36th entry to the Colonel`s Scrapbook
August 10th,2008
Birthdates which occurred on your SELECTED date of August 10:
1810 Camilio Benso di Cavour Italy, PM ,unifier of Italy along with Guiseppe Garibaldi1865 Alexander Glazunov St Petersburg Russia, composer (Chopiniana),laziest among composers,never produce The Firebird for Diaghilev,so Igor Stravinsky became famous and not him
1912 Jorge Amado Brazilian novelist,author of Doña Flor and her Two Husbands.Outspoken, a communist,cat lover,the perfect guy
Events
1519 Magellan's 5 ship set sail to circumnavigate the Earth,unknowing he would never return,the religious bigot would get snacked upon in Mactam by the natives
1792 Mobs in Paris attack the palace of Louis XVI, who was just a flabby,impotent pathetic cuckolded husband of Marie Antoinette
1831 Former slave Nat Turner led violent insurrection against slavery…it was about time
1866 Transatlantic cable laid - Former President of the US Buchanan communicates over it to Queen Victoria of England,what a chat those two prudes must have had
August 11th
1952 Hussein proclaimed king of Jordan,he was a good king although his taste in women is rather,um,improvable
THE MOON`S LIEUTENANT
Last Saturday,on my way home from the job,the taxi that brought me passed through the huge neighbourhood of San Judas, in the southwestern corner of Managua. The taxi slowly got into the neighbourhood, ready to drop its first passenger, a pregnant girl. I was going home early,the sun was still warm and I traced my thoughts back to 1986.
That was a very accidented year for me. During that violent year, there was a fast pace to the war, I had broken my column while in action, and my two wrists had been reconstructed after I had an accident driving an IFA truck. I wasn`t sure I wanted to go into an arranged marriage with a constant philanderer 4 years my junior and I was very busy with the newly created engineering machines battalions, composed mostly of reserve recruits from the six major construction companies from our capital city. To sum it up, I was in a period of turmoil,I didn`t belong to myself. One day my boss told me he would momentarily pull me out ,for two weeks to be exact, from the engineering project and I would have to serve another battalion from the reserve instead, because he didn`t want hassles with the battalion commander who had protested over my lack of attention. I didn`t dare to question what he was doing, but he must have sensed I had some sort of qualms, because he mentioned that the commander of this battalion was a very peculiar yet brave person who had also been in several battles, and despite my misgivings I should support him in everything he asked from me. The people that I usually worked with were unhappy, but they understood orders were orders and it was after all, only for a fortnight.
The house where the physical installations of the battalion was located at the end of San Judas. It was a two-story house made of wood,painted in white. A shiver of something akin to fright ran down my recently broken spine. I really couldn`t explain why I felt so unquiet,edgy. I came in,the door was open. On the first floor was an enormous bathroom,with a tub, old Victorian-style tub. There was someone in the tub. I decided to be discreet and sat on a stool to wait for someone to come to the main office. A few moments later I heard footsteps walking towards me. I stood up to greet the man in charge of the battalion. The sensation of fright grew to fear.There was something eerie,unnatural about this young man.Pale as ivory,with matted red hair and the strangest black eyes I have ever seen, he was tall and slim and the veins could be seen through his pale skin. I had the impression he had no blood in his body. He gave me a sarcastic welcome,”So finally the general`s high and mighty translator comes down into the world. How many languages do you speak,dolly?”
If there is one thing I hate is being called dolly,or dear or honey. Miguel was starting off on the wrong foot. We were not going to get along,I knew it in my broken bones. A sexist,of course,and someone who would resent my origins. I hated him on sight.Sometimes in the army you have to work with people with whom you have no affinity. Nevertheless you must work with them. Orders are meant to be followed. We sat down to plan our task at hand. He had no idea how to do what he was demanded to do by plan. And beneath the strong smell of his cheap skin bracer I could smell something else,like a faint odor of formaldehyde. Sweet and nauseating at the same time. Would I have to be working with that odor all the time? This wasn`t going to work properly!
Miguel was coarse,ill-mannered and knew nothing about planning anything. I had to put my ideas in such a way so he believed they had come from his own slow,clumsy mind. He had the habit of walking barefoot around the house, so I never knew where he was and he would approach me from behind without making any noise. It was like working with a ghost. A nasty ghost. Once I saw him talking animatedly on the phone. Then I came in and he slammed the phone down. Then a sly smile lit up his face.”Regards from your fiancé,dolly.”
