
##1002251 Lady 's suffocating . Robert ca n't stand to have the windows down because the air blowing into the car bothers his eyes . The fan is on but only at the lowest speed , as the sound distracts him from driving . Lady 's head is getting heavy , and when she blinks she has to raise her eyelids by an effort of will . The heat and dampness of her skin give her the sensation of a fever . She 's beginning to see things in the lengthening moments when her eyes are closed , things more distinct and familiar than the dipping wires and blur of trees and the silent staring man she sees when they 're open . <p> " Lady ? " Robert 's voice calls her back , but she keeps her eyes closed . <p> That 's him to the life . Ca n't stand her sleeping when he 's not . But he 'd have some good reason to wake her . Never a mean motive . Never . When he 's going to ask somebody for a favor he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ calls back the next day and says how great it was to talk to them , he enjoyed it so much he forgot to ask if they would mind doing something for him . Has no idea he does this . She 's never heard him tell a lie , not even to make a story better . Tells the most boring stories . Just lethal . Considers every word . Considers everything . Early January he buys twelve vacuum-cleaner bags and writes a different month on each one so she 'll remember to change them . Of course she goes as long as she can on every bag and throws away the extras at the end of the year , otherwise he 'd find them and know . Not say anything -- just know . Once she threw away seven . Sneaked them outside through the snow and stuffed them in the garbage can . <p> Considerate . Everything a matter of principle . Justice for all , yellow brown black or white they are precious in his sight . Ca n't say no to any charity but forgets to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ self . Who 's that actress I like so much ? What 's my favorite fish ? Is calm in every circumstance . Polishes his glasses all the time . They gleam so you can hardly see his eyes . Has to sleep on the right side of the bed . The sheets have to be white . Any other color gives him nightmares , forget about patterns . Patterns would kill him . Wears a hard hat when he works around the house . Says her name a hundred times a day . Always has . Any excuse . <p> He loves her name . Lady . Married her name . Shut her up in her name . Shut her up . <p> " Lady ? " <p> Sorry , sir . Lady 's gone . <p> She knows where she is . She 's back home . Her father 's away but her mother 's home and her sister Jo . Lady hears their voices . She 's in the kitchen running water into a glass , letting it overflow and pour down her fingers until it 's good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fill and sets the glass down , then walks slow as a cat across the kitchen and down the hall to the bright doorway that opens onto the porch where her mother and sister are sitting . Her mother straightens up and settles back again as Lady goes to the railing and leans on her elbows and looks down the street and then out to the fields beyond . <p> Lordalmighty it 's hot . <p> Is n't it hot , though . <p> Jo is slouched in her chair , rolling a bottle of Coke on her forehead . I could just die . <p> Late again , Lady ? <p> He 'll be here . <p> Must have missed his bus again . <p> I suppose . <p> I bet those stupid corn-pones were messing with him like they do . I would n't be a soldier . <p> He 'll be here . Else he 'd call . <p> I would n't be a soldier . <p> Nobody asked you . <p> Now , girls . <p> I 'd like to see you a soldier anyway , sleeping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ around . Oh , general , do n't make me march , that just wears me out . Oh , do I have to wear that old green thing , green just makes me look sick , have n't you got one of those in red ? Why , I ca n't eat lima beans , do n't you know about me and lima beans ? <p> Now , Lady ... <p> But her mother is laughing and so is Jo in spite of herself . Oh the goodness of that sound . And of her own voice . Just like singing . General , honey , you know I ca n't shoot that nasty thing , how about you ask one of those old boys to shoot it for me , they just love to shoot off their guns for Jo Kay . <p> Lady ! <p> The three of them on the porch , waiting but not waiting . Sufficient unto themselves . Nobody has to come . <p> But Robert is on his way . He 's leaning his head against the window of the bus and trying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and had to run to catch this one because his sergeant found fault with him during inspection and stuck him on a cleanup detail . The sergeant hates his guts . He 's ignorant trash and Robert is an educated man from Vermont , an engineer just out of college , quit Shell Oil in Louisiana to enlist the day North Korea crossed the parallel . The only Yankee in his company . Robert says when they get overseas there wo n't be any more Yankees and Southerners , just Americans . Lady likes him for believing that , but she gives him the needle because she knows it is n't true . <p> He changed uniforms in a hurry and did n't check the mirror before he left the barracks . There 's a smudge on his right cheek . Shoe polish . His face is flushed and sweaty , his blouse soaked through . He 's watching out the window and reciting a poem to himself . He 's a great one for poems , this Robert . He has poems for running and poems for drill and poems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ corn-pones start getting him down . <p> Out of the night that covers me <p> Black as the Pit from Pole to Pole <p> I thank whatever Gods may be <p> For my unconquerable Soul . <p> That 's the poem he uses to fortify himself . He thinks it over and over even when they 're yolling in his face . It keeps him strong . Lady laughs when he tells her things like this , and he always looks at her a little surprised and then he laughs , too , to show he likes her sass , though he does n't . He thinks it 's just her being young and spoiled and that it 'll go away if he can get her out of that house and away from her family and among sensible people who do n't think everything 's a joke . In time it 'll wear off and leave her quiet and dignified and respectful of life 's seriousness -- leave her pure Lady . <p> That 's what he thinks some days . Most days he sees no hope at all . He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his father , and when he imagines what she might say to his father he starts hearing his own excuses and apologies . Then he knows that it 's impossible . Robert has picked up some psychology here and there , and he believes he understands how he got himself into this mess . It 's rebellion . Subconscious , of course . A subconscious rebellion against his father , falling in love with a girl like Lady . Because you do n't fall in love . No . Life is n't a song . You choose to fall in love . And there is a reason for that choice , as there is a reason for every choice , if you can get to the bottom of it . It 's as simple as that . <p> Robert is looking out the window but he 's not really seeing anything . <p> It 's impossible . Lady is just a kid , she does n't know anything about life . There 's a rawness to her that will take years to correct . She 's spoiled and willful and half-wild @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . And she 's Southern , not that there 's anything wrong with that per se , but a particular kind of Southern . Not trash , as she would put it , but too proud of not being trash . Irrational . Superstitious . Clannish . <p> And what a clan it is , clan Cobb . Mr. Cobb a suspender-snapping paint salesman always on the road , full of drummer 's banter and jokes about Nigras and watermelon . Mrs. Cobb a morning-to-night gossip , weepily religious , content to live on her daughters ' terms rather than raise them to woman 's estate with discipline and right example . And the sister . Jo Kay . You can write that sad story before it happens . <p> All in all , Robert ca n't imagine a better family than the Cobbs to beat his father over the head with . That must be why he 's chosen them , and why he has to undo that choice . He 's made up his mind . He meant to tell her last time , but there was no chance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ understand . She 'll cry . He will be gentle about it . He 'll say she 's a fine girl but too young . He 'll say that it is n't fair to ask her to wait for him when who knows what might happen , and then to follow him to a place she 's never been , far from family and friends . <p> He 'll tell Lady anything but the truth , which is that he 's ashamed to have picked her to use against his father . That 's his own fight . He 's been running from it for as long as he can remember , and he knows he has to stop . He has to face the man . <p> He will , too . He will , after he gets home from the Army , from this war . His father will have to listen to him then . Robert will make him listen . He will tell him , he will face his father and tell him ... <p> Robert 's throat tightens and he sits up straight . He hears @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ else has noticed . His heart is kicking . His mouth is dry . He closes his eyes and forces himself to breathe more slowly and deeply , imitating calm until it becomes almost real . <p> They pass the power company and the Greyhound station . Red-faced soldiers in shiny shoes stand around out front smoking . The bus stops on a street lined with bars and the other men get off , hooting and pushing one another . There 's just Robert and four women left on board . They turn off Jackson and bump across the railroad tracks and head east past the lumberyard . Black men are throwing planks into a truck , their shirts off , skin gleaming in the hazy light . Then they 're gone behind a fence . Robert pulls the cord for his stop , waits behind a wide woman in a flowered dress . The flesh swings like hammocks under her arms . She takes forever going down the steps . <p> The sun dazzles his eyes . He pulls down the visor of his cap and walks to the corner @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lives two blocks down , where the street gives out into fields . There 's no plan to the way it ends -- it just gives out . From here on there 's nothing but farms for miles . At night Lady and Jo Kay steal strawberries from the field behind their house , dish them up with thick fresh cream and grated chocolate . The strawberries have been stewing in the heat all day and burst open at the first pressure of the teeth . Robert disapproves of reaping another man 's labor , but he eats his share and then some . The season 's about over . He 'll be lucky if he gets any tonight . <p> He 's thinking about strawberries when he sees Lady on the porch , and just then the sweetness of that taste fills his mouth . It surprises him . He stops as if he 's remembered something , then comes toward her again . Her lips are moving but he ca n't hear her , he 's aware of nothing but the taste in his mouth , and the closer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , his hand goes out for the railing . He takes the steps as if he means to devour her . <p> No , she 's saying , no . She 's talking to him and to the girl whose life he seeks . She knows what will befall her if she lets him have it . Stay here on this porch with your mother and your sister , they will soon have need of you . Gladden your father 's eye yet awhile . This man is not for you . He will patiently school you half to death . He will kindly take you among unbending strangers to watch him fail to be brave . To suffer his carefulness , and to see your children writhe under it and fight it off with every kind of self-hurting recklessness . To be changed . To hear yourself and not know who is speaking . Wait , young Lady . Bide your time . <p> " Lady ? " <p> It 's no good . She wo n't hear . Even now she 's bending toward him as he comes up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brush away the smudge he does n't know is there . He thinks it 's something else that makes her do it , and his fine lean face confesses everything , asks everything . There 's no turning back from this touch . But she ca n't be stopped . She has a mind of her own , and she knows something Lady does n't . She knows how to love him . <p> Lady hears her name again . <p> Wait , sir . <p> She blesses the girl . She turns to the far-rolling fields she used to dream an ocean , this house the ship that ruled it . She takes a last good look , and opens her eyes . <p> Tobias Wolff is the author of This Boy 's Life : A Memoir . He is currently working on a book of short stories to be published by Knopf . <p> 
