothing about left-handed magic.
The box was empty and I had a hard time keeping my eyes open. I was about to get up when I noticed an old envelope stuck to the side of the box. I picked it up and brought it closer to the light from the window. On the back was our address, the old address. I turned the envelope over, "To my little Jackie, Christmas -81" it said in red ink. I didn’t recognize the handwriting, it wasn’t my father's, even though the envelope and its contents were dedicated to me. I examined it carefully. The envelope was torn open but the contents appeared to be intact. I picked out something that looked like a folded handkerchief. With a faint hum in my ears, I unfolded the fabric until it layed fully spread out on the floor in front of me. It wasn't an embroidery, I remembered it wrong, it was some kind of stitching representing an animal head. I understood why I never dared to enter that room alone, the eyes were bleeding holes. Above it, someone had sewed sharp letters like on a tapestry:
Twist a man swollen sore
Twist him inside animals roar
Twist his heart, twist his lungs
Twist his words in his tounge
Twist a man in his horse
Twist screaming animal force
I will twist the iron wire
Until you tears of blood will cry
I didn't stay in the apartment that night. I moved out that autumn into a collective in Vårberg. I gave Dad’s things to charity. I still wake up from that dream. In the dream I stay, without trying to escape. The mountain rumbles and shakes as if thunder is coming from within it.
I crawl out of my hiding place behind the rock. The darkness does not come from the woods or the night sky, it comes from the trojaborg. Pours out of it in a swirl, counterclockwise, toward the horse's body in the opening. The horse stands up. The darkness beams through it as it throws its head back in a scream. It opens its eyes and the darkness swirls out of them straight at me. I feel the blood crush my veins as Earth slows down and starts spinning in the other direction.

I'm sorry. I've been having a rough couple of days; I can't stop thinking about you. I hope you're doing well, and your family is too.
A year ago, I knocked on your door and waited for you to open it. I was nervous, like it was our first meeting. After what felt like a lifetime, you opened the door and greeted me with that beautiful smile. I remember looking into your amazing green eyes. The butterflies in my stomach vanished. I hugged you, and just like that, I felt at home again, with the woman of my dreams, the love of my life. You looked incredible, and I was so proud of you. Being with you made all the pain, depression, anger, and frustration I had been feeling disappear.
If I had known that was the last time I would see you, I would have held you and never let go. I messed up that night. Despite how good it felt to be with you, I was still mentally and emotionally broken and shouldn't have been using substances. I'm truly sorry for ruining that night and for all the ways I've hurt you in the past . I was young and stupid, and I never meant to cause you any pain.
I can't change the past; what's done is done.I hope you can accept my apologies and forgive me.and if ever given the chance i promis to make it all up to you The way things ended between us was really hard for me. It felt immature and hurtful, especially knowing how deeply it affected me. I don't think I deserved that. It's made it hard for me to heal and grow. I know I would've been doing so much better if things had ended differently. I've spent so much time hurting over you. I wish you hadn't given up. We could be by each other's side, facing life together. It would mean the world to have you back in my life. I miss my friend.
Everything is so different now. I hate that you're not in my life. My heart is still in pieces, pieces I'll likely never be able to put back together. But it's not too late; we can still work things out. I'm here if you need anything. Truly, anything. Let me know; you know I’m always here for you. I'm so proud of you. I'm holding onto hope that you'll reach out soon. I love you and miss you more than words can say.
I'm sorry for this post being all over the place. I don't want to post any more letters like this. I just hope I get the chance to tell you how I feel in person soon.
V.A.R

Inspired by Josh Davis's reflection, I wanted to express my gratitude to the Guild Wars 2 team.

An old game

Today I noticed a small text line on the login screen, in the upper right edge. It said "2012 - 2024 Anet". That made me remember how old GW2 is. Yes, there are older MMOs, but that doesn't diminish this achievement. It’s commendable to keep a game and its community THIS healthy for such a long time. Obviously games go through a lot of change over time and I am thankful that GW2 remains fun and keeps my brain occupied for hours even after almost 2000 hours of playtime - and I am usually NOT that kind of player!

Change is hard

As with all things, change is inevitable and often painful. SotO had it's growing pains, just like every expansion before it. But to still see such a dedication where other devs might have given up and started to milk their playerbase, Anet still feels like they put players first.
Josh's message reads the same to me. It came across as very human. It wasn’t just about what went well but also about what needs improvement. And the wording felt like it was not just PR talk but a genuine desire to improve the game.
I think that is a great prerequisite for change. Additionally, him mentioning that improving the team's working conditions as one of the priorities is great! A studio that respects their workers usually respects their audience, too - and definitely more than a studio that doesn't.

Less is more

Many players expect constant, extensive content that’s rewarding, approachable, and balanced. This is an unrealistic expectation that only leads to disappointment. Yes, SotO has its flaws, some major. But there have been good things, too.Even the harshest critic must must admit that the Astral Vault was a great addition. I'm optimistic that, even if future changes might be disappointing, something good will come out of it, too.
The team is aware of that (see the letter). And I think their plan to scale it down is a good sign. I much prefer less content with more substance. Many things were half- or even quarterbaked in SotO, but it seems they intend to change that in the next expansion.

Use what you have

Especially now I think it would be stupid to not use what is already there and try to recycle as much as possible (in a meaningful way) to be able to have more resources available for a more finished delivery. Anet's approach to reuse existing maps for achievement-chains has always been a brilliant tactic. It keeps older maps lively and let's us deepen our relationship with already established locales and gets us swept up in some meta event. It is a huge win-win in my book. I was surprised they did almost nothing of that in SotO. I'm hopeful they will do differently in the future.

Slow and steady

A strength of Anet's writing has always been their slower approach to unfolding narratives. We got to know characters like Kasmeer, Rytlock, Taimi or Braham over many years and that made them memorable. They kinda missed that opportunity with SotO and while it makes sense to introduce new characters with any new storyline they could've leveraged our familiarity with existing characters more and I am hopeful by what is implied in the ending of SotO that we might get to see more of the familiar cast in coming seasons. I hope they will take their time and focus on a few well written characters instead of a large ensemblestaggering the introduction of new characters over time.

The bottom line

All in all I enjoyed SotO in a casual sense. It didn't consume me, it didn't wow me, but I think that's okay. I had many hours of fun. I like what we got and it outweighs what we lost or didn't get, and while we won't get everything we want and will be baffled by some decisions, I choose to meet those moments with goodwill. Considering the scale of the team and how little money they must make with Guild Wars 2 compared to other MMOs we can always want many things but shouldn't be surprised if our demands aren't met.
I hope Guild Wars 2 will keep on feeling like a second home for years to come.

My name is Marcos Conner. I am a citizen of the United States of America, and I am now exercising my 1^st Amendment rights to their fullest extent to ask my fellow Americans if they want to create the best government in the world. Should you want that to happen, share this video with the people you trust as soon as possible. Should you not want to help fix our broken government, then allow me to try and persuade you.

