The Saga of the Gants (Pt. 3)

The Semper Fidele, named in some heathen language or so I imagine, is no match for my ancestor's ship of course, but it is a remarkable craft I am sure. The wood panels of its deck are worn but I have no doubt this is a result of many successful missions and adventures on the part of its worthy crew. That crew though, canines, mermen, and ugh, humans could not possibly live up to the standards of their grand captain Contessa Gatti.

That woman, that beautiful jaguar Venus, surely must be the greatest captain to ever sail the Grand Line. The mere sight of her commanding her crew with such aplomb and obvious competency sets my mind alight with the prospects for our adventure. It is the very nature of her stance, her body language, her . . . Well, the first sight of her on that ship lets one know from the start that she is in charge of her crew and her enterprise. She is in charge it seems of whatever she so wishes, even I am beginning to fear, my heart. That is not to be thought of today though.

* * *

We have been sailing for a fortnight now and I fear we are lost. No matter my long training on the sailboats of my father, it has been unfortunate to find myself seasick more nights than most. The captain has politely ignored this fact but the crew are often found to be snickering behind my back. I have mentioned this to Contessa but she says there is little she can do. I begin to think less and less of this ruffian crew.

The Grand Line is more foreboding and exacting than I had at first thought and I must admit that I am a bit afraid, not just of the being lost but of surviving our strange endeavor. Luckily, I must only look to the Captain for reassurance that our quest is worthy, though expensive. Twice Contessa has requested an increase in the ship's funds, though we are still at sea. I find it puzzling but I have the utmost faith in her ability.

* * *

Last evening I was awoken by a terrible dream. This twenty third day of our voyage, still outside of land, was stressful enough without the dream but the night was broken by it all the same. In the dream I was nude and alone on a barren landscape and being chased by a foul and demonic creature. Running, ever running from it I thought my escape assured but at the last I was swept under its claws and run down. The beast, strangely, had a face like that of Contessa—that of a jaguar.

In awaking I found my subconscious prickled with the idea that in ancient times, before our intellects were developed to the point that they are today, our species were enemies and the wild jaguar the chief predator of those Giant African Ant Eaters from which I hail. This idea troubles me greatly but I cannot help but keep my faith in Contessa. She is like a light in this sorrowful storm that is our voyage so far and I will let it guide me as a lighthouse guides a ship past the rocks of a breaker.

* * *

Success! Today we saw land at last and everyone on board, even the lowly humans occupied with god knows what mindless tasks one might give them breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, no one actually doubted the Captain's skills or the accuracy of her log-posts but still, the wait on the open water was long.

Embarking on the land I was once again embarrassed to find myself seasick, though I suppose it would be more accurate to call it “land sick.” At any rate, after the longshoremen had their laughs, I was put in touch with a strange little man to arrange for provisions. This trip becomes more and more expensive day by day. So far, the great saved treasures of my line lay barely tapped but I wonder that a day might come when I must begin to monitor them. That will be a strange day indeed.

After meeting with the little man, a certain Frenchmen named Sebastian Cargot, I returned to the trip to oversee the loading of our provisions. The most puzzling sight met my eyes though as the ship was loaded and that was the fact that while great crates of supplies were lowered into the hold other crates were removed. Large and with strange lettering on them, they were removed and put into the possession of a dubious character who I am not quite trusting of but the most marvelous part of the ordeal was that the crates were loaded, one after the other, by a great bear easily nine feet tall. Wearing a small and strange had which wore a red star he tossed the crates about and threatened our ship's crew.

His accent was strange and his behavior stranger. It appears that the crates removed from the Semper Fedele contained some sort of grain alcohol and it was quite the sight to see that great and monstrous bear pull what must have been a twenty gallon drum from a crate and pour it down his throat at a gulp with a belch of what I swear was fire.

At any rate, I confronted Contessa, ever lovely in her navy blue captain's suit, and asked of the cargo. She swears to me that the cargo was merely a formality that was already aboard when she was commissioned by the du Bois, and that it would be folly to come by here and not deliver them. Of course I apologized for questioning her judgment.

* * *

Finally, the ship loaded and provisioned, it was good to get under way today and away from this foul port, even if it means going back onto the rough waters which have such negative effects on my temperament. The docks of that island, passing silently away from us, were ugly and strange but no less ugly and strange than the sights which we will see soon.