##1002253 The last man on Earth knew not that he was . Nor would he have cared . He had met very few other humans in his life , and none since his woman coughed herself into silence . How long ago that happened , he did not know either . He kept no count of years , nor of anything else . She lay blurred in his memory , but so did most that was more than a few days past . Day-by-day survival took all his wits and strength , such as they were . <p> She had not been the last woman . That one had died in Novosibirsk . To her it was nameless ; the crumbling buildings simply provided dens and fuel against the winters , with a stock of rats and other small game for her to trap . Her family had laired there until , one by one , sickness or accident overtook each and they became food for the rest . A brother lived long enough that his feeble attentions got her pregnant , but it was a stillbirth and she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ When she fell and broke a leg she was helpless and starved to death . The small creatures cleaned her bones . <p> The last man was likewise born in what had been a city , in his case Atlanta . He fled it when a gang of cannibals arrived and settled in to stalk its streets and hallways for meat . Several generations ago their sort had been common , but the prey dwindled fast . These few soon perished in various ways . By that time the last man was elsewhere , and thus missed the satisfaction of learning about their fates . <p> In his wanderings he came upon a girl , equally footloose . She fled , terrified . Having eaten more recently , he was able to run her down . But then he was not ungentle , and afterward she accompanied him willingly . He meant a slight added measure of food and protection . <p> She had no name and few words , which she seldom used . His childhood had been more fortunate , leaving him with some language and scraps of tradition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ until , lurching and croaking , he and his mate found a swamp . Although risen sea level brought a salt tide upstream twice a day , the water was not too brackish to drink . In and around it , fish , frogs , snakes , insects , worms , roots , tubers , and leaves furnished a meager diet if the pair worked hard at their gathering and trapping . They were unaware of the lead , mercury , and organic toxins not yet broken down . <p> Indeed , had anyone spoken to them of contamination , they would have stared uncomprehending . Plankton , krill , soil requirements , ecological balance , the food chain , its broad and vulnerable base , ozone , greenhouse effect , famine , nuclear warheads , positive feedback , mass extinction were noises they had never heard . Their world was what it was , hot , harsh , mostly parched and bare , scoured by rains that turned the rivers to mudflows and uncovered bedrock to the sky . So had it been and always would be . Once upon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Once upon a time , " and related stories of a fabulous age ; but as life grew harder and people scarcer , such tales seemed gibberish and were forgotten . <p> The girl became a woman before she really took sick -- neither had ever been healthy -- and died . Her infrequent couplings with the man had had no issue . He mourned in a mute fashion . Unsure what to do about the body , he finally dragged it behind a fallen tree at a distance from the brush shelter in which they had dwelt . Whenever he revisited the site , he would squat silent and shyly stroke her skull . In time , boggy ground and thorny overgrowth hid the skeleton , but he continued to eat the grubs he picked out of that log with a certain reverence . <p> Otherwise he lived dumb . His name and most else dropped out of memory . Gaunt , rachitic , rotten-toothed , plagued by recurrent fevers and jaw-clattering chills , he endured for years . He made crude tools , traps , snares out of wood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ find . Fire was a lost art , but on the rare cool nights he kept warm between layers of bracken . He paid no attention to the mosquitoes that beclouded and feasted on his nakedness ; as for ticks and leeches , he plucked them off and swallowed them , ignoring the festering sores where their heads were stuck . <p> In due course his skin cancers shed their seed into his bloodstream and devoured him from within . All he knew was that he felt increasingly wretched , until he could not crawl more than a few of his own lengths in any one day . <p> Yet at the end a delirious yearning came upon him . Just outside the shelter was a small boulder . He had , in fact , chosen the location because this was a convenient surface on which to crack shells and crania or split reeds for their pith . Now he crept there on all fours . The sky burned pitiless blue overhead . A cypress , dead and bleached white , offered no shade . The edge of the swamp , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . Rain had fallen during the night and a depression in the cracked red clay held a little water . The man sucked its siltiness dry . His thirst still smoldered , he was crusted and he stank , but his eyes cleared somewhat and he dragged his carcass onward to the rock . Several stones that he had collected lay around it . He took a wedge-shaped one in his left hand and a blunt one in his right . Blow by blow , he chiseled a mark into the boulder : as it happened , an X , unless it was a cross falling down . He could not have done this were the material not soft limestone , and even so , the mark was barely visible . For a spell he stared at it . The breath rattled in his lungs . He crumpled , sprawled , and breathed a while longer , then no more . <p> The undertakers sought to him , ants across the ground , insects from the air . They too had no way of knowing that this was the last man @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . The continents were more brown than they were green ; rare was the sight of silver slenderness cleaving the seas ; but the desert appearance was deceptive . Only the least hardy animals and plants were extinct . They included the larger sorts and those that humans had considered beautiful , but this was of no serious biological consequence . Bacteria , protozoa , and other microscopic organisms had always outweighed as well as outnumbered everything else alive . Some parasites and disease germs died out with their hosts , but most species found the new conditions to their advantage and proliferated . Tough , scrubby grasses , shrubs , and trees made do . Freed of their warm-blooded predators , many invertebrates underwent population explosions . Amphibians had suffered badly , but various kinds of fish and reptiles survived and started to increase . The same was true of certain birds and lesser mammals , especially rodents . Conspicuous among these were the rats . They had declined after the civilization that nourished them ceased to be , but adapted well to the wild , for they were intelligent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and moon wheeled on their ancient ways . Rain torrented , light blazed , oxygen and acids gnawed . In every crack or corner where a bit of dirt had drifted , seeds arrived , rootlets thrust forth , stalks lifted , and within a year masonry was breaking apart into finer and finer fragments . Termites and dry-rot fungi feasted for a century or more on wood , but when a house fell down it was lichen and moss , grass and thistle that reduced the harder parts . <p> Of course , much resisted . Steel-framed buildings reared as before , perhaps hollowed out but their exteriors merely blotched . The Pyramids of Egypt withstood the flood when the Aswan Dam broke and defied every weather . An explorer would have seen a few other such anomalies scattered around the planet . Small objects held on in large numbers , gemstones , goldwork , ceramics , inert plastics . <p> Time passed . Within a century the bones of the last man were gone , dissolved , taken back into nature . The mark he scratched on his headstone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chemistry proceeded . Impurities were transformed or diluted to harmlessness . The ozone layer thickened again . Excess carbon dioxide reacted with exposed rock to form carbonates . Resurgent plant life took up more . Greenhouse effect diminished and Earth cooled . <p> This actually happened rather fast . High temperatures had evaporated vast quantities of ocean water . Much of this fell as snow on mountains and the polar regions . Not all of it melted in summer . The glaciers grew . They locked up most of the water vapor that is also an important greenhouse gas . Temperatures dropped further . Geologically speaking , the new ice Age came overnight . <p> Glaciers penetrated Europe until they had buried what was left of Bordeaux , Berlin , Warsaw , and St. Petersburg . Local sheets in the Alps accounted for their share . In North America , ice engulfed the reaches once called Alaska and Canada ; the Great Lakes froze to make a foundation for cliffs sheer above the sites of Detroit and Chicago . Except at high altitudes , Asia was too dry for this , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clear , like South America apart from the Andean heights . The Pacific experienced mainly a fall in sea level sufficient to rejoin Australia to the Indonesian islands ; but icebergs often hove above the Tasmanian horizon . <p> At its mightiest , the glacier in Europe or North America bulked a mile thick . Wind whistled over its wrinkled emptiness , driving snow or a glitter of crystals ; crevasses shone a lovely mysterious blue , but the sun alone beheld . In summer at its edge , streams rushed down the cliffs and out of the caves , down to gurgle among stones , make the ground a bog , and lose themselves in the tundra that stretched on southward . Here grew lichens , mosses , now and then a tussock of grass or a clump of dwarf willows . Mosquitoes bred their billions , darkened the air and sawed lt with their whine . Then the brief season ended , pools stiffened , snow fell anew , starts crowded darkness out of utterly clear nights . <p> Interstadial periods occurred , when for millennia at a time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lay warm , mist baked out of it , life swarmed in from the south , wildflowers , berrybushes , evergreens , seeding , growing , spreading , until a forest stood with its crowns like an ocean beneath the wind and flying creatures clamorous above . But the glaciers returned , froze the woods to death , crushed them underfoot , ground and scattered further the works of man . <p> This Ice Age lasted three million years . <p> They were by no means evil years for living things . On the contrary , Gaia flourished as she had not since the Pleistocene . Rain belts , forced equatorward , quickened the deserts . The erosion that washed soil down the rivers into the seas nourished them . Meanwhile its forces weathered rock and carried in organic matter to make loam , which roots anchored . Plants and animals multiplied , died , decayed , formed humus to support a life more rich . Volcanoes and ocean trenches brought minerals up from the depths ; currents and winds spread them , microbes concentrated them , larger species used them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feet , the sky with wings . Below the tundras and beneath the ranges , forests ran from shore to shore , save where grass billowed or marshes choked on their own abundance . <p> Evolution worked onward . Species diversified , more and more as increasing fertility opened opportunities . Those that were gone never came back , but new ones took their places . Sometimes , to some degree , they resembled the old . Broadleaf trees bore nuts and fruits , flowers bloomed like bits of rainbow , creatures had descendants bigger than themselves , such features as horns or fingers reappeared . However , an anatomist would have found essential differences ; the likenesses were as superficial as those between fish , ichthyosaur , and whale had been . <p> After three million years , secular changes in Earth 's orbit and axial inclination , together with geological and geochemical action , terminated the Ice Age . The glaciers withdrew to the poles and mountaintops . The woods advanced