King David -- The Original Guitar Hero

There's a word in the Hebrew Bible, selah (סלה), for which commentators have proposed multiple interpretations. That's usually a sign that no one really knows what it means.

The word selah occurs three times in the book of Habakkuk and seventy-one times in the book of Psalms. Each time it shows up, it seems to mark some kind of break in the flow of what's being said. (For a comprehensive look at what's been proposed, check out the Wikipedia article on selah.) It seems to be somehow related to the musical nature of the Psalms as they were originally performed, such as a musical interlude. (Prophets like Habakkuk also performed their prophesies musically, as you can see from the description of Ezekiel as a singer in Ezekiel 33:32.)

The hero David was known to play a mean harp in his day (see 1 Samuel 16:23). When he has to flee from King Saul, one of the places he sojourns is the land of Philistia (1 Samuel 21).

We know very little about the Philistines and their language, though there is increasing consensus that the Philistines could have been an Indo-European speaking people who settled on the coast of the Mediterranean as part of the "Sea Peoples" phenomenon of the 2nd Millenium BCE. (For a full study of Philistine language, see the Wikipedia article on the topic.)

Whenever peoples live beside each other, they may fight but they also exchange products and, eventually, words. I am proposing that the word selah is a borrowing from the Philistines. Now, I'm not saying that King David himself is the one that brought it back or even that he necessarily wrote all of the Psalms attributed to him. (Though it does occur in many Psalms attributed to him [e.g., Psalms 3, 4, 9, 20, 21 et al.].)

So here's my theory. If Philistine is Indo-European and the word selah is a borrowing from them, it could be an etymological cognate to the word "solo." (The Proto-Indo-European root *solw- carries the meanings of "whole" and "alone" [cf., Latin solus 'alone' and Irish slán 'safe'].)

Musical notation is precisely where we tend to see word borrowing and then a tenacious preservation of terms. Notice how we still use Italian terms such as fortissimo and crescendo.

The possibility that selah indicated a musical interlude is not a new assertion. What I am saying, however, is that the word actually is related to the Italian word which we use even today to describe a musical solo.

Another example of how musical words tend to be borrowed, not created, is found in the word for "harp" or "lyre." What David played on is called, in Hebrew, a kinnor (כנור). But the Greeks called their instrument a kithara. (The word may be also related to the Old Persian sithar.) The Romans would borrow the word as cithara. It was borrowed by Semitic speaking peoples and shows up in Daniel 3:5 and the Odes of Solomon 6:1. It made its way into Arabic and then came back to Europe as … "guitar!"

Viva la difference!

In my many travels, I've been amused at the variety of signs used to tell the genders which bathroom is theirs. I've taken photos of some of the more interesting ones encountered on my journeys.

Here's a classic example from the top floor of the Unirii Mall in Bucharest. It tells English and Romanian speakers that the bathroom is to the left. But for others, they know from the classic images used to convey males and females that the toilets are in the direction of the arrow.


Here's a sign at the airport in Istanbul, in which we learn where the bathroom is, as well as the fact that hoop skirts are back in style:


Here's a bathroom sign at a very old restaurant in Istanbul. If you're wondering which bathroom is yours, just check your head to see if there's a top hat on it. That would indicate you're a man:


Here's a sign from a mall in Bucharest. As in many places of the world, the difference between men and women is that men wear pants and women wear skirts. Both, however, carry briefcases:


From a public restroom in Prague come signs that confirm the pants/skirts dichotomy but add to our knowledge that men and women can be equally exuberant to have found a bathroom:

They're going to lose that smile when they find out that it will cost them each a dollar to use this bathroom. It was at this place where a bathroom attendant even asked me what my official business was in there, since, well, there's a cost difference. I only had to use the cheaper of the two options, but wondered afterwards what would have happened if I that changed while I was in there. Would I have to come back out and pay first? Could I pay afterwards? If I snuck out would this really be detected?

In Bucharest, we find a facility for men and one legged women:

At the restaurant "Knights of Malta" in Prague (which I can enthusiastically recommend), we find a classy and quaint take on bathroom signs. Just a little gold paint over those screws would be an improvement, however:

Another interesting find in Prague was underground in one of the metro stops, if memory serves, the main stop nearest the castle complex. Here we finally see the genders divided, not by what they wear, but by how they urinate:

So you look at the two signs. Hmm, I don't ordinarily stand and produce a stream that prominent. I must belong in that other room where the little girl is pissing in a coffee cup.

Also in Prague, at the Castle Complex, you can find bathrooms for armless men and women:

You can't help but wonder why these bathrooms have two peepholes. Are these to look in or out? The whole thing raises more questions than it answers.

Keep in mind that in a traditional Arab society, both men and women wear robes which would go down to the ankles. So the western pants/skirt model is worthless there. Here are bathroom signs I photographed in Doha, Qatar where the facilities are differentiated by distinct clothing patterns on the head and face:

Finally, at the airport in Dusseldorf, I saw a unique sign. This image apparently tells you that, in this bathroom, pretty much anything goes:

If you have similar pictures you'd like me to add to this collection, email them to me at keith [at sign ] keithmassey.com. Tell me where they came from and, if you would like, a caption you would like to accompany them.

The Mystery of the Ezerovo Ring!

A few summers back, I was in an internet café in Bucharest, killing time to avoid going back to the chaos of the refurbishing of my mother-in-law’s apartment. (In retrospect, installing an air conditioner, painting the whole apartment, installing all new windows, and replacing all the furniture was too much for one summer.)

At any rate, I stumbled on the fragments of Thracian and Dacian preserved in a few artifacts. Both languages, which may or may not be dialects of a single language, are little understood owing to the lack of but a few lines of text for linguists to study.

Creative and courageous scholars have tried to compile a description of the ancient Balkan languages from preserved place names and names of plants and animals preserved in Greek references.

But imagine trying to reconstruct English from the names of English villages and names for foods. If our favorites such as hamburgers and pizza are any indication, such a methodology is doomed from the start.