The relationship between an individual and the community they live in is best visualized as an old, decaying home. Termites and time have hollowed out the walls and beams. The foundation is cracked. The family that live on the inside is having a huge fight at the dinner table, and they’re so busy screaming at each other they have failed to notice our government is committing the worst atrocity in the history of the human race.

Bar none, the destabilization of the Earth’s climatological, ecological, and agricultural systems will go down in our brief history as the government that broke the world. We are talking about casualty estimates in the billions of people.

And if you think that’s hysterical instead of historic, or that you might know some authority figure that claims they don’t know about it, you don’t. The guy known as the clime science godfather, James Hansen, a former NASA director, believes that an 8 to 10C degrees increase is already baked in. For reference, most other scientists believe that modern life, with all it’s distracting luxuries, will cease to function at 3 degrees of warming. We have already overshot by almost 200%, and we’re still breaking carbon emission estimates. The US military, to include another authoritative source, also believes that we are unprepared for the brutality of climate change. This is our hottest summer ever, it will likely be the coolest one for the rest of our lives.

And that’s just the climatological Armageddon, something distantly related to the socioeconomic problems that plague us. We have immense inequality in wealth, quality of life, and state-individual relations. For each of those three inequalities, the subject matter and nuances would be enough to fill several books, so we can’t cover everything. The only statistic that can drive home just how unfair the economy is the one about inflation as it relates the bottom 90%’s wage increases from 1979 to 2020. The inflation over that time period was 256.5% while the wages of the bottom 90% of our citizens rose just 28.2%. Costs rose 2.5x while wages rose .28 Life got incredibly more expensive, but wages didn’t keep up. And it’s not just income either, the top 10% hold 93% of all stock wealth.

And that’s just the economics of it all. The political system is really the third point that makes this argument into a digital-psychological trident capable of poking you in the prefrontal cortex. Our political system doesn’t work for us anymore, it works for the corporations & the hyper wealthy. That’s the Harvard chair of Ethics giving the presentation. In the largest study of legislature bills ever taken, the scientists found no correlation between public support for a bill and the probability that bill would pass. Zero. The only things that correlated with bills passing was the amount of money behind it.

And that’s just the political hijacking part.

Well I say we take back our government. I say we invoke the Article Five, we call a Constitutional Convention), and we create the best government ever. I say we fire all the politicians in one swoop, and bring in an entirely new democratic system that draws form the world’s best governments. By emailing our reps to call for a constitutional convention, we can demonstrate our full support of the only possible course of action that results in the best outcome possible. If the United States of America all got together because of a single, exponentially explosive essay brought hundreds of millions of people together and created the best government, to me, that is the single biggest win in recorded human history. Full stop and reread that last sentence.

Do you want to help me save the world, to guide our species through a single day’s worth of collective attention and communication, or do you want to remember this moment with regret for the rest of your life. It is likely the only time you will come across the trail of someone with this much intensity, calling for a solution with this level of beauty.

I’ve done 90% of the work already. We build a republican government that pulls from the Dutch, Scandinavian, and Swiss governments. We decriminalize drugs and tax and regulate them. We incorporate politics and technology to facilitate the expression of our collective free speech and free will. We incorporate some of Swiss gun traditions to hold owners more accountable and make us better shots. We split profits from organizations three equal ways: capitalists, workers, and government. We radically increase selective immigration to densify our foot print and avert fatalities climate change related deaths. We create a branch of the military for climate change. We plan a terraforming meeting and plan how to best, consciously alter the Earth’s climate systems.

No other opportunity I’ve ever seen gets close to the one where the entire community of American citizens trusted one of their own. And if you deny me, I hope you don’t regret it, but I think you will. Because I might look like an idiot, and I might fail in the crucible of attention. But there is a chance where this works. Even if the odds are one in infinity, at least for a brief moment there existed the possibility of peace on Earth. At least, for one iota of time, we came to work together.

The choice is ultimately up to you, of course. You have to accept that our government, economy, and society are broken. And that is a scary thing to admit; but once you do, once you can feel the hope buried in these letters, well, I imagine that you might start to hope a little too – and maybe trust a little too.

Marcos

(Illinois) My husband was let go from his executive level technical position at a small private company. The CEO simply stated “she’s going a different direction” and didn’t say another word, the HR person then took over the meeting. We’ve been very fortunate and this is both of our first times encountering being let go from a job.
My question is, is there any pushback allowed and/or is it worth consulting with an attorney? He has been an executive with the company for 4 years and was given 5 weeks severance, which seems low to me (a coworker of his was recently given 12 weeks). The term letter also failed to mention his retirement account and phantom stock.
I don’t mean to sound entitled, but I want him to get everything he deserves for putting up with an unimpressive CEO for as long as he did. He was never given feedback that he needed to improve his performance, and his team hit their numbers as expected. Thanks in advance for any input.

Long story short I was born into a very dysfunctional family, where I was put last in anything and my opinions or thoughts never mattered. I was the black sheep and always had a toxic relationship with my family, and so I cut ties and left when I turned 18. And I moved to another state.
I built a pretty good life when I left and I even found a woman that I love and I’m happy where I’m at. Yesterday my girlfriend called me and told me that I got a handwritten letter in the mail, and that she wanted me to see it. When I got home I read it and it was from one of my sisters talking about how they are and how my nieces and nephews have grown a bit and how they miss me and would like to meet up and catch up, and they even sent a recent family picture they took. I don’t know what to do here.