northward and southward over the tundras . They demolished the few shards of human artifacts above ground which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and rain and frost did not finish yielded to natural acids or the microbes that had " learned " to eat otherwise resistant synthetic materials . <p> The middle latitudes kept a little evidence of man . <p> The violence of earthquake , eruption , and tsunami had brought many works low , but this was as nothing compared to the patience of weather . There were hills , though , some quite big , where burrowing animals still came upon things that nature could not have made ; in them , the soil usually had a high iron content . The Sphinx was long gone but identifiably artificial stumps of the Pyramids stood in the desolation that had encroached again after the rain belts moved back north . Early on , several tombs in the Valley of the Kings had filled with sand , which during the wet epoch hardened into stone . It preserved their contours and hints of their murals . Similar freaks of circumstance persisted in other corners of the world , far apart . <p> And then there were the fossils , not simply bones and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and petrified . They existed both ashore and at sea ; countless minor items and several almost complete ships lay deep in the silt on ocean bottoms . Other remnants were not , strictly speaking , fossils . A coffee mug , a jade ornament , a metate , a faceted diamond , or the like could stay as it was , encysted in stone , indefinitely . Not every relic dated from historic times . Strata held fugitive memories of the Neolithic , the Paleolithic , or eras even older , a jawbone , a brainpan , a flint pounded to shape by Neanderthal or perhaps Pithecanthropus . <p> Beyond the clouds were clearer traces . <p> No artificial satellite or piece of debris had continued in orbit around Earth past a century or two . Residual friction dragged them down , to flash as meteors or drift as dust . Whatever struck ground fell to the forces that gnawed at everything else . A few bits had escaped the planet , to course about the sun on eccentric tracks of their own , but collisions with asteroidal gravel annihilated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and wheel tracks off the moon . Crashed probes , abandoned vehicles , used-up robots , and discarded gear were left , untouched by air , water , or life . The stony rain wore them away , but slowly , slowly , perhaps one really damaging strike in a hundred thousand years . <p> Destruction went a little faster on Mars , which kept a wisp of atmosphere and was nearer the asteroid belt , but only a little . Jupiter had almost instantly reduced all that reached it , and Venus had done so within decades . <p> Time passed . Occasionally during the next thirty million years the ice advanced , but never very far , and each retreat went deeper back . At last none remained except on Antarctica and the tallest mountains . Swollen , ocean drowned many islands and coastal plains . Otherwise it was benign , the source and guardian of climates that held steady from tropical rain forests to the mild northern and southern fringes of the continents . <p> Life forms evolved , had their day , and yielded to successor breeds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some radiated into fresh kinds while some kept virtually unchanged for periods that ran into the hundreds of millions of years . From the rats arose creatures that grazed , creatures that preyed on them , creatures that took to the air and became raptors more fearsome than any bird . One branch of the rat family went into the trees and developed hands of a sort . Certain among these returned to the ground and grew large and brainy . None ever put fire to use nor any tool more complex than a carefully chosen stone or a stick sharpened with the teeth . Another branch became aquatic and gained flippers , but the truly gigantic sea beasts were originally birds . <p> A variety of Octopodidae got to outliving their own procreation , and thence to caring for their young and a lifespan that lengthened as generation followed generation . Ultimately there were beings whose tentacles worked rock , shell , bone , and coral . They had language , although its symbols were gestures and color changes . They hatched ignorant and weak , but learned from their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ societies which practiced religious rites and subtle arts . Yet being confined to salt water , they never went technologically beyond their equivalent of the Stone Age . One by one , in different manners around the world , their cultures adapted so well to local conditions that innovation ceased ; caste systems congealed ; the biography of an individual was predetermined within narrow limits and in elaborate detail from the egg to the disposal . Having abolished natural selection for itself , intelligence atrophied . The species grew less and less able to cope with any change in environment . Twelve million years after it came into existence , it was extinct . To be sure , this was a considerably longer run than humankind had had . <p> As for the vestiges of that earlier race , geological vicissitudes pursued them . A river would change course , a land mass rise or sink , a fossil come to light and thus to erosion . For example , a set of footprints was once laid down in muddy ground that got covered over and lithified as shale . After @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . Rain filled the prints , algae greened the puddles , the stone flaked and crumbled . In less than a century it had completely lost those traces left by the shoes of George Washington . <p> A few things stayed entombed and lasted immensely longer , fossilized tools or teeth , roadbeds or graves . But the planet querned . Crustal plate shifted ponderous about . When Africa sundered from Asia , the marks of the Pharaohs disintegrated . North America , colliding with northeastern Asia , raised a mountain chain and ground every token of man in those parts to molecules . Seabed relics slipped down subduction zones to be cycled through moltenness . So it went , while the years mounted into the billions . <p> No living things witnessed the end . Since first it condensed from primordial gas and dust , the sun had been brightening . Temperatures on Earth kept remarkably stable . In part this was due to chemistry and physics . More heat evaporated more water , much of which recondensed as clouds and deflected sunlight . Rock exposed by falling sea level @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gas , carbon dioxide , and bound it . Life was a potent force too . Plants tied up their own carbon , which often stayed in place when they died , were buried , and turned into peat or coal . Plankton exuded substances that contributed to cloud formation . Animals helped maintain the balance , cropping vegetable matter and each other lest one kind overrun the world . <p> Yet at last the input became overwhelming . The tropics steamed dry , wildfire consumed their jungles and savannahs , scorching winds blew the ashes off and left hardpan desert . Soon the higher latitudes went the selfsame way . Vertebrates died rapidly beside the vegetation that had sustained them ; the toughest insects hung on for a span ; finally the microbes succumbed . <p> Primitive , sorely depleted life lingered in the oceans , but not for long . The concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere passed a critical point , and a runaway greenhouse effect set in . The seas began to boil . It took a little time , but by one billion A.D. Earth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ultraviolet photons that split them apart . Their hydrogen escaped to space , the oxygen united with materials below . Carbon dioxide , roasted out of limestone , stoked the furnace further . The planet did not quite change into a twin of Venus , but the difference was trivial . <p> Volcanoes continued to vomit huge quantities of water from the mantle . It too was lost . Deprived of that lubricant , plate tectonics ground to a halt . Besides , the radioactive elements whose energy had driven the process were giving out . <p> You could not say that continental drift ceased . Lacking oceans , Earth really had no more continents , just massifs in the basins . Unblocked by ozone , actinic radiation spalled them ; wind sanded them ; sometimes a large meteorite smote them . Without water , oxygen , and life , erosion went very slowly . Even after four billion added years , a few mesas stood above silicate wastes . A few rocks contained a few fossils , including bits of degraded organic matter that an observer who knew what to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ <p> When the seas departed , the sun and moon generated less tidal friction . Earth turned more leisurely than aforetime , but it did not go into locked rotation with either body . The distance of the moon varied according to the interplay of celestial mechanics , now greater , now lesser , but it neither crashed into the planet nor wandered free . By five billion A.D. meteoritic bombardment had completely , unrecognizably mingled all human-fashioned things on it and on Mars with their regoliths . <p> That was the approximate time when the sun left the main sequence and swelled to gigantic size . Surface temperature declined until it shone red , like a dying coal , but the whole output was monstrous . At its greatest radius , it ate Mercury and Venus and filled almost half the sky of Earth . The globe glowed , sand fused into glass , the last faint fossils melted and the last biotic molecules broke into their olden elements . <p> Now the sun collapsed . It ended as a white dwarf , hellish hot , its mass crushed into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ toward oblivion . But this is epilogue and incidental . Nature had already erased from the Solar System every spoor of humanity . We might as well never have been . <p> Many light-years away , on widely divergent courses , Pioneer 10 and 11 , Voyager 1 and 2 , and perhaps some small sister spacecraft fared among the stars . <p> Poul Anderson is the author of such classic novels as Brain Wave , Tau Zero , and Three Hearts and Three Lions . His next novel , Fireball , will be published by Tor Books in the spring of 1993 . This is his first appearance in Omni . <p> 
##1002254 " What were those dull bonks I heard this morning ? " <p> Jason and Mopsy had just come down to breakfast , and I threw up my hands in mock dismay as she put that old , old question to me . <p> " Why , Mopsy , do n't tell me you have n't read my travel articles ! Shame on you ! Those were the famous thudding church bells of Viborra ! ' Thunk , thunk , thunk , ' they say . ' Welcome , Mopsy ! Welcome to Viborra ! " <p> The poor girl went pink and the dining hall of the PanLupus Hotel erupted into good-natured laughter . The diners laughed and the waiters laughed and so did Ugo , the jolly old elf at the buffet table , who was sprinkling a bit of this and a bit of that into his tangy and oh so scrumptious herring paste -- a Viborran delight called huegma . <p> Nonresonant church bells ? Freshly pounded huegma smeared on warm buns straight from the oven ? Romantic moonlight rides in circular boats not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with unfamiliar vegetables on display -- so knobby and streaky ? Narrow cobbled streets ? Bargain belts -- and purses too ? Great fun at breakfast ? <p> Well , yes , and these are just a few of he joys awaiting the traveler who finds his way to this lovely old colonial city nestled in a sapphire cove under a cerulean sky on the Sea of Tessa -- known locally as Da Magro , or " the Burning Sea . " <p> We had arrived the night before on a high-wing Tessair Fokker -- I and my new chums , Jason and Mopsy Crimm . With my port-of-entry know-how I soon had us cleared through customs -- a painless business on the whole . The Crimms were dazzled by my moves as I pushed in ahead of others , jumping this line and that one . With a wave and a knowing wink I steered them quickly through all the control points . There was one awkward moment , when the Propriety Officer caught sight of Jason 's hideous jogging shoes . But then the officer -- doing a priceless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and comfy on long flights ) , and the poor man was all but speechless . <p> " Chick Jardine ! " he sputtered . " Winner of five gold Doobie Awards for travel