Attempts to make sense of the scanty Thracian and Dacian inscriptions usually resort to dictionary searching and proposing fanciful translations.

I decided, in my own studies, to ignore previous work, both because I do reject the above methodology and because I did not want my ideas influenced in advance.

So I attempted what should always be done first in decipherment. I would line the text up by recurrent patterns and see if anything meaningful emerged.

As a former intelligence officer at the National Security Agency, I had the privilege to take a week long course in which I learned the encryption techniques such as were in use up until WWII (after which the whole thing turned into computer encryption beyond pencil and paper skills). It was a fun time, encrypting and decrypting messages in various block matrices, applying frequency analysis, and eating at a cafeteria with slightly different offerings than at Fort Meade.

So I attacked the best preserved of the inscriptions, a line of text on what is known as the Ezerovo Ring. Here is the artifact, found in 1912 in a burial mound in Bulgaria:



A Romanized version of the inscription, which is in Greek letters, is as follows:

rolisteneasn / ereneatil / teanēskoa / razeadom / eantilezy / ptamiēe / raz / ēlta

Supposing that the key to the language may lie in repeated series of letters, I divided the text by the most common repetition— the five occurrences of the vowels “ea”:

rolisten
easn / eren
eatil / t
eanēskoa / raz
eadom /
eantilezy / ptamiēe / raz / ēlta

After I divided the text this way, I spotted that two of the repetitions bore an additional similarity to each other:

eatil /
eantilezy /

In the first case, “il” occurs after the vowels, with a “t” in between. In the second case, “il” also occurs, with “nt” in between.

No one who has studied a Classical language would fail to spot the significance of those letters. “t” and “nt” mark the singular and the plural of the third person verb in many ancient Indo-European languages.

If these were verb endings, then the repeated “il” could be a following subject or object to that verb.

I was particularly intrigued by the possibility that the “il” could be akin to the Latin demonstrative adjective for “that”: ille (singular) and illī (plural).

The appearance of the vowel “e” after the “il” appearing in the hypothetical plural series amounts to potential confirmation that these are indeed verb endings, since the plural in ancient Indo-European languages can be marked by an additional vowel.

If we posit that the language on this ring is more Italic in nature than the study purely of place names would have suggested, I would propose as a reading for the above forms, "May that one go" (eat il) and "May they go" (eant ile).

A forced rendering of the full text, which would resort to mere speculation of much of the inscription, will not be proposed here. (Indeed, not even 50% of the oldest Latin inscriptions, such as the Doenos Inscription [ca. 500 B.C.] can be confidently translated, though the later stage of the language is perfectly known.)

Even so, an Italic understanding of the inscription would suggest other possible recoveries. The first incidence of the /ea/ series could be read as eas, 'may you go' or even teneas 'may you hold'.

The series dom suggests a word akin to Latin domus 'house' (noted by Paul Kretschmer in "Glotta" [Zeitschrift für griechische und lateinische Sprache 7, pp. 90-91]).

I hope we someday find a long inscription somewhere in Bulgaria or Romania which will provide us with a language sample large enough to tell what Thracian and/or Dacian were really like. Until then, here’s to another summer sipping wine at a terrace in Bucharest, contemplating life in the land of the Dacians.

Yes we can!

I'm happy to announce that an academic article I wrote some time ago has finally been published.

As a Latinist and the husband of a Romanian, I have enjoyed exploring the evolution of Rome's farthest Eastern linguistic outpost. My newest article is a wild assertion, but one which, I believe, is backed up with good evidence.

The Romanian word DA (yes) is assumed to be a borrowing from the common Slavic word of the same meaning and pronunciation. In my article, I put forth evidence that a Latin origin of Romanian DA is more than plausible, especially owing to a newly argued and probable derivation of Romanian dacă (if) from the Latin itaquod (Medieval 'if').

The article appears in the current issue of Ianua: Revista Philologica Romanica Vol. 8 (2008).

Now, mind you, I am not denying that Romanian has been heavily inundated with Slavic borrowings. But in this particular case, I suspect that the word for 'yes' is a preservation from a time when our beloved Vergil, if affirming something, said 'ita' (thus). A simple voicing of 't' and the (regularly attested) dropping of an initial vowel turns the common Latin affirmative ITA into, well, DA. I didn't say it in my article, but maybe the Slavs even borrowed it from the Romanians.

Capital Offenses

After I finished final edits on my Dummies book this summer, we needed a getaway from Bucharest. So we jumped on a plane and flew to Istanbul, Turkey. I have two Turks among my Latin students, fine young men.

Look, I know that every country has its losers, but I have to say that from what I saw, the fine young men I teach are representative, not exceptions. In Istanbul, ten men got up at once when they saw my wife board the tram. Each one competed for the honor to give up their seat.

I'm praising Istanbul and its people even though I will share that I was pick-pocketed. Folks, I'm a world traveler and take full responsibility for what happened. We were rushing to catch a tram after walking a long distance. I bought our tokens and, taking my change, stuffed a note equivalent to 20 USD in my pocket. I ordinarily secure my money in a wallet which is then safety-pinned in my pocket. I didn't do that this time. When we got off a crowded tram in which I had been surrounded on all sides by people, that note was gone. I choose to believe that whoever took it needed it worse than me and I hold no ill will against him.

Here we are at a restaurant which overlooks the courtyard of a Greek Church.



I tasted Yeni Raki for the first time at that restaurant. I'm sipping some right now as I write this post. It's basically Turkish Uzo.

I will eventually have other things to share about our lovely vacation in Turkey, but today I want to share an idea I have about an unsolved mystery there. In our third day in lovely and exotic Istanbul, we were checking off the final "must see" points of the city. On our way to jump the tram to head toward a boat ride across the Bosphorus (so my wife could say she's been in Asia), we visited the famed Basilica Cisterns (Yerebatan Saray).Built by Justinian in 542, they at one time held 60 million gallons of fresh water for the use of the Imperial city. At the far end of the cistern is a curious attraction discovered only after the cistern had been emptied and prepared to become a tourist attraction. All of the stone used to build the cistern had been cannibalized from other buildings. I had noticed, for instance, that a number of columns in the cistern bore a distinct teardrop shape that I had also seen on a pillar laying in front of our hotel in Beyazit.