I was flabbergasted.He had told my boyfriend I wasn`t there. He wasn`t allowing me any contact with anybody. Enraged, I just stomped out of the room and left the place. Taking a taxi, I went home. My mom wasn`t there. I felt safe, but I needed to talk to someone.dad at the office,mom out on business. I found the gentle old gardener weeding some rosebeds.
He smiled with his usual warm greeting,and asked me what was wrong. He always read me so perfectly. I told him what had happened and he paled visibly. His craggy old face wore a grim look. He put down his implements and got up. He looked worried. He asked me how I had gotten assigned to work with the people from that particular battalion, and inquired about details of the house where it was. When I described everything, he gasped. He was really alarming me. He looked scared. He told me a strange urban legend about that house.
Last year a promising young lieutenant had been chosen for a mission, and he had gone. He had made a deal with the moon to come back no matter what. He did return, in a plastic bag. Then everyone in San Judas said that a strange ghost lived in the battalion house and it came out on moonlit nights to walk in the garden,or peek over the balcony. Strange grey moths would fly over the balcony and descend on his bare feet.
I was scared now. Believe me I was beginning to wonder if I was losing my mind. I paid a visit to the old files of a local newspaper. I had gotten the approximate date of the death in combat of Miguel Urrutia. I started searching. Until I found the newspaper. There it was.The picture of Miguel Urrutia,and the obituary.Dead at 26 in La Penca,southern border of Nicaragua.1985.It was him. Not much was said,only he had fallen in combat.Who could give me some more information? Yes!I had overheard a conversation between him and Armando.When he said I wasn`t there.
For the first time in our accidented courtship,I looked forward to seeing Armando again. Not a bad chap, but hopelessly immature,filthy rich,handsome and hare-brained. He came back that weekend and he was so happy to see me again. I had not returned to the battalion`s house in San Judas. When we were having lunch together, I asked him how had he found out that I was on loan over at Miguel Urrutia`s military unit. His face went white.
“Darling kitten, you cannot be at the military unit where Miguel Urrutia was.he died over a year ago in La Penca. I called at your headquarters and your boss said you were on leave.You were sick, so he let you go for 2 weeks before you return to your engineering machines unit. Is something wrong?”he asked me.
I told him the whole story. For the first time in my life since we met as children in the American Nicaraguan School I saw his impeccable face frown with worry. He never worried about anything because he had everything. Or so he supposed. He asked me to take him to the place where I was working. We got into his jeep and I told him the address. The queer thing was that we tried to find it but there was an empty lot where the house had been. It didn`t make sense. When we asked the neighbors,they all said the house didn`t exist, or that there was the devil living in it and promptly crossed themselves. Armando then took me to my military unit and my boss asked me if I felt better. I said he had sent me to assist the unit where Miguel Urrutia was. Armando and my boss exchanged worried glances. My boss told me to go back home and rest,I was surely exhausted. I retorted that he had sent me in first place, but he said I was terribly confused. I felt stupid.
Optical illusion? Lunacy? What was wrong with me? I went back home feeling humiliated and sick.But the following week, I returned to my job and got back to giving my engineering unit their prioritary attention. But I didn`t feel the same. I had crying bouts when nobody could see me. I was so terribly frightened. I feared for my sanity.
I felt worse on moonlit nights.I had to sleep with my nightlamp on because the sheer and ghostly shade of the moonlight was enough to frighten me. My black Manx cat Charles II
Never left my side. He was skittish too,as if something would sprout a black hand out of nowhere and grab both of us. As Mary Shelley,authoress of Frankenstein,once said, our fears will continue visiting us despite everything,change of mood, time passing…whatever.
This story has no ending, folks.I didn`t marry Armando. I never knew what produced such a strange phenomenon. I could never find the house in San Judas. I never gave any specialized attention to any military unit that wasn`t the one composed of my safe,gentle engineers, architects and builders, all those bricklayers and crane operators, some of whom had known me since infancy, They realized something had been terribly wrong with me.
I remitted my own case into a file titled Unfinished Business,and I wondered why I put it there.
Did I know, and please tell me, you my most beloved of readers, that one Saturday when I would already be a married matron, going home early from my job, I would pass there by accident and see the house where the moon`s dead lieutenant refused to loosen his grip on life? I almost stopped the car and got off. That almost made the big difference. But the shiver down my long-broken spine held me back. What if I entered that house and never got out again to give you this spooky story in which real frogs croak in the shadowy imaginary black pond of my worst nightmares?