Looking over the map today with Contessa I was instilled with a great font of enthusiasm for our endeavor which was greatly appreciated. I must admit I had become a little forlorn after the dockside episodes and the already long journey, but to see the sights and markings laid out on the map made me much assuaged.

There was a strangeness though when I looked at the map and realized that some of the ink there appeared to still be damp. Putting my fore claw down on the large X which marked our next stop I was surprised to see it come away from the map with a dab of red ink there on the tip.

I attempted to question the Captain but when she noticed my puzzled gaze she did something which certainly left me in a strange state. I must admit I have never felt quite the flutter of butterflies in my stomach that she caused when she touched my chin, the soft fur of her paws sublime against the coarseness of my own hair. She whispered to me not worry and I admit there was a stirring in me that I have never felt at any but my own species.

Being a bachelor I cannot feel guilt at these facts but I am still adrift in my personal emotions. The look of her eyes as she batted those beautiful lashes at me took my breath away and as she wrapped her other arm around me and led me to the window, the soft and warm embrace pushing her bosom against me for an excruciatingly short moment was enough to sweep me away.

Pulling me to the window she pointed out into the sunset and the glittering water beneath it and asked me to imagine the greatness of the discoveries which lay before us. That of the Gants.

I cannot wait.

The Saga of the Gants (Pt. 2)

Undoubtedly, in order to set off and take hold of my destiny, that being the obvious birthright of the Giant Ant Eater clans of Africa, I was in need of a ship and a crew. My father, Lord rest his soul, had been out at the time of his death with the fastest and largest ship at the du Bois’ disposal and with him laid to rest in the family vaults I lost any chance of using a du Bois ship to find the Gants. Being the case, I sought a captain, and one worthy of my noble quest.

Her name is Contessa Gatti, and she is the captain of the ship that will one day be as famous as the du Bois name itself. As famous as any, for I, Alexander Augustino de Bois III, have set out to begin a journey that would make the likes of Homer blush. Captain Gatti has assured me of our success and it would be hard for any man to not believe her candor and forthrightness.

Captain Gatti had been recommended to me, of course, by the head butler of the de Bois estate, a man named Afred von Duesche. I had been hesitant at first obviously, as he referred to Captain Gatti as his niece and in my shortsightedness I would normally have refused his suggestion had it not been the portrait of my dear departed mother and father. That portrait, painted in oil a scant month before their sudden deaths, hangs in our prolifically ornate study with the books and scrolls that have been collected throughout the ages of this line and it is as if at times they are there to guide me on my most noble endeavors. I knew at once, looking up into their faces there above the mantle, full of glory and candor, that I must at least meet this feline woman before I passed judgment on her abilities.

Upon meeting the Captain I was still uneasy, it must be said. She was rather young after all, much too young to be an experienced seaman, or so I had presumed at first. Captain Contessa Gatti told me that she had retired extraordinarily early from the navy when she had been offered the most honorable title of Rear Admiral before leaving the service. Assuring me that she escaped that role as if it were a prison sentence, it was hard to disbelieve her. To the Captain it seems, there are too many regulations to be followed in the service and she seeks the freedom of the sea above all else and the loyalty of her crew a close second.

I must admit that I felt a kindred spirit with Captain Gitta as she confided all of this to me. There has never been a day that I was not proud to be a du Bois but there had perhaps always been a small, lingering part of my boyhood that screamed to me to cast away the expectations of my family name and seek my fortune on the open sea. My true home I always knew must lie there, just as it did for my great, many times great, grandfather. The Captain had done in her remarkably short and illustrious life what I never thought I myself could, until now. She was indeed an exemplary of her kind and a shining example to such an ideologist as myself.

I was honestly struck the moment I saw her magnificent ship as well, the Sempre Fedele, docked idly in the harbor at my first sight of it. Captain Gatti clearly took great pride and consideration in the care of her ship as she surely did in every other facet of her life.

The crew of that ship though . . . That most eclectic crew of the Sempre Fedele was perhaps the greatest shock of my day. I understand that it is a different day and age than the times of my great, great, many times over great grandfather Alexander but really, to employ such unsavory folk would have started just the sort of scandal then as it does now. Never in my life have I been in the presence of such classless people as those she employs on this ship.