writing ! How I envy your powers of description , sir ! " <p> After that , as you can imagine , the city was ours . <p> This brings me , however , to my one teeny caveat for you folks planning your first trip to Viborra . Be advised that the Ministry of Fitness and Propriety maintains a Vigilance Desk at the airport . If the duty officer there perceives you to be a lout , rich or poor , he will assign you to the Morono Palace , a magnificent hotel for louts on the eastern beach , or mud flats , just across the Bal River from Viborra proper , regardless of any previous arrangement you have made . As a registered lout ( stamped thus on your visa in luminescent orange ink -- LOUT ) , you will be somewhat restricted in your movements , to the eastern beach and to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nimmo , or the Plaza of Louts . You will also be fitted with and made to wear an orange plastic wristband for ready identification . <p> But not to worry . The guests at the Morono Palace have loads of fun in their own way , and prices are considerably cheaper in that district -- particularly on belts , yo-yos , fishnet tank tops , heavy woolen shower curtains , and tortoise-shell flashlights . You can even watch these unique torches being made in ancient workshops , where the delicate craft of shell-routing is jealously guarded and passed on from father to son . And the central dining hall at the Morono is a show in itself , with its famous rude waiters cavorting comically about in striped jerseys as they insult the guests , and with its Morono Mega-Spread , a free-for-all salad bar 188 feet long . Then , blazing and blaring atop the Palace , there is the legendary Club Nimmo , reputed to be the world 's loudest nightclub , with music and hilarity and flashing lights twenty-four hours a day . <p> " No , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ caught her making a move toward the bud vase on our breakfast table . " Smell , but do n't touch . That delicate white blossom is not so innocent as it appears . That , my dear , is an artu flower from the volcanic highlands , and it exudes a toxic alkaline resin that can blister the fingers . A defense mechanism , you see . " <p> It was all coming back to me , remarkably enough -- a torrent of Viborran memories and lore , on this , my first visit to the old city in many years . I thought how lucky the Crimms were to have scraped acquaintance with me , for I seldom reveal my identity to ordinary people on my jaunts around the world , knowing and hating the fuss chat always follows . My helpful tips to less experienced travelers are strictly confined to my prizewinning magazine articles and my widely syndicated newspaper column , and when I hear star-struck people murmuring around me ( they having spotted my trademark turquoise jacket ) , I go all deaf and ignorant . <p> @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gravitate to one another . In our chat on the Fokker it came out that Jason and Mopsy , far from being ordinary , had appeared on the covers of nine popular financial magazines in the past year , posed in front of their restored Victorian house , with expensive new silvery cars parked in the driveway . Mopsy showed me the most recent cover , and an amusing photo it was , too . Jason , his arms straining under the load , is standing behind a red wheelbarrow that is filled and indeed spilling over with documents representing his sensible budgets , wise investments , and long-range tax-planning strategies . At his side is our little gamine , Mopsy , with a sheaf of CDs and tax-free municipal bonds spread fanwise and peeping out ever so coyly from her bodice . She confided to me , with pardonable pride , that of all the grinning young couples ever to appear on the covers of these magazines in front of their restored Victorian houses , she and Jason were judged to have the least-blemished shutters and the most beautifully complacent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worth knowing , and the feeling was mutual , to put it mildly . Can you picture the scene at the airport when the officer spilled the beans -- that I was award-winning syndicated columnist Chick Jardine ? The Crimms were addled with delight ! <p> It also turned out that none of us was paying for any thing . Plane fare , hotel rooms , meals -- all free . I never pay , on principle , as a guest of the world , and the ever-calculating Crimms , who read forty-one financial newsletters each month , had managed to get in on the ground floor of something called the Ponzi Travelbirds , through which society , as Early Birds , they will enjoy free travel for life , at the expense of all Late Birds joining the club . Need I say it ? My kind of folks ! <p> After breakfast we were off for a day of adventure under the azure vault of the sky , with yours truly acting as cicerone . We clambered up the winding stone staircase to the topmost battlement of the old @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our way down narrow cobbled streets to the Thieves ' Market , and we took a bus ride to the Crispo Lupus Windmill Plantation . There is little to see on that barren hilltop -- a tangle of copper wire and seven or eight rusting steel towers with broken windmill sails . Not one watt of electricity was ever generated by the project . But I knew this little excursion would be a treat for the Crimms . Back home they could entertain their friends with the story of how they had ridden on a ramshackle bus in a tropical country -- with pigs and chickens aboard ! <p> We inspected the bushes at the National Arboretum , running mostly to prickly , grayish xerophytic scrub . We toured the Arses Lupus Mask and Wig Factory downtown . We admired the slavering ferocity of the women gnawing on leather ( to soften it ) at the Arses Lupus Belt and Purse Co-op . We descended ( watch your head ! ) into the dark , dripping dungeons of Melanoma Prison , now a horror museum complete with shackled skeletons artfully laid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of that infamous hole you will need a candle , on sale at the reception desk for fifty pilmiras . Luckily , I had my own penlight , and the alert Crimms neatly got around the fee by exchanging some little foil-wrapped bricklets of butter ( lifted from the hotel buffet ) for their candles . <p> Then once again out into the shimmering light of day , and under a sky of that heartbreaking shade of delft blue you will find nowhere else in the world , we took a pleasant stroll along the bayfront promenade . We ate flavored ices and watched the children clubbing rat fish in the shallows . <p> Jason was fascinated by the Viborran coins , light as fine pastry . ( Even the money is fun in Viborra ! ) I explained that they are minted from a curious alloy of chalk and aluminum , or actually baked , on greased sheets , in government kilns , and that , unlike all other coins in the world , they float . The 500-pilmira pieces are particularly buoyant , and these huge gray discs are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a dusty surface somewhat like that of a butterfly 's wing . This creepy feeling or quality of dry slipperiness is held in great esteem by Viborrans , and they have a word for it -- rhampa , which translates not only as " free of asperities " but also as " charm , " " magic , " " felicity , " " a leap of the heart , " " brutal cunning , " " inner certitude , " or " a sudden white spikiness , as of a yawning cat 's mouth , " according to context . If you wish to say " Thank you " or " Is it not so ? " or " Beat it ! " or " The bill , please , " you can never go far wrong with the all-purpose phrase " Ar rhampa palayot , " delivered with a servile bob of the head . <p> " Our free tub ride ! " Mopsy cried out , as she looked at her watch . " It 's almost noon ! Are we far from the tub docks ? " @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her against using such derisory terms as " tub " and " bucket " around the fishermen . These proud fellows do not laugh at jokes about their small leather coracles -- called moas . Mopsy had her coupon ready . Through clever booking -- all their trips are planned in detail a year in advance -- the Crimms had received from Tessair a free bottle of skin lotion and a book of valuable coupons , one of which entitled them to a free moa ride in Viborra Bay on any weekday before noon , between April 20 and December 5 . <p> Hearty singing told us that the fishing fleet was coming in -- and with a good catch ! The little round vessels , painted in soft pastel colors and decorated with painted human eyes , gyrated and jostled against one another like bumper cars at the fair as the men struggled to bring them in against the current . Steering a moa , or indeed making it go at all , in a particular direction is a difficult art to master . <p> And noon is not , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moa out into the Burning Sea . The sun at meridian is a fearful thing in Viborra . We paddled frantically and our goatskin craft kept spinning around and around in place . There was no breeze . Stinging sweat blurred our vision . ( But nights can turn cool in Viborra , so be sure to pack a sweater or light wrap . ) Still , you must make the effort , because the only proper way to see the Melanoma Memorial is from the sea . <p> This is a colossal equestrian statue of the late President Eutropio Melanoma , rising up against a cobalt sky at the end of a long mole , or breakwater . Fabricated of ferro-concrete on site , and standing as high as a nine-story building , it commemorates the long rule ( more than forty years ) of the beloved old President . It is a robust , lumpy work ( what one art critic has called " the apotheosis of portland cement " ) , and a grand tribute to the man 's political genius and " The Year of the Edict @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Year of Decision . " The horse is rearing up in a fine capriole , and the presidential sword ( giver of victory ) is pointed out to sea . A black rubber raven ( bird of prophecy ) is perched on his shoulder . <p> The old President was elected over and over again by acclamation and is still fondly remembered here for his disheveled hair and clothing , for his dramatic and alternating acts of mercy and cruelty , and for the mischievous teasing of his ministers , some of whom he made give their reports while running alongside his moving Packard , with the window glass only partly rolled down . He also undertook to teach lawyers humility , giving his Supreme Court justices the choice of working for three months of the year in the nitrate mines or serving for three months on road-repair crews , wearing red vests and flagging traffic . <p> At the Cafe Tessa , a waterfront bar where dissident jugglers and poets meet to grumble and conspire , you will hear that it was the old man 's simple tastes in food @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people . One of his favorite amusements was to prowl stealthily about the grounds of the presidential mansion with a garden hose , squirting water on cats and servants , and taking gopher colonies by surprise with sudden inundations of their little underground apartments . At night , after a light supper of a single warmed-over bean cake , he liked to retire to the ballroom for an hour or so of running his fist up and down the white keys of a piano . <p> Something of a prodigy , Melanoma consolidated his power early on , as quite a young man , by disposing of all likely claimants to the office of chief executive . His father and his infant sons he garroted personally . With his brothers , uncles , and nephews , for whom he felt less natural affection , he was more severe , condemning each of them to a protracted , popeyed death in leather harness , dragging ore carts out of the nitrate pits . But he had overlooked someone in his planning , and so the Melanoma era came to an appalling , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his only legitimate daughter , Arses Melanoma Lupus , plunged a white-hoc poker into the sunken belly of the ascetic old man . The puncture was mortal . Arses 's husband , Crispo Lupus , then succeeded to the presidency , after a brief scuffle with guards on the veranda of the mansion . <p> Elderly firebrand poets at the Cafe Tessa , whose subsidies were sharply cut back by the new administration , will tell you that Crispo Lupus lacks rhampa and a masterly hand ; that he neglects his duties ; that he is not a man of bold strokes , of deeds you could