August 10th,2008
Birthdates which occurred on your SELECTED date of August 10:
1810 Camilio Benso di Cavour Italy, PM ,unifier of Italy along with Guiseppe Garibaldi1865 Alexander Glazunov St Petersburg Russia, composer (Chopiniana),laziest among composers,never produce The Firebird for Diaghilev,so Igor Stravinsky became famous and not him
1912 Jorge Amado Brazilian novelist,author of Doña Flor and her Two Husbands.Outspoken, a communist,cat lover,the perfect guy
Events
1519 Magellan's 5 ship set sail to circumnavigate the Earth,unknowing he would never return,the religious bigot would get snacked upon in Mactam by the natives
1792 Mobs in Paris attack the palace of Louis XVI, who was just a flabby,impotent pathetic cuckolded husband of Marie Antoinette
1831 Former slave Nat Turner led violent insurrection against slavery…it was about time
1866 Transatlantic cable laid - Former President of the US Buchanan communicates over it to Queen Victoria of England,what a chat those two prudes must have had
August 11th
1952 Hussein proclaimed king of Jordan,he was a good king although his taste in women is rather,um,improvable
THE MOON`S LIEUTENANT
Last Saturday,on my way home from the job,the taxi that brought me passed through the huge neighbourhood of San Judas, in the southwestern corner of Managua. The taxi slowly got into the neighbourhood, ready to drop its first passenger, a pregnant girl. I was going home early,the sun was still warm and I traced my thoughts back to 1986.
That was a very accidented year for me. During that violent year, there was a fast pace to the war, I had broken my column while in action, and my two wrists had been reconstructed after I had an accident driving an IFA truck. I wasn`t sure I wanted to go into an arranged marriage with a constant philanderer 4 years my junior and I was very busy with the newly created engineering machines battalions, composed mostly of reserve recruits from the six major construction companies from our capital city. To sum it up, I was in a period of turmoil,I didn`t belong to myself. One day my boss told me he would momentarily pull me out ,for two weeks to be exact, from the engineering project and I would have to serve another battalion from the reserve instead, because he didn`t want hassles with the battalion commander who had protested over my lack of attention. I didn`t dare to question what he was doing, but he must have sensed I had some sort of qualms, because he mentioned that the commander of this battalion was a very peculiar yet brave person who had also been in several battles, and despite my misgivings I should support him in everything he asked from me. The people that I usually worked with were unhappy, but they understood orders were orders and it was after all, only for a fortnight.
The house where the physical installations of the battalion was located at the end of San Judas. It was a two-story house made of wood,painted in white. A shiver of something akin to fright ran down my recently broken spine. I really couldn`t explain why I felt so unquiet,edgy. I came in,the door was open. On the first floor was an enormous bathroom,with a tub, old Victorian-style tub. There was someone in the tub. I decided to be discreet and sat on a stool to wait for someone to come to the main office. A few moments later I heard footsteps walking towards me. I stood up to greet the man in charge of the battalion. The sensation of fright grew to fear.There was something eerie,unnatural about this young man.Pale as ivory,with matted red hair and the strangest black eyes I have ever seen, he was tall and slim and the veins could be seen through his pale skin. I had the impression he had no blood in his body. He gave me a sarcastic welcome,”So finally the general`s high and mighty translator comes down into the world. How many languages do you speak,dolly?”
If there is one thing I hate is being called dolly,or dear or honey. Miguel was starting off on the wrong foot. We were not going to get along,I knew it in my broken bones. A sexist,of course,and someone who would resent my origins. I hated him on sight.Sometimes in the army you have to work with people with whom you have no affinity. Nevertheless you must work with them. Orders are meant to be followed. We sat down to plan our task at hand. He had no idea how to do what he was demanded to do by plan. And beneath the strong smell of his cheap skin bracer I could smell something else,like a faint odor of formaldehyde. Sweet and nauseating at the same time. Would I have to be working with that odor all the time? This wasn`t going to work properly!
Miguel was coarse,ill-mannered and knew nothing about planning anything. I had to put my ideas in such a way so he believed they had come from his own slow,clumsy mind. He had the habit of walking barefoot around the house, so I never knew where he was and he would approach me from behind without making any noise. It was like working with a ghost. A nasty ghost. Once I saw him talking animatedly on the phone. Then I came in and he slammed the phone down. Then a sly smile lit up his face.”Regards from your fiancé,dolly.”