Hi ! Mike Morrice, Member of Parliament for Kitchener Centre here.
As many of you know from recent updates, I’m continuing to advocate for the federal government to follow through on its promise to deliver a new benefit that could lift people with disabilities above the poverty line.
I’m posting today to share one way you could help me in this advocacy.
Here’s some of the backstory: 41% of those living in poverty in Canada are folks with disabilities, while only making up 22% of Canadians have a disability.
To address this injustice and reduce poverty significantly, the disability community has advocated for many years for a federal disability benefit that would supplement provincial and territorial programs to bring recipients above the poverty line.
And they’d made progress. Back in their 2021 election platform, the Liberal Party promised to introduce this benefit to “reduce poverty among persons with disabilities in the same manner as the Guaranteed Income Supplement” – a $15 billion annual program that delivers a maximum amount of over $1,000 a month.
Yet, when the Liberals were re-elected, they were slow to act on this promise. My team and I started working alongside the disability community to apply pressure right after my election, starting by presenting Motion 48, a petition with 18,000 signatures calling on the government to fast track the creation of the Canada Disability Benefit (CDB) in early 2022 (coverage of this here: https://rabble.ca/human-rights/broad-support-for-new-canada-disability-benefit-puts-pressure-on-liberals/), and a cross-party letter signed by over 75 MPs across party lines.
It worked. By June of last year the Canada Disability Benefit Act passed unanimously in Parliament, but decisions about most elements of the benefit (like the final amount recipients would receive) were left to the closed-doors regulations process that followed (more on this from The Record here).
Then, finally, this past April the federal budget was released and it included a proposal for the CDB – but it was deeply disappointing.
They’ve proposed an entirely insufficient benefit, delayed until July 2025, and limited to folks who manage to qualify for the incredibly burdensome Disability Tax Credit (in clear violation of an amendment my team and I secured requiring the benefit to be barrier-free). Worse still, it only offers $200 per month, leaving our neighbours who rely on ODSP for their sole income $10,000 below the poverty line annually.
This is all in direct opposition to what the disability community has been calling for (especially disheartening considering the government repeatedly pointed to the need to consult people with disabilities as the reason for delay), and in opposition to the Liberal party’s own promises.
I gave this speech in Parliament the day after the budget came out that sums up the situation: https://youtu.be/3ZvhF7f5edY?si=t3grCXpsd3L5g0IY
Here’s how you can help: one way we can keep pressing for better is by putting forward a new petition to outline the calls of the disability community, which is what my team and I have worked with disability leaders from our community to do, including Councillor Chantal Huinink, the initiator for the petition.
I’d be thrilled if you would consider signing. While we’ve already met the minimum of 500 signatures required for me to present this petition in Parliament, and the government is only required to respond in writing 45 days after presentation, I’ve learned that the more signatures a petition gets, the more likely the media may pick up on it and the more pressure is applied on the government.
You can find the petition here, It’s open to any Canadian resident of any age.
Please also consider sharing this petition with friends and family. Because it’s a Parliamentary petition, your information will not be shared with any political third party. The petition will remain open until next June 21, and I’ll then present it when Parliament resumes in the fall.
If you’d like updates, feel free to follow me on other socials (@morricemike on twitter, IG, FB, and TikTok) or sign up for monthly email updates here: Meet Mike Morrice (mikemorricemp.ca). You can also find the full list of open e-petitions I have available for signature (currently four) here: Search - Petitions (ourcommons.ca).
Thanks for your consideration. Feel free to share in the comments if you have questions about the content of the petition!
----
TL;DR
I’d appreciate your help applying pressure on the federal government to fix their entirely insufficient proposal for the Canada Disability Benefit.
People with disabilities deserve better, and here’s a video where I share more[ about why this is such a significant issue.](http://%20about%20why%20this%20is%20such%20a%20significant%20issue./)
If you agree, please consider signing and sharing the petition here: https://mikemorricemp.ca/fixthecdb/

I'm going through some psychological mania and psychosis and have been for a few years now, so my actions have been very brash and impulsive since it started in 2021. I have a couple of questions. The first question is will, since my violation is most likely coming up at my probation meeting on the third, bringing in a letter from my psychiatrist assist in any of the impulsive behaviors that got me into this violation situation in the first place?
Some background from the incident. I was put on curfew probation when I started about 6 months ago. My charge was relegated to probation because 1, first offense and 2, the schizo-affective diagnosis I have from my doctor was also taken into account. Do the counties matter in jurisdiction, such as one county will be more strict than another, here in Arkansas?
Anyway, I violated curfew and was caught speeding because I felt guilty about being out past curfew so I was speeding home and got a criminal speeding ticket and obviously I'll be seeing my PO and told me PO about it the next day so we'll be considering what will happen to me, whether jail, revocation, or simply a more restrictions on probation. I understand in Arkansas there's some leniency with a violation if you only have one but after that you're entering into grey area and dangerous territory for revocation.
I have a good job and am doing great at it, are these things that are considered in these situations?

I am 30 y/o F. My dad (we’ll call him "Dick") is in his 60s. My mother ("Joan") died about 6 years ago. My mom was an alcoholic and a diagnosed narcissist. Life with her was traumatic and I've been in therapy working through everything I experienced as a child and young person. It wasn't a good situation, but we had money so our lives were envied by my parents' friends & relatives and appeared "perfect" to the outside. It was not--far from it.
So back to my mother's death... Immediately following my mom's death, a woman my dad knew from his youth (we will call her "Marie") suddenly inserted herself into his life. They are the same age. They hadn't communicated since they were both 21 yet she randomly showed up at my mom's funeral after seeing the obituary in the newspaper. It was apparent from day one that Marie was blindly in love with my dad and likely had developed this idealized, romanticized version of him in her head over the years. As a result, she overlooked a lot of red flags I think she otherwise would have picked up on. She's a pretty smart woman--I'm honestly shocked she hasn't figured this out on her own yet. Love is truly blind sometimes.
Marie's husband had also died a few years before my mom. I do not doubt she loved her first husband but she has openly admitted that my dad was "the one that got away" and that she always thought of him over the years. On the other side of this, I never heard her name mentioned over the years--not even once--and the only time he did reference her was when he told an embarrassing story about her when I was a teenager (without saying her name.) After meeting her following my mom's death, I realized the story was obviously about ~her~. He made her sound like such a fool at that time and even rolled his eyes while telling the story about her. Following the funeral, she moved in with my dad and eventually, it became "romantic." Recently, they married. I was not at the wedding, nor was I invited. (I had already gone no contact with him by that point.)
To everyone on the outside, my dad is a "great guy." The REALITY is that my dad has a decades-long history of fraud, manipulation, enabling, and living a secret double life as a gay man. Marie has no idea about ANY of this. Truly, if she knew even a fraction of this she would not be with him. Honestly, it would break her heart. Dick has truly mastered the art of lying and manipulating people that it's difficult for most others to spot. I can see his nonsense from a mile away because I lived with the man for 20 years and I know how he operates. Before things got bad, I tried to tell Marie some stories about my childhood and my parents' relationship to gently drop some clues that my dad was NOT the man he seemed to be, but each time I tried my dad would magically appear from another room and our conversations went another direction. (we live like 5 hours apart by car so it's not as though I was able to just show up at their house when I knew he wasn't there to tell her these things alone.) I did confront him privately about my concerns about his past, his sexual orientation, and not being truthful with Marie about any of this, but he wasn't having it. He then had an adult tantrum, lied some more, and then didn't speak to me for a few weeks. A few weeks later, we both attended a pre-planned family event and he just acted like nothing had happened and that all was fine. It was my breaking point. Following this, things got so ugly (meaning I was trying to hold him accountable and he wouldn't acknowledge anything) that I decided to go no contact with him permanently. We haven't spoken since and I am honestly fine never speaking to him again, in fact, I think I prefer that. There was A LOT more going on that caused me to go no contact, but I'm not going to get into those details. Just know that it was NEVER just about his relationship with Marie or him being gay--not even close.
My dad's history (just since I was born and became aware of things) includes getting caught for embezzling a few hundred thousand dollars from his business, losing his job due to his employer discovering his crimes, losing our house to his employer to repay what he stole, accepting a bribe to lie under oath in an unrelated trial, losing his real estate license for fraud, and other issues like this. On a more personal level, he enabled my alcoholic & narcissistic mom constantly. As bad as my dad probably sounds right now, my mom was so much worse. He allowed her to drink and do whatever she wished to me, even when her actions should have landed her in jail. I suppose from Marie's perspective, all of this could be forgivable on its own, but the fact that he's completely dishonest about it with her is my issue. She simply doesn't know about any of it and has only been fed his carefully crafted lies. He's also flipped all of this to make it seem like our "falling out" was due to something I did, not his own behaviors. Then there's his sexual orientation... She would NOT be okay with this if she knew. There's just no way considering what I know about her that she would ever knowingly be in a romantic relationship with a gay man, probably not even a bisexual man. She's much more conservative.
My dad comes from a moderately religious Catholic family. However, there are a few members of his family who are openly gay and have been open about it for decades. Nobody in the family seems to be homophobic and have been very welcoming of his gay cousins. I understand that older generations sometimes have different experiences with coming out, but to be clear, his family is NOT homophobic and would accept him regardless of his sexual orientation. After my mom died, I actually kind of felt happy for him because he could FINALLY live a more authentic life even if he didn't come out to the people in his life and just quietly lived as he wished. Then Marie showed up at the funeral and he saw it as a new cover for himself and he ran with it. I don't doubt that he cares about Marie as a friend and companion, but he cannot love her the way she wants and deserves to be loved by a romantic partner. Oh--after him & Marie moved in together, they promptly sold his house and moved to a town with a very well-known gay community. Coincidence? Nope. He made it seem like it was just a charming little town, but I know exactly why he picked it.
I've known my dad was gay since I was like 12 years old. As a child, I would go on our family computer to play games. He is a bit challenged technologically and didn't seem to grasp the concept of a browser history. Over the years, I was CONSTANTLY exposed to the porn sites he left open, explicit chats (exclusively in gay chats), messages with men to meet up at local "adult bookstores" for sex, and just other stuff a kid really doesn't need to know about their father. LOL! In all of the years that I experienced these things over and over again, NOT ONCE was there even ~one~ image, website, message, or anything sexual about women--it was exclusively men. My mom even openly told me when I was like 19 that they were not "intimate" with each other. (cringe! TMI!) He even had a few long-term boyfriends over the years, one actually came on a trip to Europe with us. He even opened a side business as a "hobby" that catered exclusively to gay men. This stuff continued up until the last time I was at their house (right before I went no contact) when I saw he had accidentally left his secret FB profile open to his second account--his gay profile that he used to meet men. He even had photos of his face and penis publicly visible. I'm certain that even with marriage, he hasn't stopped this behavior. I am also certain that Marie does not know and is oblivious. She would not be okay with this.
That's the bulk of it.
At this point, I've been in therapy for years and I'm trying to close out all of the nonsense with my dad. My therapist suggested writing a long letter to him to confront him about his behaviors, their treatment of me, and then move on with my own life without him. Like saying my peace and freeing myself of it. My concern is this is heavy, heavy stuff. I don't want to destroy him or his life, or Marie's, but this is so wrong on so many levels. Should I send the letter calling him out? I have no plans to publicly out him, just to confront him in the letter which seems inevitable that his wife Marie would probably see... Ugh!!!
I will do my best to answer your questions and give updates. THANK YOU!!!!!!