sing . They say he does nothing but fool about with his hunting birds , leaving the much feared Arses in full and very active command at the mansion . Under the Lupus regime , the poets say , the people of Viborra have actually become shorter and uglier , and everybody 's hair has gone all gummy . Whatever the truth of the matter , it is certain that Lupus has never captured the hearts of his countrymen in the way hat Melanoma @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the listings in the telephone directory were alphabetized . <p> Anyone can direct you to the cafe Tessa , which is situated near the base of the natural rock pinnacle known as the Needle of Desolation , and just around the corner from another downtown landmark , the Arses Lupus Black Pavilion , or the Dark Hall of the People . This very modern structure , with lots and lots of darkish glass , is something of a barren shaft itself , rising up in bleak splendor under the gentian bowl of the sky . The thing fairly takes your breath away , and in Chick Jardine 's humble opinion there is nothing in New York to touch it for sharp angularity of line and blankness of aspect . <p> It is here , in the spacious atrium of the Hall , that Carnival season begins each year with the auction of public offices and preferments . Nimmo Lupus , the playboy son of Crispo and the imperious Arses , presides over the bidding in the red silk robes of Grand Chamberlain , to which is affixed the golden sunburst badge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these state occasions by his youngest son , Bungo Lupus , a cute toddler , who , all decked out in a little policeman 's uniform , sits dozing on his father 's knee . One frequent bidder told me that he took the limp Bungo at first for a dummy ! The poets say that Bungo has the same weak eyes as Nimmo . <p> So -- Carnival in Viborra . Should you go ? Yes , but be prepared for something a little different . The revels in Viborra proper are nothing at all like those in Rio and New Orleans . There are no gala parades or balls . The people simply go out at night wearing dog masks or dog helmets and mill about in darkness and eerie silence . They take measured steps and move in slow tidal fashion up and down the narrow cobbled streets . Now and then they stop and look at one another , nose to nose , without speaking , rather like dogs , for some little time . And when the shuffling stops -- such stillness ! The ceremony , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I have been unable to find out when or how it started , or just what the point of it is . The Long March of the Dogs , they call it , though there is no canine friskiness about the thing ; it is really more like a shambling procession of cattle . Bring comfortable walking shoes . Leave your dog helmets and dog masks at home , as they will only be confiscated at the airport . Only those made in Viborra ( with longish snouts ) and certified by the Central Committee can be worn in the March . <p> Things are livelier , of course , across the Bal in transpontine Viborra , where , every night at midnight , there is the celebrated Stampede of the Drunks , around and around the Plaza of Louts . It is not for everyone , this stumbling , boisterous race , but to say you have run with the international drunks on the River Bal -- well , take it straight from Chick Jardine , few travel claims confer more prestige these days . Your application for the Stampede @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fee , must be made to the Central Committee six months in advance . <p> All other events are open to the public . Everyone ( with orange bracelet ) can join in the frolic around the fountain and in the reflecting pool and along the narrow cobbled streets radiating out from the Nimmo Arch . Wear casual clothes . Beware the melon ambush . Take care when rounding corners or you are likely to have a watermelon or some rotten and unfamiliar vegetable smashed down on your head -- with what seems to me unnecessary force . Stay well clear of those roving gangs of hooded urchins who call themselves the Red Ants ; they will seize you and gag you and truss you up and scrawl Red Ant slogans across your belly and then toss you about on a stretched bull hide . Keep a sharp lookout for boulders and burning tires rolling down the hillside streets . There is a certain amount of capering around bonfires . After the first night the streets are littered with putrefying vegetable fragments . There are one or two deaths each night @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recent years the season has been spoiled a bit by nightly typhoons , which are sometimes followed by predawn tsunamis . The poets claim that something has gone wrong with the prevailing winds , and they blame the unholy Arses and her practices in necromancy . Despite this , the merrymakers still come in swarms , and I must caution you that there is a lot of shameless overbooking in Viborra during Carnival . You may be forced to double up in your hotel room with unsavory strangers , and sleep in shifts . " Hot bunking , " as we call it in the trade . Three years ago , I am informed , the Morono Palace was so jam-packed with louts that the hotel itself subsided eight : and a half inches into the mud . <p> Poor Mopsy was ready to drop . it was just after one in the morning and we were weary and stuffed . We were fairly waterlogged with oysters . But we still had a gratis supper coming , and the dining hall at the Pan-Lupus did n't open until 2:00 A.M. ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Viborra before about 2:30 A.M. This by way of showing you do not have to rise early . ) <p> What to do ? Fighting off sleep , and determined not to be done out of any meal that was due us , we gave each other playful slaps and dashed cold water in our faces . We went to the bar to kill some time and found it filled with English travel writers in suede shoes and speckled green suits . What a scene ! They were laughing and scribbling and asking how to spell " ogive " and brazenly cribbing long passages of architectural arcana from their John Ruskin handbooks , which are issued with their union cards . <p> " Look , that sod Jardine is here too ! " one of them shouted . Then he and the others came crowding around , seething with bitter envy of me and my Chick 's Wheel of Adjectives , a handy rotating cardboard device , which , at $24.95 , was such a super hit with the travel journalists at our winter conference in Macao . Mopsy feared for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heaped childish ridicule on my cluster of lapel pins , tokens of numerous professional honors . A serene and scornful smile soon sent them reeling back in confusion . <p> We left them there , stewing in resentment and muttering over their pink gins , and ac two on the dot we were standing first in line outside the dining-hall doors . From campaniles all over town the bells of Viborra were striking the hour , with paired thuds and thumps of slightly different pitch . I was explaining how these strange dead bells are cast from a curious alloy of pumice and zinc when Mopsy silenced me with a raised hand . <p> " No -- listen , " she said . " Those -- bells . They seem somehow to know we 're off tomorrow on the morning Fokker . They seem to be -- saying something . " <p> " But I do n't understand , " said Jason . " How do you mean , Mopsy ? Just what is it they -- seem to say ? " <p> " Those -- sounds on the wind . @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they seem to say . ' Come back , Mopsy ! Come back , Jason ! Come back , Chick ! Come back to the sparkling shores of the Burning Sea ! Come back in time to a more gracious and all but forgotten way of life in the enchanting old city of Viborra nestled snugly in a sapphire cove ' neath the vast rotunda of an indigo sky ! " <p> 
##1002256 A major supporter of Black art and culture , Johnson Publishing Co. has supported Black writers by publishing young writers in Black World magazine and in the books of the Johnson Publishing Co . Book Division . The company continues that effort in the Gertrude Johnson Williams Literary Contest , which awards $10,000 in prizes every year for the best original short stories . The contest , named for the publisher 's late mother , is designed to stimulate interest in writing and to raise the level of consciousness and hope of African-American writers and readers . " We at EBONY , " Publisher John H. Johnson said , " have noted the relative scarcity of Black writers . We want to encourage the abundance of talent we believe exists . " The 1992 winner , reprinted here , attracted wide attention . The author was Mary B. Smith , a schoolteacher who lives in Elkins Park , Pa. , with her husband , Snowden . They have three children . <p> Mrs. Brown , the terror of the eighth grade , had just finished testing her last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a lanky , molasses-colored boy appeared . On his head sat a blue cap with the visor tilted rakishly over one ear . His tan shirt , at least three sizes too big , was tucked carelessly into black pants whose legs sagged like deflated balloons and crumpled over a pair of scruffy white sneakers . In one hand was an envelope . <p> Davida Davis gasped . " Oooh . Country done come to school . " <p> Mrs. Brown frowned at her disapprovingly , then signaled the boy with an arthritic forefinger . " Come in , sir . " <p> The boy shuffled to a desk in front of the tiny room , where he slumped , arms folded , legs crossed at the ankles , and balefully eyed the girl sitting at the teacher 's elbow . <p> " Seven point O. Very good , " Mrs. Brown entered the score on Davida 's record . " Last time it was six . Keep it up and you 'll be on grade level by the end of the year . " <p> Puffed with pride , Davida @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the class . " She picked up her bookbag , hesitated , then leaned toward the teacher and whispered behind her cupped hand : " Miss Brown , that boy live ' round my way . He baaad . He be cuttin ' school , playin ' cards and figh -- . " <p> The boy 's voice rumbled deep in his chest . " You better not be talkin ' ' bout me , girl . " <p> Now , Mrs. Brown belonged to that genus of teacher who had no fear of young rowdies . As his tough-sounding words fell on her ears , her round , dusky face hardened ; her short , grizzled hair seemed to stand up like the ruffled feathers of an agitated setting hen . <p> She dismissed Davida with a flourish , then , eyes narrowed , she rose slowly , folded her arms and leaned toward the boy sitting across from her desk . <p> " Young man , " she said in her deep voice , " my name is Mrs. Brown . In this room students do not threaten @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ glared at the teacher ; his eyes met a piercing glare that had deflated a thousand belligerent egos . His eyes wavered , then fell . <p> After a measured silence , the teacher spoke . " Now , I believe that envelope you 're carrying is for me . " Eyes still on the boy , she sat down . " You may bring it to my desk -- after you remove your headgear . " <p> The boy snatched off his cap . " ' Scuse me . I forgot . " <p> Mrs. Brown waved him to the chair next to her desk , opened the envelope and drew out a scribbled note : ' Gerald King . 