From some unknown location, the people who constructed the cistern had reused two Medusa head statues as the base for two columns. The heads are positioned, one sideways, the other upside down. The heads are in the far end of the cistern, their faces pointing away from the main area of the attraction. Here they are:



The literature says that researchers assume that the positioning of the heads was intentional, but to this point no one has suggested a credible reason for the heads being in this precise configuration. Attempts to explain it have tended to focus on aspects of the Medusa myths, with one claiming that there was a practice of putting Medusas upside down.

I have thought about this issue for months. I am going to suggest a new possibility. My theory will have virtually no true evidence to support it. As such this idea isn't really something one could write up as a professional article. I'm suggesting that an explanation of the positioning of the Medusas should be seen in the actual cultural and historical context of the building of the cistern itself. Justinian was embarking on a number of building projects, including the cistern. But he also had just recently promulgated a new code of law. The Justinian Code included capital punishment, by beheading, for several offenses not previously punishable by death. Among these were homosexual acts and apostasy.

Let's imagine that an architect or builder working down in that cistern was unhappy with the new law. He has two Medusa heads available to him for use as base stone. What better way to silently lodge a protest than to depict a beheading? By positioning the two heads sideways and then upside down, the builder depicts a head rolling after being beheaded. This is further highlighted by the use of Medusa, who was herself beheaded by Perseus.

Since we may assume that Justinian himself may have wanted to inspect the project upon its completion, the builder faces the heads away from the center and puts them in the far corner, since it was unlikely that the Emperor would really go that deep into the project so as to see the far wall and the columns next to it.

But as the cistern was filled with water, the builder would always know that he had left a little inside joke inside the Emperor's prized cistern. If the builder were a closet pagan or sympathizer, he could know that a beheaded Medusa was poisoning those waters, if even symbolically.

Moonlight in Romania: The Tartaria Tablets

Just minutes before going out the door to travel to Romania for the summer, I was looking for interesting ancient mysteries to study during our stay. I knew that there would be many days in Romania when I could get myself to some establishment, sip a few, people watch, and dabble in something mentally stimulating as well.

I was intrigued to discover that a set of artifacts believed to be an example of Late Neolithic writing were discovered in Tartaria Romania. They were discovered by Nicolae Vlassa in 1961 during an archaeological dig. I printed off some photos and line drawings from the Wikipedia

One day in July, with my wife going out to lunch with a friend, I went to Piata Unirii, a huge shopping mall contained in a single building. It's a nice walk from Piata Universitate, which I reach on the tram from our flat. They've got a bowling alley on the top floor, along with a nice food court. I bowled three games and then went downstairs to the first floor where there's a McDonalds.

Now, I love a Big Mac. What I particularly enjoy is the special sauce. I love it so much that I always ask for a side of extra special sauce to thoroughly slather the thing down. In the summer of 2006, I tried over and over to get a Romanian McDonalds to oblige me on this extra side of special sauce. I even offered to pay more, but workers for some reasons didn't seem to think they were authorized to do such a thing. Suddenly this last summer, either my Romanian has now improved to the point where I am explaining myself better, or the free market is taking root, but I'm getting my extra special sauce. At any rate, the day I had my breakthrough on the Tartaria Tablets saw me eating my lunch there with a Tuborg beer as well. That's right; in Romania you can buy a beer in a McDonalds.

OK, that got a little off topic from the Tartaria Tablets. Anyway, after lunch I went back upstairs to the food court and settled into the small non-smoking section. I got another beer from one of the establishments. I struck upon an idea at the beginning of my third beer. I'll diagram my proposal for what one of the Tartaria Tablets is doing.

This artifact is clearly divided into quadrants. I'll number them consecutively, starting arbitrarily at the Northwest section and going clockwise. As I show you the quadrants, I'll show you a close up of the area with a duplicate shot in which I outline the groves of the inscriptions. Here is Quadrant I:

page, where you can learn more about the artifacts.

The semicircle struck me as a probable moon symbol. But what does a moon represent? A reasonable option is to make a moon stand for the number of days in a lunar cycle. As i sat there, I wasn't sure myself of what a lunar cycle is exactly. I knew it was something short of 30 days. That led me to an intriguing possibility. What if the other inscription in Quadrant I is meant to also convey the number of days in a lunar cycle? What if Quadrant I is a sort of legend, showing the values that will be operative elsewhere? Now, the other inscription in Quadrant I appears to be three lines in a row with two lines pointing out in each direction.

Perhaps each line stands for 10 and the lines pointing out are meant to convey subtracting one or two days from that sum. That would theoretically bring us to the number 28 or 29, which isn't far from the lunar cycle. Later at home with internet access, I was able to get the info that the exact lunar cycle is29.53 days. Now, I know what I just presented isn't a slam dunk. I'm going to ask you to consider it, however, in light of how this hypothesis plays out on the rest of this particular tablet.

On to Quadrant II:

We've got here two moons and two small circles. Sticking to an astronomical interpretation of symbols, I supposed that the small circles are suns, which could each signify a single day. Doing the math, two moons plus two days will equal 60. Now and behold, the other inscription in Quadrant II is a straight line with six shorter lines intersecting it. This is what we would have supposed 60 to be in the line notations.

Let's examine Quadrant III:

The most glaring numerical aspect seems to be 3 of something. Maybe that's a guy off at the side, who knows. Are the 3 lines coming off a glass or something? Or am I just seeing a glass because I would have ordered by fourth beer by now?

We move to Quadrant IV:

We've got a moon with a line intersecting it and two V shapes. I supposed that drawing a line through a moon could signify dividing it in two. It'd be hard to divide an odd number like 29, so I decided to assume this means the next smallest even number of 28. So a moon with a line through it is 14. The long line with two shorter lines would want to signify 20 in the system I'm positing for the rest. This led me to recall that a V is a shorthand way of writing three dots in Arabic script. A V is a shape with three points, so it could be a nice way to clearly write a 3. And that would give us 14 + 3 + 3 = 20, just as the other Quadrant IV inscription would have.