~First~
Harriett The Spy AND HHH/Herbert’s Hundred Harem
Thankfully after the first two levels Harriett had a few code words to call out for the next ones that had the people trying to stop the elevator either leaving, turning their backs or outright apologizing on the way down. As they arrive on the bottom Harriett receives a text and smiles at the sight of it. “Good news people. They just tested their Blood Metal samples. The substance goes dormant when under Null effects.”
“Thank god.” Doctor Gin lets out a breath and everyone relaxes ever so slightly. The issue had been bubbling up, but no one had been voicing it. “Does it’s tensile strength change? Is it simply metal at that point or does it begin to fall apart or liquefy?”
“Hold on.” Harriett asks sending the message back. In a few moments they have an answer. “Substance becomes brittle but retains the majority of it’s tensile strength. Can be easily broken by hand under Null Effect, even by a child.”
“So that was personally from the big man.” Someone says and there’s some mild snorting at the nickname. “Hey uh... Boss Lady?”
Harriett turns to the trooper. “Yes?”
“When did you sign up? I didn’t think any Trets got so deep in as fast as you did.”
“Full human here.”
“No way.”
“Ran into a Continuum Nagasha woman. She thought I was sick and ‘fixed’ me.” Harriett says hefting her substantial breasts. “Downside is nothing fit for a while. Upside every person and scanner they have are now easily fooled into thinking that I was just as surprised as the rest of them that humans were a thing.”
“Go figure.”
“Yeah, it was when I was transferred from Admin into Intelligence, Sir Philip just saw too good a chance to pass it up. Same with the shrimp.” Harriett says.
“Hunh, so why do we never really see you around?”
“I spend ninety percent of my time infiltrating the insane and inane cults and conspiracies of Centris. When I’m on the ship I’m grabbing more supplies, sleeping or being debriefed.”
“What about the other ten percent?”
“Two percent is me on the actual ship, the rest is me goddamn relaxing after being fifty different people in so many hours and just getting my head straight with some good food and me time.” Harriett says.
“Makes sense, so what can we expect?”
“Level one of Xiona is mostly abandoned. There are numerous ‘homeless’ people but no gangs. All Lady is literally too big to ignore and too strong to stop. As a power she’s very new to the area, but no one was able to stop her and everyone dumb enough to attack her was either crammed into the elevator like a sardine in a tin or thrown away so far and hard they left a stain where they landed. The only threat is All Lady herself, but she’s... well no one knows how she’s reacting to anything. The knowledge she’s been literally impaled by blood metal and effectively always pregnant and mourning the loss of her own children puts a lot of the behaviour into understandable territory.”
“So why do we need troopers again?”
“Men plan, gods laugh.”
“I really don’t think Lady Bazalash or Rikaxza want us to fail helping this poor woman.”
“You know what I mean, don’t be stupid.”
“Just trying to keep things calm. Cool it.” He says and she turns to regard the man. “How about those homeless? Are they violent?”
“They weren’t to me, but I was alone then. No idea how they’ll react to a large group. Let alone an armed one.” She replies as the elevator dings as they reach the bottom floor. “Come on ladies, lets roll.”
“I think you’re the only girl here.”
“Fine then, until the mission is over your my harem if anyone asks.” Harriett mocks them as the door opens and they’re suddenly face to face with a small army of Council Soldiers that heard that. “Hello, excuse us we’re on our way to deal with the big problem down here and Tiaria has been dealt with. Just head home for debriefing.”
“What was that about a harem?”
“It’s called humour, look it up. Excuse us. We have a mission.” Harriett says leading her group out. “Be ready with your weapons on the way up. The next nine levels are all gang territory but are smart enough to back off from a massive shootout for no profit.”
“How do you know this?”
“I’ve scouted out a good chunk of this spire personally. Get going and so long as none of you shoot first in a standoff you can get to the top without anyone getting hurt.” She says before pausing. “And if someone on level six says their little brother is hurt and trapped under rubble, it’s a con and if you go out you will be jumped if you leave the elevator.”
“They won’t damage the elevator?”
“They need it and no one wants to be in charge of calling for repairs or repairing it themselves.” Harriet says.
“I’m sorry, who are you?”
“Agent Harriett Dubois Undaunted Intelligence department. Anything more is going to need an NDA. Now if you’ll excuse us. We need to meet up with our missing man and more besides.”
“What else more.”
“Ask your employers and they’ll ask Herbert. Now, move.” Harriett orders and the crowd parts.
“What happened to our target Miss Tiaria?”
“In custody, please excuse me.” Harriett says before a woman in power armour with a pointedly bent railgun steps in front of her.
“What. Happened.”
“I blew my cover and restrained her before having her transported to a holding cell. The woman’s been involved in more than our current concerns and we were already taking a look at her for those other reasons.”
“You were the secretary but... you...”
“You don’t look closely enough at the staff to begin with and I can change my hair colour and style in seconds with a wig. Couple that with a new outfit, some makeup and contact lenses and I can be any Tret woman alive if I want to be.” Harriett says easily. “Now, move. Direct order.”
The woman in power armour stands aside as everything shifts further out and the Council Forces turn to try and see what’s going on. Several buildings break apart and inside is an entire ocean of dark blue gel that parts to reveal an enormous man walking up a set of stairs from below.
As he clears the building it pulls itself back together and a single door is opened behind him with a tendril emerging before bulging out to become the shape of a woman in dark blue.
Jurgen walks up and snaps off a salute. “Ma’am. Good to see you all. How are we going to help this poor woman?”
“First off we need a preliminary examination of the injury. We need to know whether we’re doing organ surgery, stitches, brain surgery or something more. Or all at once.”
“That last one is most likely.” All Lady says plaintively. “Have any of you worked with Slohbs before?”
“We have. Each of us have...” Doctor Gin begins to answer before abruptly turning and glaring at the approaching Council Forces who freeze. “Did you not hear what the commander said!? Get back to your bases and await further orders! There is less than nothing you can help with beyond making things more complicated, and while I may appreciate a challenge, doing so with a patient’s life on the line is beyond the pale! Leave!”
They scramble towards the elevator and Doctor Gin looks towards Harriett. “Honestly I expected them to look to you for authority.”
“Oh this is the galaxy of daddy issues that could have ANY way.” Harriett says.
“I’m going to want the story from that.” Jurgen notes.
“How about we get to examining the patient first!?” Doctor Gin demands and Jurgen puts his hands up as All Lady titters. “Lady, where’s your damn core!?”
The building behind them cracks open again and he just stares. “Are you fucking kidding me?! You, Adept...”
“Lloyd...”
“Adept! Come on! You are going to be making the holding platform for her core while she’s Nulled so we’re going to need you to know how to make one that’s comfortable and properly supportive to prevent discomfort or harm.” Doctor Gin says walking forwards.
“Comfort and support... generally that means a woman isn’t pumping in enough Axiom.”
“Oh trust me, without it they’re needed. I’ve got mine reinforced to the point it can stop bullets.” Harriett says and Jurgen mostly holds in a snort.
“I’m going to sit down before it goes off. I’m not sure if I can even stay standing without Axiom at this height.” Jurgen replies.
“What? But your human and...”
“Remember? Oversized humans lie in pain. It’s called the square cube law. Twice the size is eight times the weight.” Jurgen says and All Lady just stares at him.
“So... you’re going to go through it with me.”
“Not the getting cut itself but...”
“Can we please see the patient’s core? Or am I using well wishes and prayers rather than scalpels and sutures?!” Doctor Gin demands as he cuts off the moment with vicious prejudice.
“Right, yes. The sooner you begin the sooner my life can... well I will never be the child I was before, but I will have more choice and opportunity in my life than the current madness.” All Lady says and the broken open building bulges out and a torrent of dark blue gel. It pools at the feet of Doctor Gin before bulging and then retracting somewhat until it’s as thick around as an aircar. Then the blue fades to transparent and his eyes widen at the sight of the cratered part of the woman’s core. He pulls out a small and powerful flashlight out of his pocket and shines it directly onto the injury.
“Get a medical tent started, Adept take your measurements. Doctors Howard and Lorn, I need your opinions.” Doctor Gin orders and people start moving. The soldiers start pulling out large amounts of material and being setting up a medical area as everyone starts moving. A tendril of All Lady’s examines her injury next to the doctors. “Lady move to the side, I have questions and I need to be allowed to touch you. Do I have your permission?”
“... Will it hurt?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I need to touch you.” Doctor Gin says. After a few moments the gel on the core pulls away and the entire crater is nearly dry. Gin pulls out latex gloves and puts them on carefully after handing off his flashlight to Doctor Howard. “Tell me if it hurts, let nothing back and do not be shy. The more I know, the better I can help you.”
He then slowly, gently and with incredible caution puts his gloved hands overtop the veins of darkness that have spread over her core. Feeling it out before silently cursing. He pushes it ever so and All Lady sucks in a pained breath and he stops. The entire system had moved as one.
“So... the metal has gown. In all likelihood we will need more than one operation to get this all out of you.”
“But you can get it out?” She asks.
“Yes, thankfully it seems to be going over areas dedicated primarily to digestion and not any nerve cluster. Meaning that this is quite literally not brain surgery. There will still be complications. We need to test how quickly the local Axiom stabilizes after being Nulled as well.” Doctor Gin says as he traces the veins of blood metal spreading over her.
“It feels...”
“Yes?”
“It feels like it’s about to hurt. If you touch me any more firmly I’m going to...” She says and he nods.
“I understand. We have chemical anaesthesia appropriate for Slohb anatomy. I am trained in it’s full use, Doctor Gin here is a master surgeon and neurologist and Doctor Lorn is an internist and hematologist.” Doctor Howard states and the tendril of All Lady nods.
“So... you an anesthesiologist, so this won’t hurt, Gin is the main surgeon and Lorn is about complicated things and blood?”
“In essence.” Doctor Howard says as Doctor Gin continues gently feeling things out before All Lady gasps in pain.
“There we go. Move the light a bit, the dimensions of the injury means I might be able to get a look...” Doctor Gin says and Doctor Howard does so as he leans very close. “Hmm... not good. Most of this nightmare is not on the more delicate organs and protrusions. But this part, as well as this, this and this. Very delicate. We will need to focus there first because it’s where things are at their worst. If we stretch this out into several surgeries with recovery time between them we should be able to have this handled in short order.”
“That... that’s good.”
“However there are issues, we don’t know if you’ve grown dependent on this nightmare, are possibly uniquely allergic to our anaesthesia and have a very, very short window to operate each time. Not to mention there’s also the fact that whatever this nightmare has done to you might be permanent. You could still wind up budding uncontrollably regardless of our efforts.”
“I’m fine with that.”
“Good.” Gin says. “Howard, give her a sample of the anaesthesia for her to examine. Slohbs can tell if something is bad for them and cut if off themselves and... WHERE is the medical tent already? Are you idiots trying to make my head explode over here!? AND YOU! Adept! Work your woo-woo and make me a god damn surgical bed for the poor woman! You’re not here to look pretty you hideous sad sack!”
“Is he always like that?” All Lady asks.
“Only when he’s awake. The man’s extremely dedicated to his job and takes personal and deep offence at anything standing in his way of saving lives. You’ll hate him, but he will save you.” Doctor Lorn says before pulling out a kit and uncapping a vial. “Now Madam, I need a sample of your Gel in order to make sure things are in good shape on that end before we put you under and pull out the tools.”
All Lady pours a small amount of her gel into it and he caps it off with a smile. “Thank you, I’ll get started right away. You’re going to get better.”
“You got all this together so quickly.” All Lady says in wonder.
“That’s the upside to being part of a team. Everyone pitches in.” Jurgen notes.
~First~ Last