15 . Disc/transf . No recs . TRUANT . Test/placement G.8 . ' <p> Annoyed , she tapped the note . She had been too busy to eat and had delayed her lunch until this last period of the day . She thought of the turkey-raisin sandwich in her locker and her stomach muttered . She looked over at the sullen boy who was now staring dejectedly at the floor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back the next day , he might not return for weeks . And the sandwich would keep . She pushed the note under a corner of her blotter , then wrote his name on a blank 3X5 card . <p> " Well , Gerald , you seem to need a reading test . " <p> " What for ? " The boy 's leg began to jiggle . <p> Nervous , Mrs. Brown wrote on the card . " We like to know something about you before we assign you to a group . " <p> " In the other school they put me in class right away . " <p> Without answering , Mrs. Brown handed him a book from a pile on her desk . " Read up to page five . " <p> Opening the book as if he expected it to explode , the boy peeked in , then pushed it away . " This is a baby book . " <p> Obstinate , wrote Mrs. Brown . " Why do you think that ? " <p> " It 's skinny . And ai n't nothin ' @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mighty oak from an acorn grew . " She held out a card with 10 words listed in large print . " Read these . " The boy ran a shaky hand over his head . " Oh , man . " <p> " Ca n't read them either , huh ? " Pre-primer , she wrote . <p> He swelled up , " I can re -- , " then subsided beneath the teacher 's steady gaze and muttered . " I just do n't have my glasses , that 's all . My mom got to get me some new ones . " <p> " Tell it to the Marines . " Mrs. Brown shook the strip under his nose . " Read any word you can . " <p> The boy drew his head back and studied the words . He pointed . " Is . " He pointed again . " The . And this one 's A. " <p> " Yippee . " Mrs. Brown wrote the three words on the card . " When 's the last time you 've been to school . " @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ' about me . " <p> Mrs. Brown tapped the slip of paper on her blotter . " This note says you 're a truant . " She wrote a problem in long division on a sheet of paper and handed it to him . " Do this . " She watched the boy closely as he worked the problem . <p> " That was easy . " <p> Reasoning O.K. , Mrs. Brown wrote on the card . Now it was time to prick him , see if there was anything in him but hot air . She looked over at him slyly . " You say arithmetic is easy , but you ca n't read . Now what does that mean , that you 're too dumb to do both ? " <p> " No ! " The boy 's eyes flared , then cooled . " My grampa said I was smart . He the one showed me how to figure . How to drive , too . " <p> Sensitive , she noted . " Where 's your grandfather now ? " <p> The boy shook his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ little prodding , he told her about a six-year-old boy whose teenaged mother left him on a tobacco farm in South Carolina where they were living with her parents . There was pride in his voice as he talked about helping his grandfather with the hoeing , planting and harvesting , sometimes even driving the truck to town with the crops whenever the old man got sick . " That 's why he taught me how to figure . So nobody could cheat me , " he said shyly . After his grandmother died , he missed a lot of school and fell behind . It seemed important for him to be with his grandfather , so he stopped going . Then two years ago , his grandfather died and he ran the farm by himself for a year . It was a tenant farm , and when the owner found out about his grandfather 's death , he contacted the boy 's mother . " So I had to come live with her . " He sighed . " But I sure was doin ' better down there than I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Brown . " You ca n't do better if you get kicked out of school for misbehaving . " <p> Gerald hung his head . " Them kids laughed at the way I talk and called me ' country ' . So I fighted them . But they kept on , and I kept on , so the principal sended me here . " <p> " Every school has enough home-grown hoodlums . " <p> " I ai n't no hoodlum , ma'am . " The boy spoke with quiet dignity . " Else I would n't be here today . " <p> " Maybe . Or maybe you 'd be in a family court . " <p> " No ma'am . I come on my own . So my mother and stepfather stop arguin ' over me . " <p> Mrs. Brown regarded the boy 's scowling face , his slumped shoulder , his work-hardened hands trembling on his thighs . Her heart tightened . Her stern face softened . Now here was a boy with a logical mind , mother wit , determination . But he was caught in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not want to be freed . Was she to late ? She would find out . Face set , voice hard , she said , " Sit up , sir . Look at me . " <p> Facing her sheepishly , the boy hitched his body up . <p> Mrs. Brown looked deep into his eyes and said , " You are 15 years old and you are illiterate . " She paused to let that awful word sink in . " You ca n't read . Can you ? " <p> The boy 's eyes filled . " No ma'am . " His voice was husky . <p> Mrs. Brown almost relented , but she had trod this path for many years . Her voice was soft . " Others can . " Now urgent . " Why ca n't you ? " <p> The boy frowned , then pressed his lips together and stared at the floor as if he would find the answer there . At last he shrugged . " It just seem like ai n't no system to it . " <p> That answer did not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ similar ones . " Well there is . In fact , we have an easy one here , " she paused significantly . " But a lot of kids do n't want to learn it . That is , at first . " <p> The boy eyed her suspiciously . " How come ? " <p> " They say the other kids laugh at the books they use . " <p> " Then they stupid , " snorted Gerald . " They be laughin ' at ' em anyway ' cause they ca n't read the real books in class . " <p> " But not for long . " Mrs Brown leaned forward . " A few years ago a boy named Alfred came here in the seventh grade . He read worse than you . His mother moved around a lot , so he 'd been in sixteen different schools before he got to this one . He was never in one school long enough to learn how to read . " Mrs. Brown tapped the book that Gerald had rejected so disdainfully a few minutes earlier . " @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ book in one period . " <p> Gerald 's eyes widened . " This book ? " <p> " Alfred piled right on through it and seven others in three months . He pulled up from reading no grade to fourth grade in half a year . And when he left here in the ninth grade , he was reading like a champ . " She sat back , reminiscing . " Of course , Alfred was smart . " <p> " I could do the same thing . " <p> " Alfred was logical , too . He could figure things out -- " Mrs. Brown snapped her fingers -- " like that . " <p> " Me , too . And I can do arithmetic good . " <p> " And Alfred was determined . He was serious . Once he came to school with the flu and we had to send him home . " <p> " When grampa died , I ran the farm all by myself . " <p> " Pooh , " scoffed Mrs. Brown . " If you had stayed on that farm , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gets your age , " she continued , " if he wants to learn how to read , he has to have a thirst . Like a camel that smells water after a long trip across the blazing sands of the Sahara Desert . Learning to read is frustrating . Some days you get so mad , you want to quit . Now , this boy Alfred I mentioned , he loved music . He wanted his own saxophone . But it cost money and his mama had three other mouths to feed . So he had to get a job . Well , the man who owned the supermarket told Alfred if he learned to read he 'd give him a job . See ? " <p> Gerald was now on the edge of his seat . " I got a good reason for learning to read , Miss ! " <p> " You told me . " Mrs. Brown closed one eye like an old hoot owl . " To stop your parents from arguing about you . " <p> " That 's why I came today . " @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I want to learn to read . " He patted his pocket , then withdrew a small white booklet . " This is the real reason . " On her desk he laid a driver 's manual , stained and creased from folding . " My stepfather , he fix TVs and vacuum cleaners , and he say since I can already drive , if I get my license , I might can go with him sometimes . I got to learn to read so I can git me a license when I turn sixteen . " <p> Soberly , intently , tented fingers pressed against her lips , Mrs. Brown regarded Gerald like a cat watching a fledgling 's first attempts at flight . " That might do . " <p> " Please , Miss ! I know I can read that book today . " <p> Mrs. Brown eyed the clock . " We 'd be here after school ! " But at the boy 's pleading look , she opened her desk drawer and pulled out a work packet of white squares and a set of capital letters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her head as if in doubt . " I usually take three days with the regular kids . " <p> Gerald hitched his chair closer to the teacher . " I 'm ' a learn this system today . " <p> Mrs. Brown placed a big red M on her desk . " First of all , letters have sounds . This is Em . Listen . " Mmmmm . " She rubbed her stomach . " Like mmmm , good . Next we blend the letters with little words . " She laid a white square in front of Gerald . " The word on this card is AT . " She laid the M in front of the card . " Now say the sound of Em , mmmm , then say AT . " She pushed the M toward the AT card , " And you get mat . " <p> Gerald was flabbergasted . " Like a mat in gym class ? " <p> " A little word , " said Mrs. Brown , " but it can grow . Mat . MATCH , " more intensely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blinked . " Why , that 's easy ! " Soon he had blended most of the letters with the AT card . " What 's next ? " <p> Mrs. Brown dealt him five AT cards , " We play cards . " <p> " Cards ? " <p> " To reinforce what you just learned . And , " she winked archly , " to spice things up a little . " She dealt herself five AT cards and piled the red letters on Gerald 's desk . <p> Then the teacher with a witch 's fingers and the boy with a farmer 's hands played cards . How she laughed to see that boy grunt and gasp and spit as he struggled to make lips , tongue , and teeth produce those little words . <p> With less effort did Hercules defeat Anteaus . <p> Finally Mrs. Brown tapped the book on Gerald 's desk . " Read page one . " <p> Nervously , Gerald smoothed the page . " Nat . Nat ... is ... ay cat . " Following his long brown finger , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nat ... is ... ay ... FAT ... cat . " He looked up . For the first time he smiled , grinning as if he had just read the first page of a Dickens novel . " He sound just like my cat . He orange and real fat . And lazy . You like cats , Miss Brown ? " <p> At 3:20 Mrs. Brown was making a notation on Gerald King 's card . ' 2/19 . Read 30 pages , Book 1 . ' <p> There was a light tap on the door and Davida Davis appeared in the doorway with a sheepish look on her face . " I come to say I 'm sorry for actin ' up when that boy come in . " <p> " You 're forgiven . " <p> " He took a Book 1 . I just seen it in his back pocket . " <p> Mrs. Brown chuckled . " Rolled it up , did he ? " <p> " Yuup . When you gave me that book last year , I felt so stupid . I was n't @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how that real smart boy named Alfred pulled up four grades in a half a year , and I said I could , too . Remember ? " <p> Mrs. Brown smiled down at Gerald 's card . " I remember . " <p> 
##1002258 We do not breathe alone , " Albertina Woods solemnly proclaimed . I sat at her feet , a conjurer 's apprentice , squatting outside her paling two-room sea island house set in a small clearing surrounded by ancient oaks and cypresses dressed in silvery moss . The house gaped at the narrow dirt road and the rolling sea beyond . At the end of a honeysuckle and wild grape-lined path , a sagging three-step porch held both our weights . <p> I had waited all of my life for this moment . <p> I had traveled a staggered line leading to Albertina Woods after seven years of searching for that one particular , absolute truth , the one truth I would be able to set the rest of my life by . <p> I was certain Albertina Woods possessed knowledge of this truth . Inside my pants pocket glowing like a soft burning light , the yellowed newsprint was folded into a careful square . That news article was the singular match , the flame leading me to this old woman , this broken-down porch . <p> @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beautiful revelation , " Albertina Woods continued , as if each word spoken were a seed planted in soft yielding earth . " Did you know this ? " she asked . I shook my head slightly . <p> " Those newspaper people always overlook everything else I tell them . They just want to talk about the pink dolphin . But you make sure you get the story right , " she said . <p> I nodded my head , giving her a small gift of reassurance as I bent over the yellow tablet I held in my trembling lap . She reached down and stroked my nervous hands . I looked into her eyes and felt no more fear . <p> Was it true what they said about Albertina Woods ? She did not look like a woman who 'd had innumerable lovers . She was tall at eighty-eight , strong-voiced with wrinkleless skin the color of palmetto berries , her laughter , a strong dark wine . <p> Still , it was hard to imagine her rail-thin body as once bewitchingly seductive . <p> She turned her fading @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lips to reveal proud white teeth , her own . She slowly shifted her weight on the smooth planks of the porch until the fabric of her festival-colored dress pulled tight across her thighs . Albertina 's hair covered her head in thin white strips . Her fingers were warm , sinuous . <p> " You think a witch can not have lovers ? You think an old woman like me has never known how to ride ? " <p> I turned my face from her hot question , turned and stared at the flowers in her yard , their blossoms like large vermilion heads nodding in the slow southern breeze . <p> " All the time they came around me , begging : make me clean , help me get clean deep down in my soul , Albertina . They came inside this body , my praise house , with the hope that they 'd wash themselves and be released . " <p> She stopped for a moment . Her dress fell between her legs outlining her narrow thighs in sharp relief . I looked away from those thighs , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with her moist fingers , sensing my discomfort . <p> " You will have to look at this power , daughter . Look at this power so your soul will be released . " <p> Albertina looked at me and sighed . <p> " You came for the dolphin , did n't you ? Like all the others . " <p> " Some say you had one for a lover , " I said , a question rising behind my eyes . <p> Albertina stared at me . She nodded her head as if she had made up her mind about something . <p> " I could n't work with everybody . One man I refused went to Uncle Friday , the rootworker , and asked for a hand . " <p> " A hand ? " I asked . <p> " A hand , a charm . The man planted the hand under my porch . I never was able to find it . People stopped coming around me looking for comfort . That was all I ever gave . Comfort . I had to make my own hand to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had been placed on me . Still , no one would come . Not a solitary soul . Soon , I began to believe I was supposed to breathe alone . Thought breathing alone was the way it should be . Like you , daughter . " <p> She paused and looked at my folded hands , as if blessing the tools in my lap : pencils , paper , pens , tools I used to reconstruct the lives of unknown others . Lives broken . Shadowed . Winged . I did not want to show her my scars , the deep broken parts of myself . They had said her eyes could reach into your soul and hear things . I curled my shoulders , pulled my body back into itself . <p> " Echoes , " she said , her dark eyes scanning my body . " The echoes brought him to me . " <p> " Him ? " I asked <p> " The dolphin you came to hear about . " <p> So , the stories I had heard about Albertina Woods were true . <p> " @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he buried under my porch brought my spirit down . Low down . He put the hand down and when I laid in my bed at night I could feel a snake crawling inside my belly , a great snake moving inside my bones . Something had grabbed my soul , grabbed my soul and crushed it into the ground . No one would come around . No one would have anything to do with me . I 'm talking about loneliness now . A deep hurting kind of empty . You know what I mean ? " she asked . <p> I thought about the luminous blue inside me , the great shimmering gap that had brought me here . I nodded my head . <p> " Before the hand , I was a big black red-winged bird . Nothing could hold me down . But when the hand got hold and the snake moved inside me , it seemed as if I could n't do anything to get off the ground . My hair stood on my head like antennae to God . " <p> I reached for Albertina @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like fragile birds . <p> " A woman can die without touching . Without hugging . Without love . The hand told me to go into the water , into the liquid darkness . Into a blue so deep it was black . " <p> She stood . I stood . I held her hand as she crept down the three sagging porch steps as if she were once again descending into that water , that wide-lipped sea waiting beyond . <p> " I touched the bottom . The bottom of that blue-black sea . Dragged my feet through mud slick as silk . Creatures wrapped their limbs around my legs , barnacles clung to my skin like crusty jewels . I was as low as I could possibly descend . <p> " Then I felt a sound coming . A sound moving inside my body like raindrops on a tin roof , Click Click Click CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK Click Click Click . <p> " I turned my head and looked into the obsidian eyes of the dolphin . He looked into my eyes , heard my breath rising , heard the struggle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his body beneath almost translucent skin . He had as many scars as we do , daughter . Scars from brushing against life . He brushed his body against mine . Took one of his fins and slowly rubbed my belly . <p> " I did n't want to breathe anymore . I closed my eyes and felt the clicking enter my body . Click Click Click CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK Click Click Click . It seemed as if the clicks were saying : Breathe . Slow . Like me . <p> " The dolphin rubbed my belly again . Low down . Deep down . Then he was inside my body alongside the clicks , moving , pulsing , breathing air into my lungs , the breath of Life , air he would blow through the crescent-shaped hole on his back once he reached the surface of this black sea . <p> " We became water , pink and black water , and we merged inside a voluptuous silence , then turned into one shining muscle of pleasure inside the undulating midnight sea . <p> " The dolphin 's breath pushed the snake @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power of the evil hand . " <p> Albertina stopped her story and turned back toward the porch . <p> " Was that the only time with the dolphin , that one time in the water ? " I asked . She looked at me and smiled . <p> " He visits my bed from time to time , " she said . <p> " What is it like , then ? " I asked . <p> Albertina Woods clasped me inside her birdlike arms . " It 's like loving yourself , " she said , holding me as the dolphin must have held her , slow , tight , sweet , until I felt , rather than heard , the sounds of multitudes breathing , the sounds of all living things breathing . And hope rose inside me like a silvery-skinned flower or a fish who has suddenly sprouted wings . <p> " You are never truly alone , you know . Here , " she said , pressing me against her breasts which were not much larger than my own . <p> " Here , " she said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Charlotte Watson Sherman is a Seattle-based , award-winning short story writer . Her first novel " One Dark Body , " will be published in 1993 by HarperCollins . <p> 
##1002260 Suppose you lived in another dimension -- one where money really did grow on trees , and parents were made out of money after all . Awesome ! You 'd get everything you wanted , and be thrilled with it all . Or would you ? When our heroes , Ramsey and Elena , hit the mall , they find that it takes more than money to be a good shopper : It takes time and some serious consumer savvy . Let 's join them at Megamall . <p> THE CHARACTERS <p> RAMSEY , teenage shopper <p> ELENA , his friend <p> HERB , the Security Guard and our narrator <p> MRS . STARR , MR . FITT , Salespeople <p> SCENE I <p> SPACEY 'S DEPARTMENT STORE <p> HERB : Here come Ramsey and Elena -- again . Ramsey 's great-aunt sent him a generous birthday check . He 's planning to spend $150 on new clothes and food and supplies for his birthday party . Elena is here as an advisor . <p> RAMSEY : I need a new shirt . Something different . <p> MRS @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sold one just like it to A Big Movie Star this morning . It would make you look like a movie star , too . And it 's only $57.99 . <p> RAMSEY : Awesome ! It glitters ! It shines ! And it 's that hip label , Trendy Teen ! <p> ELENA : Wait a minute ! That shirt 's kind of loud -- you might get sick of it . And it requires dry cleaning . That 's expensive . <p> RAMSEY : But money is no object . <p> ELENA : Your birthday money wo n't last forever . And look at these seams . They 're coming apart . And the buttons are falling off . Who cares what movie star has bought it ? Before you buy something , you have to make sure it 's well made . <p> MRS . STARR : Over here you 'll find our lower-priced shirts for the discriminating shopper . <p> RAMSEY : This one looks nice . It 's not as flashy , but it wo n't go out of style quickly . And look , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on tightly . I 'll take it ! <p> MRS . STARR : That will be $25 . <p> RAMSEY : I guess movie stars do n't always know best ... I also need pants . What about these banana-yellow ones ? They 're on sale for $2.99 -- marked down from $90 . <p> ELENA : That 's because nobody wants banana-yellow pants ! And they 're not even your size . Cheap clothes are no bargain if they just sit in your closet . How about a pair of good jeans for $40 ? These are cool . You 'll wear them with lots of different shirts . <p> SCENE II <p> SNEAKER PALACE <p> HERB : Ramsey and Elena resume their quest for sneakers . <p> RAMSEY : Cool ! Exploding Swivel-Tops ! In neon green paisley ! <p> MR . FITT : They are the finest running shoes on the face of the earth ! Every Olympic athlete wears them ! If you wear them , your running will improve dramatically ! <p> RAMSEY : Well , I do n't really run , but maybe with these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much are they ? <p> MR . FITT : They 're on sale for $127.99 . <p> ELENA : That 'll bring you over your limit . Besides , look at the soles -- they 're peeling away from the shoes . ( to Mr. Fitt ) If he has a problem with the shoes , can they be returned ? <p> MR . FITT : Of course ! But you have to send a copy of your receipt and three copies of your grandmother 's immunization record to our New Zealand office . <p> RAMSEY : What do you have that 's cheaper ? And that 's good for walking ? <p> MR . FITT : How about these aerobic cross-trainers ? They 're on special for $59 . <p> RAMSEY : They look good . And they fit perfectly . <p> ELENA : They seem very sturdy . And the plain white will go better with your clothes than those paisley Exploders . <p> RAMSEY : I 'll take ' em . Can you throw in a pair of neon shoelaces ? <p> SCENE III <p> GOOD EATS FOOD @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the party . How about these little bags of chips ? <p> ELENA : If you buy those little bags , it will cost you over $5 for 8 ounces . That 's about 62 cents for one ounce . If you buy two big bags , which will give you about 16 ounces , it will only cost $3.50 . That 's about 22 cents an ounce . You 'll also get twice as much , and you 'll have less waste . <p> RAMSEY : Great ! I guess it pays to buy big bags . Let 's get some ice cream pops . <p> ELENA : Hold on ! You 'll have to buy one pop for each person . Why not get four quarts of ice cream ? You get different flavors , and everyone can take what they want . It 's also a lot less expensive . <p> RAMSEY : Cool ! Great idea ! Let 's go to Pam 's Party Place for some plates and cups . <p> SCENE IV <p> PAM 'S PARTY PLACE <p> HERB : Ramsey really got his money @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see how he does at the party store . <p> RAMSEY : Wow ! Paper plates and cups with pictures of that supercool rock group , Flash Flood , in gold embossed leaf ! <p> ELENA : But you only get four plates in a package , and they ca n't even be reused . <p> RAMSEY : Hmm ... Well , if I buy these solid color plastic ones , I get 12 to a package , and I can wash them when we 're finished ! <p> ELENA : Good choice . Let 's get two packages . <p> RAMSEY : Hey ! A flourescent tablecloth ! <p> ELENA : No , look more carefully . The packaging is fluorescent , but the tablecloth is plain white . Why not use one from home ? <p> RAMSEY : You 're right . Might as well save some money . <p> SCENE V <p> IN THE MALL <p> HERB : Moments later , they leave the store with food and supplies for the party , and money left over . <p> ELENA : You 'll have to write to your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . <p> RAMSEY : She 'll be really surprised . Last year , she got mad when I used her check to buy a dancing radio in the shape of a soda can . Money sure goes farther when you know how to shop . <p> QUICK SHOPPING TIPS : <p> 1 . Do n't be lured by gimmicks think twice about claims that famous people have bought the item or that pair of sneakers will make you jump higher . <p> 2 . Look beyond high prices and fancy labels Pay attention to how well an item is made and if you really need it . <p> 3 . Is it really a bargain ? Is it damaged ? Will you use it ? <p> 4 . Learn to comparison shop . Compare brands , store prices , warranties . Look around before you buy . <p> 5 . Do n't let a salesperson pressure you . If you need time to think things over say so . Its your decision and you have to live with your purchase , the sales person does n't . <p> 