And now, looking at the whole thing, notice that there's an equation that works between Quadrants II, III, and IV:

20 x 3 = 60

As for what all this would mean, I am going to avoid the tendency so often seen with speculative decipherments of ancient texts to push one observation into a full reading. My twin brother Kevin, looking at what I came up with here proposed that this and the other tablets were somehow recording commodities, perhaps an early system of symbolic bartering. At any rate, I offer these observations in the hope that the mysteries of the Tartaria Tablets can be better understood.

I thank Tartaria Tablet researchers Gheorghe Lazarovici and Marco Merlini for sending me the close ups I use here and giving me permission to use them. Va multumesc!

Short Stories: Memories Eternal

MEMORIES ETERNAL

"The sword scraped its way from the scabbard," Mark typed, searching his brain for a cadenza from Vergil's Aeneid.

He refilled his wine glass from a box of the fluid beside the keyboard. The computer screen bathed the room in a dim bluish light. He saw there the reflection of someone who seemed older than his thirty years staring back at him.

For at least the tenth time that day, he opened his email, hoping to see a response from one of the dozens of query letters he had sent out a week earlier. Sipping deeply from his glass, he scanned an inbox empty of anything new.

An instant message box popped onto the screen.

"I'm here for just a second, Mark," he read. "We're still on for tomorrow, I hope?"

"Yes," he typed. "And I can't wait to see you again."

A single smiley face replied. He saw her icon change color and knew she had logged off.

"Do you have any idea what you do to me, Susan?" he whispered, topping off his glass again. "Now for your big moment, Galerius," he said evenly. "It's time to vanquish your foe."

"The Roman general squinted through the fog laced field and spotted his arch-nemesis Burebista," Mark wrote. "He raised his sword into the air and charged the Dacian foe."

He picked up a pen beside the keyboard and jotted a note. "Try writing sober again." He took another swallow off his glass and settled in to complete the scene.

"The Dacian chieftain suddenly produced and hurled an axe. Galerius was lifted off his feet as the weapon crashed through his breastplate. Lying on his back in the thick grass, he frantically tugged at the iron implement imbedded in his chest."

"It wasn't supposed to end this way," Galerius managed through lungs wheezing with blood.

"No, it wasn't!" Mark said aloud, clenching his fists in confusion and touching his knuckles to his lips. He half expected them to feel numb. Carefully repositioning his fingers on the keyboard, he continued.

"'My lord', a foot soldier said gently in Galerius' ear, 'We have turned them back, but Burebista got away'. The Roman general felt the life draining from his body. He drew in a final agonized breath. 'Tell my daughter…she must avenge me'."

Mark closed his eyes. He felt a gentle alcohol-induced spinning. "Perhaps the plot change is an inspiration," he thought.

"Sing, my Muse, the rest of the tale," he whispered as he felt his fingers typing independently of his own will.

"Aemelia saw a centurion coming up the path to the villa. Her anxiety grew with each of his steps. The soldier's face was wet with tears."

"'My lady, your father has fallen in battle', he said with a hoarse voice."

"She was silent, but a fierce scream tore through her heart."

"'He told me…'"

"'I know,' she interrupted him. 'I must avenge my father'. "

"The young girl stood before her family's lararium, their household shrine. Placing her hands carefully on the small altar, she blinked through tears at the figurines that represented her divine ancestors. Aemelia opened her mouth to speak, but broke down into convulsive sobs. The moment slowed and seared into her memory. All emotion poured away. She no more felt love, not ever for her father. Nor was it an anger. All that remained was a resolve."

"'I will avenge you, my father. I vow today that no peace will ever exist between our family and the family of Burebista. Te expectavi multos annos, Marce. Es ultor ex ossibus nostris'."

Mark gasped and drew his hands back as if from a fire. Suddenly feeling close to fainting, he lowered his head and took several deep breaths. As the spots began to clear from his vision, he reached for his wine glass with a trembling hand. He drained it in one swallow and looked up at the screen. Only then did he notice that the last two sentences he had typed were Latin.

"I have waited many years for you, Marcus," he translated aloud. "You are an avenger from our own bones."

He moved to refill the glass but paused. "I've clearly had enough for one night," he said.

He left the study and collapsed into bed.

********************

Mark felt his heart rate accelerate the moment he spotted Susan down the corridor of the Student Union. He had met this law school professor quite by accident a week earlier. Since then they had spoken on the phone and chatted online just briefly to fight through scheduling conflicts in the way of this first date. As she approached, Mark noticed she was wearing a sun dress in a lighter shade of the green he had said nicely suited her flame-red hair at their first meeting. Since a bold compliment had been well received before, he decided to take a chance again.

"You are positively stunning, Dr. Hansen," he said.

He saw her blush and smile deeply.

"Thank you, Dr. Petrescu," she said.

They entered the campus Rathskeller and scanned the environs for a place to sit.

"How about you grab us that booth in the corner while I get us something to drink?" he said. "What would you like?"

"Beer sounds good," she said.

Mark smiled to the young man behind the bar. "I'd like a pitcher of your dark beer, please," he said. He paid for the beer and approached their booth.

"Voici, Mademoiselle," Mark said, pouring her a glass. He wondered whether the moment occasioned a toast, but saw her take a drink as soon as he picked up his own glass.

"I'm sure you're a bundle of nerves knowing that the tenure board votes on you next week," she said.

He felt his blood pressure spike to hear it mentioned. "So you know about that," he said awkwardly.

"The whole faculty knows who's in the hot seat at any given time. I won't face it myself for two more years."

"I'm not optimistic about my chances," he said. "I've tried and failed to get any of my research published. No one has ever gotten tenure here without at least one academic article to their name."

"But I've heard that the Latin students love your class," she said. "Solid teaching should count for more than a publication."

"Even so, I would feel better about all this if I had just one. In a last ditch effort to report some kind of publication, I'm even writing an historical novel."