Hi there! I’m 26, CST, and female!
no smut.
Message me with your age, timezone (US Timezones Preferred), what plot you’re interested in, and a sample of your writing if you’re interested!
Partner requirements: must be 22 to 38 years old - Must play male - write in third person - 2+ paragraphs - must be able to post once a day - Discord Only. - NO asterisks for actions.
Your own ideas are welcomed! Super into enemies to lovers and/or love triangles right now.
I really want to do something involving a mermaid. No specific plot or anything right now, happy to discuss it though!
Also would love to do something ACOTAR inspired or Hades x Persephone, also check out ‘The Contract’ and my mafia plot ideas!
Cool, cocky/confident characters only. I am not interested in shy/reserved/soft/etc.
Alien x Superhero This is meant to be sort of Avenger-ish with aliens not being liked on Earth. I was thinking maybe your character is one of the heroes against the whole aliens being on the Earth. There’s a march being rumored to happen where aliens wanting to gain citizenship and demand the end of their races being killed. What your character doesn’t know is that his beloved girlfriend is an alien (my character). She’s a shapeshifter type that’s been sneaking out of the house lately for meetings concerning the march.
Rivals I have a few ideas for this one. One resolving around two college aged adults going to the same college, their parents are mafia rivals. Slowly they fall for each other before finding out who they really are, or even an arranged sort of marriage that ties both families together and ends the rivalry... just for a little while.
Arranged Marriage: Looking for a more modern to almost futuristic kind of setting. Our characters being forced to marry each other due to a war ending or some other sort of treaty. I would be more than happy to also have some fantasy elements in this.
The Selection: Basically a slightly futuristic twist on the BacheloBachelorette. One prince or princess comes of age and must go through an event called The Selection where they must find love from a specific amount of contestants.
Royal Mistake: a prince from another country comes to America for school under a disguise and fake name, and falls for a regular American commoner.. It calls for big scandals if anyone finds out who the noble in disguise really is.
Fake Fiancée: Y/C and his fiancée have recently called things off. There’s only one real problem to this... He was supposed to bring her to meet the family at a huge family reunion/wedding/event of your choice. He resorts to calling M/C his college best friend or his best friend’s slightly younger sister… we can discuss that a bit more.
Fandoms: Spider-Man, Percy Jackson, ACOTAR, Harry Potter, Avatar the Last Airbender I do not play canon characters.