Even with the word of Captain Gitta behind them and the entire crew's obvious competence, I have to force myself to accept them. I wonder what my father would say if he could know even now that his son will have three humans and an aardvark in his employ. His willing employ, and believing them skilled. I shudder at the thought. Perhaps the rest her crew, made up of fine, upstanding merpeople, felines and canines alike will be a good influence on the less desirable members of that party, but I am not so sure.
Captain Gitta has returned to me after a short time of commiseration and with her plotted course to get to the island of the Gants. She claims she is knowledgable of them and I was eager to see the chart, making some adjustments to them of course. I was very impressed with it though, especially when she told me a human had mapped this out!

I laughed when Captain Gitta presented me with the humble budget for our voyage, though. Surely she thinks me a pauper and has provided the barest of estimates. I insisted of course, and at the earliest chance, that we should at least double it in order to facilitate the ease of our journey.

At that occasion though it was that the brilliant Captain suggested more that perhaps a greater investment of funds could help to even better finance the expedition! I have the fullest of confidence in Captain Gitta and thus I have poured all of the du Bois liquid funds into the Sempre Fedele and her crew, humans and all. I await with bated breath the outcome of our glorious expedition.

There is no doubt, of course, that I should be the leader of such a remarkable endeavor.

The Saga of the Gants (Pt. 1)

My name is Alexander Augustino du Bois III, but you may call me Alex just as my parents did, may they rest in peace and enlightenment. I come from a long and illustrious line of du Bois and today I am the last of them, sent on what many call a fool's errand by the long forgotten transcripts of the progenitor of my family, the originally famous du Bois for which I was named, Alexander Francisco du Bois, II, may he also rest in peace and enlightenment beneath the stars of our world.

The du Bois family, as you know, is the most illustrious and magnificent of the Giant Ant Eater clans of Africa, that land far away from these places I have traveled these many years. I miss my Africa dearly but lately I fear I am destined to see it no more. Though I long to be as great as them, I fear that the line of du Bois And Eaters will die with me, alone and unloved in a land where none have heard the tales of my clan's victories and defeats, tragedies and triumphs.

But those tales are of long ago, when we were many, and today we are the one, so I will move on to the tales which I may tell myself. Though of less magnificent adventures as yet, they are surely worth the telling, and sure to grow.

I am searching for Gants.

In the journals of my great, great, many times over great, grandfather Alexander, he tells of many adventures and quests but none are so great as that of the Gants. Told and retold through the years it was by the time of my birth a story long thought to be but a legend. The servants of our manse even rumored that once the great head of a Gant stood proudly on the mantle above our magnificent fire place, but no more. According to their tales (which should be taken with a grain of salt as they come from the lesser classes, choking on their air of kitchen soot and disappointment), the head was taken down by Alexander Francisco IV in a fit of rage as he shouted that he would look at the monster no more. That is was not in fact real and but a sign of the lies of our mutual ancestor Alexander.

The true story is that he took the beast down so as to not face his own failure to live up to his storied name. A name I hope to live up to.

But so the Gants were thought to be legend for many generations and as the family dwindled and our influence waned, as our lands steadily shrank and our business interests atrophied, as we were whittled down over the centuries to a small family in a house much too large for us but still kept in servants and supplies, we barely thought of it until on the day that I, the latest Alexander du Bois of the most famous family to ever come of the Giant East African Ant Eaters, heard of the death of my parents while on vacation.

My father, an avid sailor and sportsman, had taken my mother on one of their many vacations out into the ocean to spend several nights in his impressive trimaran, resplendent in the yellow and black colors of our nations flag, and had been caught unawares by one of our famous typhoons. There was nothing to be found by the local fishermen but scraps of torn yellow wood and matted clumps of gray and black fur washed upon the beach.

Naturally upset and lost of the hope that my parents might yet give way to siblings which would take the burden of my clan off of my lone, solitary shoulders, I raged and screamed and struck out at our servants and the messenger, nearly shooting him dead with my great, great grandfather's favorite shotgun of which I barely knew the operation.