"Really? What's it about?" she asked excitedly.

"It's about a Roman general who beats a wicked enemy in Dacia, modern day Romania. Last night, however, the story somehow took over and went a different direction."

"I've heard that writers can experience that," she said.

"But this felt…" he stopped himself from explaining further an experience he did not himself completely understand. "Anyway, I've learned that I'm quite incapable of creative writing without significant chemical assistance. I don't think I'll make it as a novelist. But for now I'm giving it a try."

They spent a few silent moments, drinking their beers and surveying their surroundings. Mark was thinking of ways to spark the conversation when she spoke.

"So what first interested you in Latin?" Susan asked, emptying the pitcher into their glasses. "I studied it in college because I knew it would help me in the legal profession. How about you?"

"I went into Latin," he started cautiously, "because something…" Mark winced and wondered whether to tell her the strange experience that had set him on his life's course.

Sensing his hesitation, Susan reached across the table and she put her hand on his. "Mark, I like you," she said, leaning toward him and looking deeply into his eyes. "And I want to know you better."

Mark looked at her and felt all his anxiety fading away. "It was a mystical experience."

"Excellent!" she said. "Tell me more."

"I'll continue after I get us a bit more beer," he said, sliding from the booth.

With no one waiting, Mark went directly to the counter. "Another pitcher of beer, please," he said, pulling out his wallet.

"Right away," the young man said.

Instantly, Mark felt a strong tug of reminiscence.

"Excuse me," he said. "I know you from somewhere. Did you take a class from me?"

He looked at Mark carefully. "Sorry, sir, I'm pretty sure I never met you before today."

Mark paid for the beer and returned.

"I'm just positive I know the kid serving beer up there," he said, refilling her glass. "But he insists we've never met."

"Maybe from a previous life, if you believe in that." She sipped her new beer. "You owe me a mystical story, Mr. Latin Professor."

He smiled pensively. "When I was 15 years old, my mother died."

"I'm so sorry," she said. "What a terrible thing for a young person to go through."

"My dad was a mess after the funeral and started to drink some wine we had in the house. Even though I was underage, he asked me to join him. I guess he wanted the company. He eventually fell asleep, but I stayed up late, drinking more and going through some of my mom's stuff."

"Sorry to interrupt," she said. "But is your father still alive?"

"No, he died last year."

"Any siblings?"

"No, I'm an only child."

"Cousins? Aunts and Uncles?" she asked.

"Only my uncle Stefan, my dad's brother. In fact, he's the reason I came to teach at this college. Stefan's a professor at the Medical School here."

She took his hand again. "I'm glad to hear you're not totally alone in the world."

Mark sipped his beer and continued. "My dad's family came from Romania and I was raised Eastern Orthodox. But my mom was an Italian Catholic. I found an old prayer book among her things. It had Latin on one side and English on the facing page."

"I'm Lutheran myself," Susan said. "But I've seen books like you're describing."

"I began reading in it and suddenly I was understanding everything. It was as if something inside me already knew Latin."

"Perhaps you were experiencing a genetic memory."

"What's that?" Mark asked.

"I've read that talents and instincts can be inherited from an ancestor. Perhaps you were born with a predisposition for knowing Latin from your mother or even your Romanian father."

"I guess that's possible," he said. "Anyway, the next morning the Latin ability I had the previous night had been replaced with a terrible hangover."

She laughed. "Did this experience ever return?"

"Never again to the same extent," he responded. "But the incident drove me to take Latin in high school and make it the focus of my studies in college and grad school. And so here I am, Dr. Mark Petrescu, Assistant Professor of Latin."

"Thank you for sharing that with me, Mark," she said. "Listen, I really wish this time together didn't have to be so short. I give a lecture tomorrow on early Roman law. I'm sure you could do it off the top of your head, but I have to double check my facts on things like the authority of the Pater Familias."

Mark grinned. "You give me too much credit, Susan. I know that Pater Familias is a title for the head of a Roman household, but I'm fuzzy beyond that. In grammar and vocabulary I'm a whiz. History and culture have always been my weak points. A lot has fallen out of my brain since I crammed for the prelims."

They both got up from the table.

"Then I'll teach you all about Roman law on our second date," she said smiling.

"I will be very much looking forward to it."

She put her hand on his shoulder and gently kissed him. "Give me a call, Mark. And good luck with your writing."

********************

Mark sat down at his computer still euphoric from his time with Susan. He poured a glass of wine and drank it down in just three swallows.

"I have waited many years for you, Marcus," he read again. "You are an avenger from our own bones." The Latin phrase seemed familiar to him. An online search brought back confirmation of his suspicion.

"Ah ha!" he said aloud. "It's a phrase that Dido used in Book Four of the Aeneid."

He quickly drank another glass and then settled in to write.

"What do I do with you, Aemelia?" he asked himself. "Do I keep you in my story?"

He felt his fingers begin to twitch. "Sum Aemelia, mater tua," he typed. "Oportet tibi perficere iurationem meam."

Mark squinted at the screen. "I am Aemelia, your mother. You must fulfill my vow," he translated.

"This is crazy," he whispered. "Is my story turning into a chat session?" "Who are you?" he typed in response.

His fingers wanted to type again, but he pulled them away to drink another full glass of wine. He returned them to the keyboard.

"Non intellego linguam tuam, mi fili. Dic mihi latine," they typed.

He laughed as he translated. "I don't understand your language, my son. Speak to me in Latin."

"Quis es tu? Quomodo hoc facis?" he replied. "Who are you? How are you doing this?"

"I am your mother Aemelia. My dear child, you are the long awaited fulfillment of my vow."

"You're a fictional character from my novel. How are we having a conversation?"

"I am not fictional, my son. I have been guiding you for years. I was the one reading Latin that night after your mother's funeral. Now I have revealed our family's history to you through your writing."

"Either I've lost my sanity or you're some kind of ghost."

"No, my Marcus. I am dead but live as memories inside you."

"I still say I'm drunk or crazy or both," he typed. "What do you want with me?"