Hi there! I’m 26, CST, and female!
SFW ONLY.
Message me with your age, timezone (US Timezones Preferred), what plot you’re interested in, and a sample of your writing if you’re interested!
Partner requirements: must be 21 to 35 years old - Must play male - write in third person - 2+ paragraphs - must be able to post once a day - Discord Only. - No asterisks - Proper grammar and punctuation please.
Super into enemies to lovers and/or love triangles right now.
Also would love to do something ACOTAR inspired or Hades x Persephone.
Cool, confident characters only. I am not interested in shy/reserved/soft/etc.
Alien x Superhero This is meant to be sort of Avenger-ish with aliens not being liked on Earth. I was thinking maybe your character is one of the heroes against the whole aliens being on the Earth. There’s a march being rumored to happen where aliens wanting to gain citizenship and demand the end of their races being killed. What your character doesn’t know is that his beloved girlfriend is an alien (my character). She’s a shapeshifter type that’s been sneaking out of the house lately for meetings concerning the march.
Rivals I have a few ideas for this one. One resolving around two college aged adults going to the same college, their parents are mafia rivals. Slowly they fall for each other before finding out who they really are, or even an arranged sort of marriage that ties both families together and ends the rivalry... just for a while.
Arranged Marriage: Looking for a more modern to almost futuristic kind of setting. Our characters being forced to marry each other due to a war ending or some other sort of treaty. I would be more than happy to also have some fantasy elements in this.
The Selection: Basically a slightly futuristic twist on the BacheloBachelorette. One prince or princess comes of age and must go through an event called The Selection where they must find love from a specific amount of contestants.
Royal Mistake: a prince from another country comes to America for school under a disguise and fake name, and falls for a regular American commoner.. It calls for big scandals if anyone finds out who the noble in disguise really is.
Fake Fiancée: Y/C and his fiancée have recently called things off. There’s only one real problem to this... He was supposed to bring her to meet the family at a huge family reunion/wedding/event of your choice. He resorts to calling M/C his college best friend or his best friend’s sister… we can discuss that a bit more.

Warren [Last Name],
Twenty years ago, you wrote me a letter. In it you stated what a bad person I am, what a rotten soul I have and that I shall inherit a kingdom of fire and brimstone. That if you had only known me being interested in the arts was a sign of me being gay then you would have forbade my interest and that I will only ever know the feeling of being alone. You even went as far as saying you’d rather have a dead son than a gay son.
I have spent the last twenty years of my life dealing with the mental health fallout from your actions and words. I have had to pick myself up and put myself back together over and over again because of you. You have not once attempted to apologize, retract or mend.
I speak the following truth with a heavy sadness in my heart, a sadness that I understand will fall on closed ears and a hardened heart:
Look around you Warren, who’s left? Who is going to pick up the pieces for you? You have gone through this life leaving a path of destruction and profound lasting grief. You have abandoned your children, you have abandoned your grandkids, you have abandoned your great grandkid, and you have casually tossed aside the last 53 years like a spoiled child does his toys.
You keep repeating that you have done nothing illegal, but you have not once considered the morality of your actions. Once again, using your religion to mask your choices.
You are a fraud, you are a disgrace, you are a liar, you are a coward, you are a cheat.
So on your little special day, I am giving myself a gift. I am releasing myself from all the pain and suffering you have caused. I am finally free of you and your absence from my life will be a celebration.
I have no sympathy for you. I have no compassion for you. I have no love for you. May you be as quickly forgotten by all of those you have hurt as you have so quickly forgotten the mother of your children, the Honey to your grandchildren, and devout wife of 53 years.
I do want to thank you for teaching a generation of young men how not to be, and for teaching a generation of young women that they deserve better.
Enjoy being alone because you truly deserve it, and when you finally meet your creator may they have no mercy on your sad, pathetic, rotten soul. May they reconcile the mistake your existence has been, and cast you into eternal darkness.
-DH
“Be good to my kids and adore the grandchildren!! My heart is going to miss everyone so much!!” - Honey