Raging, screaming, I ran through our ancient home, my clawed feet rapping on the well worn mahogany of the floors, the well greased wood normally so pleasant under me suddenly rough and callous. Running and screaming, I soon found myself in the only part of the house in which I felt safe and alone, up high above our manor's fourth floor and into the attic where no one had been for decades. Walking there, in the dust and the grime, I poured my tears upon the ancient furniture and chests which there I found, pounding my fists on a particularly imposing piece of strong wood and iron which, with the wet of my tears wiping its nameplate clear, bore the initials A. F. dB. II.

My emotions having been spent and myself still in a state of unsightly shock I grabbed at the trunk anxiously, knowing the import of the letters on its frontispiece. The lid to the monstrous thing, nearly too heavy to lift, fell open and inside I found the motives for this life I now lead, having chosen it that day for good or ill.

The trunk contained the journals of my clan's progenitor and they were indeed as illustrious as I had imagined. There were many journals there and in the on going weeks and months, as I became ever more reclusive after my parents solemn passing, I became obsessed with them. Obsessed with them and with the idea of living them again, through the spirit of my ancestor. Obsessed with making my family great once more, even if it should die with me on the world's vast sea.

Of all the stories though, of all the tales of daring and discovery, I was obsessed most with a single story. That of what the first famous du Bois called the Gants.

Hideous and awful giant ant like creatures, they were said to be the size of houses and with heads as large as grand sea turtles. Sentient, they occupied a single island in a far flung corner of the world where they built incredible underground cathedrals of glass and beauty. My ancestor had encountered them by accident while landing the ship he captained on a remote island to resupply his boats food and fresh water.

The Gants, catching his shipmates off guard, had eaten ten of them and my ancestor, the great Alexander, had fought them off, single handedly slaying their leader and serving his head on a platter for the ships dinner that night. The same head he would bring the remains of back here, to mount above the fire place in all its hideous glory.

But that is where the true strangeness of the beasts became evident. The ship's crew, eating the delicious brains of the giant insect, found that they absorbed its sentient thoughts and memories. That they absorbed its very intelligence!

On discovering this they led an expedition into the wilds of that remote island and slayed many of the ants, eating them eagerly and basking in the glow of enlightenment and abundance. My ancestor, by the time of the ship's departure, was easily the smartest of creatures in this world, and by far the smartest of Ant Eaters, with his ship's crew a veritable plethora of intellect.

By the time the ship finally returned home to our beloved Africa, it had been built into one of the most magnificent, efficient, and impressive ships to ever sail the seas and covered in the most marvelous of gadgets and wonder. The Great Alexander du Bois, debarking from it, resplendent in the finest clothes ever seen in our land, led his former sailors into the worlds of business, finance, industry, and farming, soon becoming the masters of all.

So began the clan of du Bois. The clan who's name I know carry alone and which I wish to make great again. I will find the Gants and finding them, I will become the even greater than my ancestor. Once more, the world will cower at gnarled feet of a proud African Ant Eater named Alexander du Bois, and it will be me.

The Horse Hair Worm

I remember when I was a kid, maybe 8 or 10 years old, back when I still spent all my time outside wandering in the woods, I found this really crazy thing in a stream. It was about two feet long and about as thick as a hair. In fact it looked just like a long brown hair that had been plucked from a person and dropped in the stream but it seemed to be alive! I put it in a big pickle jar and watched it to make sure it really was alive and not just moving in the currents. Sure enough, it was.

My dad had no idea what it was so I took it to school and the teacher had no idea either. They passed it around to different classes and every science teacher came to look at it and everyone was puzzled but every one wanted to see that pickle jar. We looked in all the encyclopedias and biology books in the library and other teachers from other schools in town, the high school, etc. came to look at it and had no idea either. It was a marvel.

Eventually I found another one and a teacher discovered it in an obscure biology book. It turned out it was a nematomorpha, most often called a "horse hair worm."

I felt so special to have discovered that thing. Like I had confronted everyone in my childhood world with a marvel no one could explain.

If I found it now I'd know inside of five seconds what it was after I said, "OK Google, what is a long hair like worm?" into my smart phone.

Is this a good thing? I haven't decided. I've spent a lot of time the last few days, since I randomly remembered the whole thing, wondering. I can't get it out of my head. During that whole experience I spent a lot of time pouring over biology books and learned a lot of interesting stuff about the streams where I was playing. Now, finding it on wikipedia, I most likely would have thought, "Oh, it's a horse hair worm." and moved on.