"You are near a child of Burebista. My memories have sensed it."

"You keep referring to yourself as 'memories'. And yet you speak to me as a person. What are you exactly?" he asked.

"I don't know, my son. I can think. I can sense things within you. But what matters most is what you must do."

"And what is that?"

"Our father's shade can not rest. You must avenge him by killing the descendant of Burebista."

Mark stood up from the computer and stumbled backwards toward the exit from his study. Waves of chill ran through his body as he left the room, carefully shutting the door behind him.

********************

"Here's the coffee you asked for," Stefan Petrescu said, setting the cup in front of his nephew. Mark sipped it and felt the caffeine dulling the intensity of his headache.

"Thanks for seeing me on such short notice," he said.

"Of course. Mark, I know you're sick of hearing this, but you look so much like your dad."

"It's OK," Mark chuckled, sipping from his cup. For a moment he was not sure if the coffee would stay down.

"What did you want to talk about?" Stefan asked.

"I'm writing an historical novel and thought I might include something I read about online. Have you heard about genetic memory?"

Stefan rolled his eyes in annoyance. "It's parapsychology, not science."

"What is it, exactly?" Mark asked.

"Memory is stored in the brain alone. But there have been some anecdotal claims hinting that it could also reside deeper in the genes. For example, someone gets a heart transplant and then suddenly craves food the donor supposedly loved."

"That's intriguing," Mark said.

"And random. People change their tastes all the time. It hardly means we should throw away all our confirmed scientific doctrine."

"Has anyone ever suggested that detailed memories of an ancestor could be passed down genetically?" Mark asked.

"The phenomena of child prodigies and idiot savants could be explained by genetic memories from an ancestor who had honed and then passed on such talents. But as a scientist I have to tell you there's no way it could actually work."

"But play Devil's Advocate for a moment," Mark said. "If memory can be stored genetically, when and how do you think it would happen?"

"There would have to be some evolutionary advantage to it," Stefan replied. "Perhaps some severe stress or perceived danger would be passed on to the next generation as an early warning about a threat."

"Isn't that exactly what instinct is?"

"Genetic memory would still have to be a rare phenomenon. Otherwise we would all be walking around filled with the memories of earlier generations, which we clearly aren't."

Mark finished his coffee and set the cup on the table. "How about a Roman woman, in the immediate trauma of learning her father had died, swearing an oath to her gods that she would try to avenge him?"

Stefan looked at him seriously. "You're using that in your story?"

Mark sensed a sudden turn in his uncle's attitude. "Yes. Why?"

"Your dad told you about what happened?"

"Yes," Mark lied. "But he didn't give me many details."

"A number of years ago, one of our cousins back in Romania marched into church and asked the village priest to perform on exorcism on him. He said that he was possessed by what he called 'the memories of an ancient Roman mother'. He said she wanted him to avenge her dead father by killing a man in some nearby town."

"Right, that's the story," Mark said, feeling both exhilarated and apprehensive. "I was thinking it might make for an interesting plot element. Imagine if those memories had been passed within a family."

"If that really were a genetic memory, it didn't provide any evolutionary advantage to our cousin."

"Why? What happened to him?" Mark asked.

"When the priest told him he wouldn't perform the exorcism, our cousin pulled out a pistol and shot himself in the head."

********************

"Aemelia," he typed, "I learned this morning that you are somehow alive as memories passed down in our family. Through me, your memories express themselves with a personality. You may even be experiencing some level of self-consciousness."

"I don't understand all that you say, my Marcus," she responded. "But I'm glad you know I'm real."

"How much do you know about me?" Mark asked. "Can you read my thoughts?"

"Not all of them. I catch only pieces of your mind and what you are feeling. And it seems we can only be in direct contact when you're drunk. Marcus, how much time has passed since I lived?" she asked.

"A little less than two thousand years," he replied. "There's so much I can learn from you, Aemelia. So much information about your time has been lost."

"It is not appropriate for you to address me by name. I am your mother."

"Yes, my mother," he responded. "It feels good to call you that. You know I've missed my own mother so much."

"Yes, my child. My heart ached for you when you lost her. I can't give her back to you, but you have me now."

As they communicated, Mark felt his immediate awareness of typing on the computer fade into the background. In his mind, the experience evolved into a face to face conversation with a stately Roman matron.

"Mother, when you first contacted me, you quoted from Vergil's Aeneid. How did you know that verse?"

"Our father gave me an excellent education. He spent a fortune keeping me supplied with the works of our historians and poets."

"Do you know how valuable you are?" he asked. "You can probably quote authors whose works have not survived. You could help me be a very successful scholar."

"Marcus, I always dreamed of having a child who shared my love of poetry and literature. My heart is soaring right now."

As they talked about their favorite authors, Mark felt the stirrings of an expansive love for his ancestor. He felt flowing tears and knew that they expressed a deep joy in both of their hearts.

"I'm so happy all this is happening," Mark said. "My mother, let's talk about your vow. How do you even know that a descendant of Burebista is near me?"

"I have sensed him near you for some time. Yesterday I think you even talked to him."

"Mother, a descendant of Burebista alive today shouldn't be killed to avenge our father. Such a person is innocent of what his ancestor did."

Mark felt a sudden anger inside himself. It was her emotion, not his.

"Marcus, you need to know that my memories include contact with two more of my children."

"Memories formed since you died?" he asked.

"I found a way to communicate with my daughter's son through his dreams. I convinced him to join the army. Our plan was for him to work his way up the ranks until he could fulfill the vow."

"And what finally became of him?" Mark asked.

"I don't know. He had gotten married before going to his post in Britannia. His wife stayed with her mother-in-law in Dacia. I can only assume, since my memories continued on, that he had a child."

"How do you know he didn't succeed? Perhaps your grandson killed a descendant of Burebista."

"I think I would know if that happened," she said.

"But, you wouldn't. My dear mother, you would only know about it if it happened before your memories were passed on."

"I don't understand," she said.