I was flabbergasted.He had told my boyfriend I wasn`t there. He wasn`t allowing me any contact with anybody. Enraged, I just stomped out of the room and left the place. Taking a taxi, I went home. My mom wasn`t there. I felt safe, but I needed to talk to someone.dad at the office,mom out on business. I found the gentle old gardener weeding some rosebeds.
He smiled with his usual warm greeting,and asked me what was wrong. He always read me so perfectly. I told him what had happened and he paled visibly. His craggy old face wore a grim look. He put down his implements and got up. He looked worried. He asked me how I had gotten assigned to work with the people from that particular battalion, and inquired about details of the house where it was. When I described everything, he gasped. He was really alarming me. He looked scared. He told me a strange urban legend about that house.
Last year a promising young lieutenant had been chosen for a mission, and he had gone. He had made a deal with the moon to come back no matter what. He did return, in a plastic bag. Then everyone in San Judas said that a strange ghost lived in the battalion house and it came out on moonlit nights to walk in the garden,or peek over the balcony. Strange grey moths would fly over the balcony and descend on his bare feet.
I was scared now. Believe me I was beginning to wonder if I was losing my mind. I paid a visit to the old files of a local newspaper. I had gotten the approximate date of the death in combat of Miguel Urrutia. I started searching. Until I found the newspaper. There it was.The picture of Miguel Urrutia,and the obituary.Dead at 26 in La Penca,southern border of Nicaragua.1985.It was him. Not much was said,only he had fallen in combat.Who could give me some more information? Yes!I had overheard a conversation between him and Armando.When he said I wasn`t there.
For the first time in our accidented courtship,I looked forward to seeing Armando again. Not a bad chap, but hopelessly immature,filthy rich,handsome and hare-brained. He came back that weekend and he was so happy to see me again. I had not returned to the battalion`s house in San Judas. When we were having lunch together, I asked him how had he found out that I was on loan over at Miguel Urrutia`s military unit. His face went white.
“Darling kitten, you cannot be at the military unit where Miguel Urrutia was.he died over a year ago in La Penca. I called at your headquarters and your boss said you were on leave.You were sick, so he let you go for 2 weeks before you return to your engineering machines unit. Is something wrong?”he asked me.
I told him the whole story. For the first time in my life since we met as children in the American Nicaraguan School I saw his impeccable face frown with worry. He never worried about anything because he had everything. Or so he supposed. He asked me to take him to the place where I was working. We got into his jeep and I told him the address. The queer thing was that we tried to find it but there was an empty lot where the house had been. It didn`t make sense. When we asked the neighbors,they all said the house didn`t exist, or that there was the devil living in it and promptly crossed themselves. Armando then took me to my military unit and my boss asked me if I felt better. I said he had sent me to assist the unit where Miguel Urrutia was. Armando and my boss exchanged worried glances. My boss told me to go back home and rest,I was surely exhausted. I retorted that he had sent me in first place, but he said I was terribly confused. I felt stupid.
Optical illusion? Lunacy? What was wrong with me? I went back home feeling humiliated and sick.But the following week, I returned to my job and got back to giving my engineering unit their prioritary attention. But I didn`t feel the same. I had crying bouts when nobody could see me. I was so terribly frightened. I feared for my sanity.
I felt worse on moonlit nights.I had to sleep with my nightlamp on because the sheer and ghostly shade of the moonlight was enough to frighten me. My black Manx cat Charles II
Never left my side. He was skittish too,as if something would sprout a black hand out of nowhere and grab both of us. As Mary Shelley,authoress of Frankenstein,once said, our fears will continue visiting us despite everything,change of mood, time passing…whatever.
This story has no ending, folks.I didn`t marry Armando. I never knew what produced such a strange phenomenon. I could never find the house in San Judas. I never gave any specialized attention to any military unit that wasn`t the one composed of my safe,gentle engineers, architects and builders, all those bricklayers and crane operators, some of whom had known me since infancy, They realized something had been terribly wrong with me.
I remitted my own case into a file titled Unfinished Business,and I wondered why I put it there.
Did I know, and please tell me, you my most beloved of readers, that one Saturday when I would already be a married matron, going home early from my job, I would pass there by accident and see the house where the moon`s dead lieutenant refused to loosen his grip on life? I almost stopped the car and got off. That almost made the big difference. But the shiver down my long-broken spine held me back. What if I entered that house and never got out again to give you this spooky story in which real frogs croak in the shadowy imaginary black pond of my worst nightmares?
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