If I'd even found it in the first place. In 1995 my parents bought a PC and the year after connected it to the internet. I spent a lot less time outside after that. 

You Get Used to It (Pt. 3)

So of course I try to act real quiet and hope they'll think I'm not home but then they just keep banging louder and now they're threatening to smash the door so I go open it and there, sure enough, are six fucking cops on my doorstep and all of 'em angry.

They get all crazy shouty and one of 'em puts me up against the wall and starts asking me questions like, “Where is Danny Mendoza?” and “Where are you hiding the cocaine?” and other crazy things. I've never heard of Danny Mendoza and I doubt they mean the cocaine in the box at work so I just kind of go all bug eyed and tell them that while I try not to piss myself.

Not very dignified, I'll admit.

Then I see that all the other cops are kind of confused looking and then right in the middle of the big cop shouting so loud I think my ear'll burst and his face so close I can count his nose hairs, one of the other ones taps him on the shoulder and he screams at him now, “What?”

So he tells the big guy they're supposed to be at 2150 and this is 2148. Then the main cop gets upset and starts swearing and apologizing and they're all like, please and thank you and we don't want to get sued and then guess what.

Victoria shows up in the doorway asking what's up and goddamn it if she's not holding a foot. Just playing with it like it's a toy and I'm all like, oh shit and suddenly the cops are very interested in me again.

So of course I tell 'em it's a Halloween prop. Of course, we're just getting ready for Halloween and little Victoria loves Halloween. I'm just baby-sitting, you know and I thought it would be fun to make props and I'm all mumbling and stuttering.

And then I remember it's the middle of April.

Needless to say they have a few more questions but then oddly enough, they kind of stop caring because they see the door fly open at the house next door and this Hispanic guy go running out to a car with big rims parked out front.

As soon as all the angry cops are gone I push Victoria inside and slam the door and go into my own little yelling match and of course the little girl laughs and laughs and goes prancing around the house, a foot in each hand just laughing at me until we hear a gunshot outside and we both run to the front window.

Sure enough, they got the Hispanic guy in the leg and they're dragging him back to the cop cars in front of my house and I'm praying the whole time they just go away and then, like a freaking Christmas miracle, they do. Funny thing though, when they're pulling the guy in the car he starts screaming and I can hear him from inside. He's just screaming and yelling about how his next door neighbor narced him out and how he's gonna fucking kill him and shit like that. I kind of feel bad for whoever's got that kind of shit coming down on him, but I've never met the people in the house on the other side, so who knows.

I push Victoria out as fast as I can but I grab the feet from her before she can take 'em with her and she doesn't put up much of a fight. I think of something when she's leaving though and I ask her about that thing she said about girls with low self esteem, why only they'd like me. The little shit just says, “I'll tell you when you grow up,” and laughs.

Little brat.

So anyway, I go back to play Madden but then I remember the feet again sitting there on the table, just staring me in the face like two boat anchors. Then I get an idea and I pick 'em up, go to the back alley and sneak down the street to the house on the other side of 'ol Danny Mendoza. I put the feet in that guys trashcan 'cuz hell, if he's a narc he deserves to deal with this kind of shit. Probably a giant dick too.

But yeah, after all that shit, I guess today wasn't so bad. I got some new boots, some dating advice, and I got a good feeling about tomorrow. Hope they get that cocaine thing at work figured out by then.

You Get Used to It (Pt. 2)

So of course I run back to the dumpster and I’ll be damned if little Victoria isn’t standing there with one of the friggin' feet in her hands. She’s holding it up, looking at it like it’s the most interesting thing she’s ever seen, short as her dumb little life is, she's probably right and she has the big, creepy grin on her face too, like the Cheshire goddamn Cat.

Picture this cute little eight year old girl with pigtails and little bows on ‘em with her My Little Pony t-shirt and crazy colored polka dotted socks and she’s holding a severed foot like it’s a friggin' toy doll. That's Victoria, my creepy little neighbor. She likes to bother me and follow me around and stuff and she’s always asking if she can come with me to pick up a body. She’ll either grow up to be a serial killer or a president.