"What if your grandson had ten children? Each one could have inherited your memories. And each time those memories are awakened, you would tell your descendant to fulfill the vow, even if their father had already done it."

He was suddenly looking at hands that were under only his control. For the first time since they had begun conversing, she was silent. Mark sensed confusion as he felt her presence creep back into his mind.

"Mother, you were a cultured and educated woman," he continued. "You don't want to do any harm. Please let go of the vow. It's probably already been fulfilled."

"My father's shade is not at peace. I can't let it go," she said.

"You're asking me to kill based on the assumption that the vow was never fulfilled. Shouldn't we instead decide to let it go? Would your father have wanted all of this to happen on his behalf?"

"My son, I'm weeping. Do you think I like what all this has done to us?"

"Mother, it can end with me. I will not fulfill your vow."

"I didn't want it to come to this. You're different. You're so special, Marcus."

"Different from whom? What do you mean?"

"Hundreds of years after my grandson, I contacted a daughter. Her name was Helena."

"You came to her through her dreams as well?"

"No, I spoke with her as we do. Her job was to copy Latin manuscripts. I broke through in the text of her writing. We talked on pieces of vellum she stole from the scriptorium of her monastery."

"She was a nun, then. But she didn't have to be drunk to talk to you?"

"I guess not. She did once say that it had something to do with her lack of sleep. She was awake at strange hours for prayers and was always copying out these manuscripts."

"I'd like to learn a lot more about her," he said.

"Marcus, she was near a son of Burebista. I felt it. He was a prince where she lived."

"Where was that exactly?"

"The city of Brasov, in Transylvania."

"Did you learn a year?" he asked.

"She said it was 1740, in the year of her Lord."

"That part of Romania had been annexed by the Austrian Empire by then. Brasov was a German speaking city. This is all so fascinating."

"Helena would not do her part to fulfill the vow," Aemelia continued. "That was unacceptable."

"How could you expect a nun to find and kill a prince?" Mark asked.

"I knew that wasn't feasible. She was still standing in the way of the vow by not having a child to carry my memories into the next generation."

"Well you must have convinced her somehow," he said. "Otherwise I would not have inherited your memories through her."

"I didn't convince her. I took over her body."

Mark's fingers froze as he read and reread the words. He had not typed a response when she continued.

"You know your culture, Marcus. If you kill the descendant of Burebista, there's a good chance you can escape detection. But if I take you over, I'll be going out there in your body, not knowing your languages, not knowing where I'm going. It would be suicide, but I'll do it if you won't."

"You took over Helena?" he asked. "How did you do that?"

"I just learned how. Her superiors thought she had gone crazy when suddenly all she knew how to speak was Latin. They put her in their hospital at the Monastery, but I escaped. It took awhile, but I learned enough of her local German language to survive."

"What did you do for a living?"

"I was a prostitute," she answered. "I eventually had three sons and two daughters through Helena. One of them was your ancestor."

"Doesn't it bother you that you took Helena's life away from her?"

"I did what I had to do. My father must be avenged. I hope now you know how serious I am, Marcus."

Mark did not respond. He realized why his cousin had felt compelled to take his own life.

"You have one day to decide," she continued. "Come back to explain your plans to me only if you agree to fulfill the vow. If not, I'll take over your body tomorrow night."

********************

Mark finished telling Susan everything he had experienced since the last time they were in the same booth. They sat in a silence that seemed eternal to them both.

"You'll understand that I can't believe you," she finally offered.

"Yes," he said.

"You've as much as said you're planning to hurt someone."

"I'm not planning on hurting anyone. It's Aemelia who wants…"

"Mark, stop it," she snapped. "You've been under such pressure because of the tenure proceedings. That's what it is. You need to get help immediately. Please tell me you'll do that."

"Susan, I didn't expect you to believe this is really happening. But I know that what I am experiencing is not just stress. I need to convince a two thousand year old Roman woman to release me from her vow."

Susan stood up, tears filling her eyes. "I don't know what to do. I can't be here with you. You're sick and need to be stopped. I'm calling the police."

"I want you to do just that," he said. "But I need to try one last time to talk Aemelia out of this. If I fail, she will take me over and you will need to call the authorities and stop me."

She sat down slowly. "It at least impresses me that you're so reasoned about all this."

Mark looked out over the room and spotted the same young man who had served him earlier. "Of course!" he exclaimed. "I thought I knew him only after you and I had drunk a few beers. She said that I had spoken to a descendant of Burebista. That guy is the one that Aemelia wants me to kill."

"OK, you're scaring me again," she said.

He turned back to her. "Will you help me? Will you stop me if I fail?"

Tears ran down her face from swollen eyes. "Yes, Mark."

"I'm so sorry, Susan," he said, taking her hand. He was relieved that she did not recoil from the gesture.

"You shouldn't be sorry. You didn't ask for this to happen. You just need some rest and some help."

"No, I mean I'm sorry that you and I won't get the chance to see what we might have had together."

She smiled faintly. "For that I'm terribly sorry, too," she whispered.

********************

Mark opened the online chat program and saw Susan's name lit up.

"I'm here," he typed.

"Me too," she returned.

"It's safer this way. We can't know how she would react after taking me over if she found you here."

Susan did not respond.

"I'll send you a message shortly if somehow this goes well," he continued. "If you get nothing from me within fifteen minutes, it means I've lost control and you should call the police immediately."

"Mark, I'll be calling the Police in just a few minutes, no matter what. I wanted to be honest with you about that."

"I understand," he replied. "Thank you for trusting me enough to not call them already. It's given me a last chance to set things right."

"Do what you need to do," Susan said.

"OK. I'm beginning now."

Mark downed two glasses of wine. "Greetings, my mother," he typed.

Not receiving a response, he refilled his glass and took a deep sip from it. As he felt the alcohol hitting his brain, his fingers began to twitch. Setting them on the keyboard, he read her reply.

"My Marcus, you were near him again today."

"I know who he is. You will not succeed if you take me over. You need to let me take care of things."

"Then you agree?"

Mark paused to think over his precise response. "I propose that we first try to research whether another of your children has already fulfilled the vow," he said.