I know this letter wont find you well, and words can never express how sorry i am to know that. Im writing this letter to you from many years in the future. Im sure you have questions and i will do my best to address them here. Before that though, i need you to know that i love you. I love you and ive never forgotten you. I know there is part of you still huddled in that closet with your infant sister clutched close to you, praying she doesnt hear the violence outside the door. Hoping that small space is enough of a haven for her.
We arent in that closet anymore, or in the back of that black wrangler. We arent locked in a room in the back of that filthy trailer. Our bruises have healed and the cuts and rug burned skin have faded away to faint scars.
I need you to hear me, when i say that none of what has happened...or what will happen, is your fault. You did nothing to deserve the agony that painted our childhood. You didnt deserve the pain or betrayal. You werent supposed to be strong. You werent supposed to be "mature for your age". You were a child and deserved to be safe. To be protected. To be loved like I love our daughters.
You are worth more than they made you believe. You are worth more than their claws and teeth in your skin. They were unworthy of your blood. Your tears. Your innocence that wolf masquerading as kin ripped from your small body. You are worth more than tear stained prayers screamed in silence to a sky that never answered. Your please for help. Your "no" and "stop" were a line in the sand that bellowed go no further and you are still worthy of all the good in this life. They did not, and will not break you.
I need you to know he died screaming. Hollow cries from an unrepentant monster. He wasnt sorry for what he did to you, just sorry his actions caught up to him. He touched the skin of a daughter whos father was more present than our own. He paid for it.
We will go through much more pain. The seasons of our life are sometimes unkind. But dont despair little girl. Dont lose yourself to the agony. There will come a day where we walk in the sun after a life time in the dark. Dont be afraid of opening your eyes and your heart when that day comes.
You will meet a man who does not have wolf eyes and wolf appetites. He will love you and our daughters with all he has. He will teach you that not all of them are monsters waiting for the right moment to rip your light away.
Please, forgive me. Forgive me for locking you deep in the recesses of my being. Please forgive me for protecting what little of you is left in me the only way i knew how. I locked you in armor built from pain and trauma. I resigned to letting you fade into obscurity because the world is so unkind to little girls. Forgive me for not seeing the error of my protection until i had a little girl of my own.
Shes already older now than when we learned that monsters are real. Shes made it further than we did. Further than our mother and grandmother before us. She lives a happy life. A stable life surrounded by a loving and supportive family. I learned to bring you into the light by having her. Together we could protect her and rejoice in the light of a broken generational curse born of pain and betrayal. Then her sister came and i knew they would have the life we never had. Both of them are now older than we were the first time we hoped we wouldnt see the sun rise again.
I know this letter will find you in a dark place, but know there is light here. There is love here. There is hope here...you just have to make it that far. It cannot rain all the time and you will find safe harbor in rough seas along the way. You will never be alone again. Remember that i love you. Ive always loved you.
Sincerely,
A mother healing
​

Like most people, I had a fucked up childhood. Who doesn't, right? My father took off before I was born and my mother was left to care for me on her own, a skill she was sorely lacking. My mother slipped right back into the drug-addled, party lifestyle she’d enjoyed before I was born and had soon turned our two-bedroom apartment into an opium den.
For the first five years of my life, I walked around in a confused, terrifying mist. The smoky air would flood down the hallway from our living room and slip under my bedroom door. It always seemed to linger for days.
I know now that my mother wasn't a bad person, just a victim of her addictions. When she did have spare money, she would put food in the house or buy me clothes from Goodwill. The only pieces of furniture I had in my bedroom was a mattress set and a little blue and white toy chest. Not that I had a lot of toys to put in it, of course, just the three I had gotten for birthdays: one was an art kit, one was a red wagon, and the last, my pride and joy, was a doll named Betsy.
Betsy was my best friend. We would have imaginary tea parties together, sleep together, and even take baths together. Sometimes, I even remember her voice.
When I thought back on my conversations with the doll in adulthood, I realized that I was likely suffering from delusions, thanks to the always present butts of smoke that laid claim to the dingy hallways and drafty bedrooms of our small apartment.
Still, I remember the sound of her voice: a pleasant, tingling lilt that was almost always coupled with a raucous giggle. I also remember the things that she said to me and the things she wanted me to do. She asked me to steal, usual food or pens and pencils. She wanted me to bring her forks and knives and hit the bad man who slept on our couch. It was always something and I would always get in trouble. But she wouldn’t. When I told my mother who had put me up to these games she would scoff and shake her head. She never believed me. Adults never do.
Around my 6th birthday I asked my mother for a birthday party. I wanted to invite the mean girls from school and serve them cake and ice cream to make them like me. I remember standing in the kitchen that day with such hopes, having just asked the most important question of my entire life. The glass bottle of coca-cola I held was shaking in my nervous hands. I waited with bated breath as my mother continued putting groceries away, almost as if she hadn’t heard me. But I knew she had. Finally, just as I had failed a second time to muster the courage to repeat my question, she turned around and gave me a flippant shake of her head.
"A birthday party? Laura, that's ridiculous, I can't afford to feed 15 children that aren't even mine. Hell, I can barely afford to feed you! You eat like an elephant, especially for a girl your size. Or, I’m sorry, Betsy does. There's barely anything left for me to eat around here, much less a classroom of other people’s brats."
My face fell as she shook her head, mumbled something else under her breath and stumbled off into the living room. I heard the music go up then as more people walked in the door. Some left, some stayed; I never knew them either way.
It simply wasn't fair, my mother threw parties all the time. What about me? I was a kid! All my friends had birthday parties and now the mean girls at school would know I was too poor to have one and they would tease me even more.
I felt tears start to well in the corners of my eyes and I choked back a sob while I ran to my room and slammed the door behind me. Betsy was lying on the bed and smiling. She was always smiling. Usually it made me feel better but today it just made me angry. She just kept staring at me, smiling. She was going to tell me to do something bad, again. This was why mother wouldn't throw me a birthday party. It was because of all the trouble I got into because of her. This was her fault! Betsy didn't have to go to school and Betsy never got in trouble like I did. And in my young mind, I truly believed it was the doll, not my mother, who was to blame for everything.
I snapped then. I screamed in indignant rage and I threw the bottle as hard as I could at the bed. It hit Betsy on her forehead and she fell on the floor. Good. I picked up the bottle and I hit her again and again. I thought I heard her laugh and I hit her harder. Then I laughed. When my rage was spent, I dragged Betsy to my toy chest and threw her in. I slammed it shut and kicked the chest against the wall; I never wanted to see Betsy again - ever.
I never owned another doll after Betsy. About a week later the police came and two nice ladies took me to live in a new home in a new state, with food and toys and no drugs. The trunk went into storage and the wagon disappeared. I never saw my mother again. As I got older, my foster parents admitted she was in jail, doing 25 years. That was fine with me; I felt nothing for her anyway. I still had nightmares because of my life with that woman. But then slowly, I began to heal. I focused on doing well in school and I ignored my mother’s letters from prison. She reached out to me several times in my 20’s, as well, but I always declined her calls.
That is, until this morning. I’m 30 now, with my own children and a loving, honest husband. I have a beautiful house, two dogs and a career as a social worker trying to make a difference for kids who had it bad like me. I’m happy, I’m steady, and I’m content. So when I got a voicemail from my mother informing me she had been paroled and that she wished to speak, decided to let her say her piece.
Since the kids were home from school I went out into our shed in the backyard to return my mother's call. The shed was the children's domain and they used it to play in the summer. I sat on my old toy chest which was currently being used as tea party table and dialed the number she had left me.
Three rings.
"Hello? Laura?"
"Hello, mother. How are you?"
"Oh Laura, thank you for speaking to me. I know you have your own life now and a family. I would love to meet them someday! I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am. For everything."
"Mother, you are not meeting my kids - ever. And since you called me, I am going to what I have needed to say for years. The opium, the heroin, they destroyed you. And the worst of it is that you almost took me down with you. I was five. That was no home for a child. Honestly, I’m surprised it took you so long to get caught."
“Laura, I know how it seems, but I honestly know nothing! Look, it hardly matters and I do understand why you would feel that way. Why you would hate me and not want me to meet your little ones. I learned a lot about forgiveness while I was away and just...oh Laura, I am so sorry about Betsy."
"Betsy?" I paused, confused. "Why would you care about her?"
“I know, Laura, believe me I do. It was all my fault, the drugs, the partying. And Betsy, oh God, if I had only paid attention, if I had only known. She's gone and it's because of me.”
As my mother began to cry, I tapped my fingers on the toy box, impatiently. The drugs had clearly fried her brain.
"Mother,” I sighed. “Why are you talking about Betsy? And why do you even care? I know where Betsy is." Right underneath me.
"What are you talking about, Laura? Oh God, where is she?!"
I shifted uncomfortably. "Well...Betsy's in the trunk, where she’s always been."
There was a beat of stunning silence.
"What do you mean your sister's in the trunk?"
"Sister? What the hell are you talking about? Back on drugs so soon? That’s a record, even for you. Betsy is a goddamn doll. I locked her in my toy box a few days before you got arrested for possession."
"Laura.. oh God, no...no... Laura, what have you done? I wasn't arrested because of the drugs, Laura, I was arrested because of Betsy's disappearance! You always called her your little doll, but we thought you knew! Oh God. We thought you knew. Laura, no, what have you done to my baby?!"
My mind had gone blank and with no emotion I set the phone down next to me and stood up. I could hear the muffled sound of my mother's anguished cries and feel the dark clutch of possibility in my own chest. Memories were stirring in the back of my mind, threatening to flood forward into my consciousness. They pushed against a door in my mind that had been locked so tightly for so long that I had forgotten it was even there.
Was it even possible? Could the trauma and the opium have really led me to believe that a small child was actually doll? Begging for food and utensils to eat with, asking me to protect her from the bad man?
No...
I slowly turned around and brought my eyes down the makeshift tea party table. Surely, it was too small; you couldn't fit a person in there. You couldn't. But then, what about a very small, starving, emaciated child? What about her, would she fit? Would an investigator even bother looking for a person in this chest? I knew I wouldn’t. It was just too small. And I was sure we had opened the toy box at some point over the years, hadn’t we? Or had something swimming in the dark recesses of my memories always stopped me? I couldn’t remember ever seeing it open. I knelt down to the ground and opened the clasps. It would be better to not look. After all that I had overcome, this new life that I had earned for myself. It could all be undone by opening this toy box. I shouldn't open it. I should throw it in a landfill and forget it ever existed. I should not look inside...
I opened the chest.
I never had a doll. My mother never could afford to buy me one. I never had a wagon either, for that matter. But I did have a toy box; a pretty, blue and white toy box. And when I was five, I beat my little sister to death and put her in it.