I shout at her and run over and knock the foot out of her hand. She’s all like, what did you do that for, and I’m all like, what the hell are you doing picking up severed feet out of a fucking trash can? That’s when she tells me she saw me putting on the boots and wondered if she could find anything else cool in the bin too, so she came out and looked through the trash and found the severed feet, which she thought were much, much cooler than my “stupid boots.”

The little brat, she wouldn’t know a good boot if it kicked her in the butt. Course, she doesn't have to lug dead bodies around all day. Dumb thing, making fun of my boots. So I made fun of her stupid pigtails and she made fun of the fact and couldn’t get a girlfriend and it kind of hurt a little bit, but she apologized and said there had to be some girl out there with low enough self esteem and daddy issues that would think I was I catch which made me feel better, so it was all good.

So anyway, I tell her about the feet and how they were in the boots and then she starts making me feel dumb as hell because she’s pointing out all the diseases or fungus or whatever the guy coulda had and she tells me to go inside and wash my feet, like I’m some kind of dumb little kid or something. Who does she think she is anyway, my mom?

But yeah, so I get through cleaning off my feet and I come back out and she’s sitting on my couch playing around with one of the severed feet again. She starts going on about how there's not too much discoloration on 'em so they were probably severed in the last eight hours or something. Then she looks at the top of the foot where it would’ve been attached to the leg and starts rambling about how the flesh was a little jagged or whatever and that they were probably done with a dull blade and took a lot of chops. Then she starts theorizing about mob hits or gang wars or a creepy serial killer with a foot phobia and how the cops would probably be looking for whoever the feet belonged to soon and how forensics would have a field day in my apartment, whatever that means.

So she kind of convinced me I should call the cops before she leaves and I was about to until I looked at the boots again. They were, like, a really nice pair of boots. If I told the police, they would just end up taking them as evidence and they would end up just sitting in some cold, dark room, all alone with no feet to feel the holes inside their hearts. These boots deserved a good home, you know. I couldn’t just let the cops come take them away. Plus, it’s wasn’t like the guy was gonna miss them; he couldn’t wear them anymore. He was probably chopped up in more pieces in more dumpsters around town anyways, so what help would could the cops really give him. Like I said before, I live in a pretty sketchy neighborhood, dudes probably got their feet chopped off all the damn time.

So yeah, I sit down and figure I'll finish the rest of my beer and play a little more Madden before I call it a night and hit the hay. But I get this call from work and Leslie, the actual Mortician, is all in a tizzy or something about how there’s a problem with the body. Like there ain't one, and the box was just full of blocks of cocaine. Then, in the middle of Leslie screaming his head off over the phone, there’s this loud ass banging on my front door and someone yelling at me to come out with my hands up. That’s when I lose my shit all over again.

Ezekial's Train, Epilogue

Ester hears the door open from the kitchen and puts the bowl of bread dough down, listening for foot steps. “Pa, that you?”

Waiting a few moments without answer, she peaks around the corner of the kitchen door and down the hall towards the front room, curious who it could be if not the Reverend. He shouldn't be home from the church for at least a few more hours, anyway. Leaving this morning he'd said that they'd be finishing that new sign he's been talking about for months.

A slight worry creeping into her voice she shouts out as the screen door slams, “Who is it?”

Words float down the hallway toward her and she knows the voice immediately. “Hey now, 'lil girl, don't be frettin'. Is just me.”

“Zeke!”

Dropping her spoon and running as fast as she can to the door she tackles her brother, wrapping her arms around him and making him drop his duffel bag to the floor with a thud.

Responding in kind he smiles down at her. “Man, y'all must be excited to see me, huh?”

“Oh, Zeke! We all been so worried!” She chokes the words out with a mix of happiness and frustration. “Why didn't you tell you was comin' back?”

Pulling back and looking at him again, noting the colorful purple pip on the front of his uniform she sees that his face is marred by a long grisly scar which crawls its way down his neck and under his dress shirt. “Zeke . . .?”

“Ah, that ain't nothin'. Jus' got hit by some shrapnel in that 'splosion in California, thas' all.”

“But you're alive! Do papa and mama know? He's at the church and she's out buyin' groceries.”

“Nah, thought I'd surprise 'em.” Smiling broadly down at his little sister, Ezekial Thompson sniffs theatrically. “Smells like you cookin' somethin' good anyway and I'm fit to eat a horse.”