##1002264 Mothers &; Daughters : Healing the Patterns of Generations <p> Early one Sunday morning my four-year-old daughter , Veronica , was twirling around the bedroom , displaying her vibrant , plump body . Her face radiated total self-confidence . As Veronica finished dressing , she matter-of-factly queried , " Mommy , I 'm cute , are n't I ? " I smiled and hugged her . As Veronica hugged me back , she said , " Mommy , you 're cute , too ! " <p> I felt tears rushing to my eyes . They were tears of love , but also of remembered pain . I wished that my mother had accepted me as beautiful in my entirety , including my body . In Veronica 's mind , there was no question that her mommy was beautiful . In my mother 's mind , I would be beautiful only if I lost weight . <p> For the most part , my relationship with my mother has been loving . We have shared our interests in reading , sewing , cooking , and attending plays . I have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and she has understood . But my weight has always been an area of conflict . <p> Perhaps that is because my mother has struggled with her own issues about body size . While I was growing up , she vacillated between not caring about her weight and needing to just lose X number of pounds . I soon realized that being chunky was n't okay . <p> As I grew older , life 's increasing demands and stresses pounded on my self-confidence . I started using food as a pacifier of my anxieties . As my weight shot up , I started to hear fat clichs and pleas from my mother : " Boys will never look at you if you 're fat " ; " You 'd look better in black " ; " You 'd be so pretty if you 'd only lose some weight " ; " Do n't eat too much " ; " You do n't need that ice cream " ; " If you would lose some weight , then you could wear clothes like your sisters wear . " <p> My mother tried @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the family doctor , who prescribed a diet . She encouraged and advised me in all my weight-loss endeavors . She even steered me into my career as a dietitian , hoping that I could change my eating habits and lose weight . At the time I did it to please her , but as I began to study I found nutrition quite interesting . <p> Although my knowledge about nutrition increased with each degree , I continued to yo-yo up and down in my weight . <p> After graduate school I moved from Minnesota to California , where there were more job opportunities for me . I enjoyed the challenge of starting a new life , but I really missed my family . Once again , I started to use food to quell my anxieties and loneliness . <p> This time , however , I fought back before my bingeing got totally out of control . I joined the local health club , which had weight-lifting machines as well as aerobic classes . I also worked on eating more nutritious foods and cutting down on sweets . Gradually , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up my body , lost some weight , and improved my eating habits . I felt healthier than I had for a long time . <p> Despite that , I still did n't have much self-confidence about my large body . Then I met Ignacio . Ignacio admired my round plumpness and viewed me as sexy and desirable . He helped me feel good about my body because he accepted and loved me as I was . When I felt depressed , sometimes I 'd talk about diets and losing weight . He would tell me that I was fine just as I was . Other times , he would try to tease me out of my mood by calling me his gordita ( little fat one ) or another silly name . He attempted to make me feel better , but ultimately , I needed to accept myself . <p> A few years after Ignacio and I were married , I became pregnant and our daughter , Veronica , was born . She came screaming and kicking into this world with a beautiful , plump 9-pound , 6-ounce body . @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ babies . I did n't worry about her body size until she became a toddler . That was when the specter of my old issues about fatness started to darken our mother-daughter relationship . <p> By the age of two , Veronica was a round-faced , plump Campbell kid . She was the mirror image of myself at that age , which created a sense of dj vu when I looked at her . <p> Around that time I read a research paper on the development of obesity in children . It said there was a strong relationship between the weights of mothers and daughters . If the mother was large , the child was more likely to be large . It also found that fat preschool children were at risk of becoming fat teenagers . I started to worry about Veronica 's future . Would it be similar to mine ? The ugly clothes , the rejections , and the people who hurt me more than helped ? To my horror , I caught myself admonishing her with my mother 's words . <p> I blamed myself for Veronica 's @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I had control of my weight , then Veronica would be slim . A few months later , while visiting my parents in Minnesota , the crowning blow fell . My mother and I were discussing my weight loss , and she said , " I always wondered how you could be credible as a dietitian when you were so fat . " I felt devastated . I did n't confront her or stand up for myself . I just felt awful . <p> I went back home with my mother 's words ringing in my ears . I spent a lot of time thinking about how my weight was still controlling my sense of self-esteem . I did n't want to spend my life living from diet to diet . I did n't want to poison Veronica 's positive view of her body and herself . I especially did n't want Veronica to waste time having self-doubts and continually dieting or thinking that she needed to . Finally , I did n't want to continue depending on my mother 's or other people 's opinions to validate my own sense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to deal with my insecurities and to nurture my relationship with Veronica . I realized that first I needed to pay more attention to myself . I had to clean up my own excess baggage ( past memories and fears ) and work on accepting myself as I was . I read everything that I could on developing a positive self-image . I did n't lose weight . Instead , I took every opportunity to nurture and feel good about me . I went for long walks and did special things for myself : I got facials and haircuts , bought clothes , and spent many quiet moments by myself . <p> I also worked to stretch my inner self . I actively pursued jobs and projects that interested me and explored new opportunities . As a dietitian , I have taught classes , published a newsletter , worked in research , written articles , and counseled clients . One of my most enjoyable experiences was teaching classes for a nearby health club . I loved teaching there because I was able to stress self-acceptance and making healthy food choices . @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ healthy image , and my students and I had a wonderful time . Right now I divide my time between my family , volunteer work as a nutrition consultant at a Head Start program , and writing . <p> Veronica is now four years old , and I have tried to build a strong relationship with her . I focus on loving her for who she is , and I encourage her to explore new interests and new possibilities . <p> I have set certain goals for myself in relation to her . I do n't expect to always succeed , but I am going to do my best . Here are some of my goals : <p> 1 To give Veronica a strong sense of herself . To help her identify and develop her strengths and learn to be patient with herself as she practices what is more difficult for her . To give her some space so that she can explore on her own , too . <p> A few weeks ago our family went to the park . Veronica was fearlessly climbing jungle gyms and swooshing down steep @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hard on her rear at the bottom . Ignacio said , " Are you okay ? " After determining that she was fine , he said , " You really came off that slide fast . Good thing that you have a little extra padding back there . " Veronica giggled , and then triumphantly marched over to the spiral slide and climbed up again . Ignacio 's example continues to encourage me in my parenting goals . <p> 2 To help her feel emotionally strong . Crying and other expressions of all feelings are allowed and encouraged . <p> 3 To help Veronica develop tenacity . I would like her to always try , even if others say that she wo n't be able to do something . After a good try , however , she can reassess the situation , pat herself on the back for trying , and then move forward or go in another direction . My past tenacity has helped me to achieve many things that I value in life , and I want to pass this on to her . <p> 4 To teach her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deny herself , nor does she need to feel unworthy in any way . I encourage her , instead , to live life to its fullest and to shoot for the sky in her dreams . <p> 5 To expose Veronica to a wide variety of activities -- in sports , literature , music , and other areas . Ignacio and I have very different tastes in music , so Veronica is exposed to a lot of different styles , including ranchera and salsa . <p> We all love baseball , so whenever possible , we participate in or watch games . And I 'm encouraging Ignacio to teach Veronica how to play his favorite sport -- soccer . I think that she definitely displays the spunk and instincts to be a good player . Veronica and I do a lot of walking , an activity that we have both enjoyed since she was very young . <p> 6 To assist her in putting food in its proper perspective . Food should nourish the body and please the palate . Veronica and I are working on being more open to trying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and will amaze me by telling me what new food she tried that day . Her ending statement is usually , " And Mommy , it was really good ! " <p> 7 Finally , to learn from Veronica about how to be a mother who helps her daughter feel good about herself -- a mother who supports rather than obstructs , who encourages rather than limits , and who loves her child for who she is rather than what she or others would like her to be . <p> As I go into the living room for a short writing break , I glance at Veronica , who is mimicking the gyrating movements of a dance troupe on TV . She stops gyrating to inquire , " Mommy , I really dance good , huh ? " I reply , " Yes , Veronica , you really do ! " <p> As for my relationship with my mother , it is still loving . I have always admired my mother 's independence and emotional strength , and I hope to pass those qualities on to Veronica . But we have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ways , we 're like two boxers tensely circling each other before the start of a match . We 're both waiting to see who will be the first to shake hands . <p> I did detect a slight softening in my mother 's attitude when we last spoke long distance . I told her about RADIANCE and how the articles promoted a positive self-image and discussed the accomplishments of large women . She surprised me by saying that it sounded great . She also commented that she knew many successful people who were large . I replied that being large did n't affect your knowledge or competence , even in health-related occupations . She agreed and mentioned a large nurse who was competent and had a wonderful rapport with her clients and their families . <p> After I hung up the phone , I found myself wishing that we could have settled our conflicts about weight once and for all . Unfortunately , a problem that spans more than thirty years ca n't often be taken care of in one conversation . <p> I still intend to have a long @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a dietitian , and our past weight conflicts . I want to resolve those issues so that we can enjoy and nurture our relationship . Perhaps sharing this article with her will be a step in the right direction . <p> Article copyright Radiance . <p> Article copyright Radiance . <p> 