3 years ago I purchased my first ever condo in Massachusetts. I didn’t know much about the process so I just signed papers and agreed to everything. In my paperwork it says I have to pay a condo fee every month to the condo association. I am part of a small building with just the few owners as the association including myself. There is no management group or anything.
Well for the past 3 years everything has been quiet. I pay my fees however there was an issue with the condo bank account that caused it to close. After doing some digging on what I am entitled to as a condo owner in an association, I realized I had never gotten informed on anything I was supposed to. There was only 1 meeting in the 3 years I’ve been here. I have never received any documentation on where my fees went, what the budget is, no reports of any kind, nor had I ever seen the master insurance policy or anything related to services towards the building. I also found out that the condo association had actually involuntarily dissolved 13 years ago due to failure to file reports.
Now there are letters coming in saying the insurance is dropping the association because it hasn’t been paid in almost 4 months. I’m not sure what else hasn’t been paid either.
Was it even legitimate to sign saying I’m entering into and will pay towards a condo association that has not legally existed in over a decade? I don’t even have any proof as to where my fees were going. The only condo docs I have are from 2006.

I recently accepted a new job offer and I’m wondering whether it was the right choice.
For context, I work in marketing at a national architecture/engineering firm. Last December, my boss and I had a great review/goals conversation. She said I was on track for a promotion (which would come with a major raise, since I’d be in a new pay bracket) and promised that we could talk about it in the new year after everyone returned from vacation. It’s worth noting that she even promised to get me an intern to hone my leadership skills.
However, upon return, layoffs were announced that affected departments across the firm. My boss told me the promotion would need to hold for 5-6 months, and I was instead given a 3.5% merit raise (which my boss apparently had to fight for - she says my teammates didn’t receive any).
I was fine waiting, but months went by without any updates. Our overworked team (an internal creative marketing agency of just 8 people) has also been under increasing stress, and despite being down one employee, data shows we’ve completed 60% more work over the last two years. So we’re doing more work with fewer hands. I know I’m not the only one struggling, because other coworkers have expressed their frustration.
I also watched my boss receive a promotion and my coworker (equal to my role) receive an intern, but my boss still hadn’t said anything to me about any of my goals.
In the meantime, some friends/coworkers of mine left the firm to take higher paying jobs with our top competitor, which has been poaching team members across our firm (40 people so far). These friends had been coaxing me to join them, and finally I gave in. They passed my resume to the firm’s marketing leadership, who reached out for an exploratory interview. I hesitantly proceeded, not expecting much, but found I actually really liked their culture. One thing led to another and I wound up touring their office, and they offered me a job, which I accepted.
The salary isn’t much higher than what I make now (literally a 3k increase), but the culture and atmosphere are so much healthier than where I currently work, and I would be part of a more comprehensive, solid team (my current team is made up of “specialists” who have very unique functions, so there isn’t anyone to cover for you if you’re out).
The firm is also growing immensely and they have money to spend, whereas my current firm is struggling to meet yearly financial goals (hence the layoffs).
Earlier this week, I put my 2 weeks in and my boss immediately tried to counteroffer. She swore up and down that she had been planning to talk to me about my promotion that day, and that it would come with a substantial salary increase (probably 10k more than what I’d receive at the new place).
I held my ground and submitted a letter of resignation, and we’re on good terms, but now I’m wondering if I’ve made a mistake. At my current role, I’ve been a big fish in a small pond with lots of opportunity to grow at an accelerated pace and work alongside leadership, right out of college (I’m 25 now, been here 3 years). The new role offers more comfort and security at a larger, international firm that isn’t struggling, but I’m not sure I’ll have the same opportunities to advance my career.
Wondering what people think? Should I have heard them out about a counteroffer, or am I better off leaving?