“Oh Zeke, we thought you were dead!”

Wrapping her arms around him again, tears running down her cheeks and spreading into blotches on his white uniform she clutches him tightly enough that he coughs.

“Me too, 'lil girl, me too.”

“What happened?”

“Well, you heard about the big 'splosion at Port Chicago?” She nods and he goes on as if it's a story he's told many times before.

“I was workin' the docks with the other coloreds and that's what got me. Three hundred twenty men dead, and me alive. They says if I'd a been fo' feet to the right I'd a been cut right through by that flyin' piece a iron but right before the ship blew up . . . it was the strangest thing.” He pauses long enough that Ester looks up at him again and sees that his eyes are gazing into a place far away.

“Right 'fore it all blew up I had this vision. Musta been a guardian angel but he just looked like an old white man to me. Thought he was sayin' somethin' about you, but I couldn't make it out. . . Whatever which way, wasn't for that vision stoppin' me, y'all wouldn't have no big handsome brother no more.”

“Oh Zeke, that's all that matters. You can tell us all the rest after Ma and Papa get back. You okay though right, other'n that big scar?”

“Sho' nuff. Fit as a fiddle and hungry as hell.” Picking up the duffel bag once more he moves toward the kitchen, Ester trailing behind him. “Been havin' some right strange dreams since though. Thought I'd talk to Papa about 'em . . .”

Ezekial's Train, Chapter Seventeen

The morning sun is just beginning to climb over the horizon lazily and its warm light only trickles in on the soldiers waiting in the trench. Daniel can already feel the warmth of the coming day though, even in the dimness of the trench's shadows. On the morning breeze the comforting aroma of smashed grapes wafts over him and nearly drains out the smells of gunpowder, stale blood, and unwashed bodies.

The field in which the rude fortifications lay was a vineyard in the not so recent past and in the no man's land between the Italian loyalists and his own trench there still lies the torn and twisted remains of a few grapevines, ripped apart after being carefully tended for centuries.

Sounds of men yawning and stretching, the rustling of gear and weaponry, all these sounds float up from the trench as the sun rises and Daniel stands with the others, gently placing his rifle against the trenches crude wall. Pulling his hand away from the cool metal of the gun's barrel he looks down at his it and notices the smoothness of the skin under a thick layer of grime and dirt.

There are lines on the smooth skin of his hands where the sweat has trickled down from his arms and then made snake like patterns as if tracing the veins of the arm beneath. Holding his hands out before him and staring at them, turning them over again and again, rubbing them together he sees callused fingertips and notes that they are steady and strong.

Pulling his helmet from his head he sits it atop the point of the gun's barrel and begins to take off his shirt, undoing one button at a time gently and folding it delicately and neatly to lie on the ground by his mess kit.

No one notices him as he begins to walk to the ladder facing the no-man's land. The scant few other soldiers in sight are busy going about their morning ablutions. All sound dies away and to Daniel the world is silent as he grasps the first handle. The recently and crudely fashioned ladder's wood is rough on his still too soft palms as he climbs.

Nearing the edge he stares straight ahead and thinks of Ester. He pictures her face as he lifted her wedding veil seven years from now, the tears of happiness running down her soft brown cheeks while her grin split her face in half and melted his heart and matched his own.

Smiling at the thought of that day he reaches the last step and stands on the very edge of the trench, looking out on the torn land and the barbed wire which begins maybe twenty feet away. The debris of the grapevines lie around his feet and they crunch under his heavy boots as another American notices him standing above the fire line and shouts, then screams at him in words Daniel can no longer hear.

He walks forward across the field one slow step at a time and his last thought is of Ester walking through the door earlier in the day, still beautiful despite so many years gone by, her eyes wrinkling as she smiles at him there sketching and asks him to lunch. He smiles at her in his mind as the sniper's bullet tears through his brain and paints the ground red behind him.

As the body of Daniel Christiansen, shirtless and alone on a broken field in Southern Italy, falls backward onto the torn brown grape vines the shouts from the trenches stop abruptly and the field is quiet once again.

Far away, farther away than even Daniel imagined, Mordechai watches the future change and feels acidic tears run down his cheeks. The Watchers nod and look away from him, already struggling to trace who the next architect will be.