He felt his entire body seize with a paralysis. His consciousness slipped into mere memories within his own brain. Just as suddenly, it released him.

"I did that so you would have no doubt that I can control you, Marcus. I give you one more chance to avenge my father."

Panic gripped him. "I'll do it, my mother. I'll kill the son of Burebista," he typed, hoping to at least stall her until Susan had called the police.

"Then go do it right now," she said. "Go immediately or I'll take you over for good. Go!"

Mark sighed in the resignation that he had failed. He looked at Susan's icon in the instant messenger and formed an image of her face in his mind. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "Goodbye."

At that moment Mark heard a beep from the computer and saw a new message from Susan.

"In case all this is true, here's something to try: Pater Familias tenet vitae necisque potestatem," he read. "The Father of the Household holds the power of life and death."

He read and translated what he recognized as an early Roman legal text. Mark realized the implication of her words.

"Time's up, Marcus," Aemelia said.

He felt the paralysis setting into his body again. "Mother, one last thing," he typed.

The paralysis slightly relaxed.

"What is it?" she asked.

"As Pater Familias with authority over all members of our family, I declare your vow null and void."

"What?"

He sensed confusion in her and, for the first time, fear. The paralysis vanished. "I'm the oldest living male in my direct lineage," he continued. "Thus I exercise, under Roman law, the authority of the Pater Familias over you. The law gives me the power of life and death in our family. I have declared your vow cancelled. I'm not going to argue with you about it. It's already done."

Mark sensed an intense anger rising within him.

"I hate you," she said.

"My mother…"

"Do not call me mother," Aemelia said. "My sons understood duty. But you use a legal ruse to destroy me."

"I understand your anger, but I did what I had to do." Mark felt tears on his face. They were both his and hers.

"I could have made you a great success in your century. But now I'll vanish back inside you. I curse you in the name of every god there is."

"Mother, I love you and I bless you," Mark said.

There was no reply.

"Goodbye, Aemelia. Rest in peace now," he typed.

Mark pulled his hands away from the keyboard and sat alone in the silence of the room.

********************

Mark sipped wine and scanned through his old correspondence with Aemelia. Coming to the end of the document, he read the two additional sentences he had typed there in the year and a half since her final message. "I'm here anytime you would like to talk," he had typed.

"Aemelia, what's your favorite book of the Aeneid?"

He sighed deeply and typed another.

"I got married last week, my mother." He felt his lower lip trembling as his eyes filled with tears. "She's smart like you. So, I'm not alone anymore. I won't write to you again, but I just wanted you to know that I will always love you. Hail and farewell."

Reaching to close the document, he felt his fingers wanting to move. His heart raced as he placed them on the keyboard.

"Tell me more about our new Mater Familias," he read.

Short Stories: Last Words

Last Words

Lydia finished the last touches of her make-up. Today was the day she had awaited for as long as she could remember. Countless feelings filled her heart at this moment--excitement, joy, fear. She leaned into the mirror to detail her eye-liner. Lydia had arranged her long red hair in luxuriant curls. Her royal blue dress clung tightly to her well proportioned body. She reached into the front to adjust and emphasize her cleavage. As she looked herself over, a wry smile crept onto her face. She deftly applied some bright red lipstick. “I look like a whore,” Lydia muttered. She shot a glance to her watch--one hour until she would meet David. Just enough time to revisit the focus of tonight’s operation. She left the bedroom and sat at the desk in her study.

“Computer,” she said. “Run program Capt. Miller.” An interactive display she had programmed years ago replayed the crucial events. She had secretly, and quite illegally, snatched data from government sources to reconstruct the precise time line and location of her life’s obsession. Though she knew all the details, she watched it run for what might have been the thousandth time. The narration, enhanced by video files, recounted the story.

Year 2089, March 7, 22:04 Standard Time. The transport ship Paloma, carrying 179 colonists, fires its braking rockets as it readies for the lunar landing. A still undetermined malfunction disables the ship. It begins descending toward a crash on the moon’s surface.

Capt. Sarah Miller is piloting a lunar colony recon craft. Notified of the transport’s difficulties, she changes course to attempt a rescue. After a brief communication with the Tranquillity Colony it is decided that her craft can possibly tow the transport back into a stable orbit until a larger ship arrives to dock and retrieve the colonists An immediate and catastrophic consequence of the transport’s malfunction is discovered when Capt. Miller fires the towing cables. A positive ionic polarization had developed on the transport’s hull. The moment the cables attached, a massive electrical charge arches from the transport to her recon ship. The power surge overloads and damages most systems of Capt. Miller’s craft. Both ships speed helplessly toward the moon. Capt. Miller is able to send one last transmission.

Lydia shut her eyes tightly as she listened.

“Tranquillity Colony…systems lost…Please record personal message…Lydia, honey…Mommy’s so sorry…be strong for me…”

The transmission is cut short when both ships crash onto the lunar surface.

“Computer, play sound file Rescue.” Lydia said, looking to the ceiling, as tears welled up in her eyes. A moment later she heard her own voice.

“Mommy, quick, listen. This is Lydia. It is 26 years in the future. Don’t ask how you’re hearing this. The transport ship is positively polarized. You’ll be killed if you fire the towing cables. Repeat, the transport ship is positively polarized. Firing the towing cables will release a burst of electricity which will disable your own ship. Do not attempt the rescue.” She copied the file onto a disk and put it in her purse. Standing up from the chair, she looked at a photo of Capt. Miller set as the background on the screen.

“Today’s the day, Mommy.”

“What can I get you?” asked the bartender.

“Ahh…a beer.” David said, scanning the club’s entrance. He punched a number on his phone while he watched the bartender work. “Yeah, Mark, this is David…No, she’s not here yet…I don’t know…I don’t know much about her, except that she is totally hot…” The bartender set a glass of beer in front of him. He took half of it in one gulp. “Yeah, I finished that project…I should be in tomorrow, but…no, just don’t expect me there as early as usual…if my hunch is right about this girl…Hold it, I gotta go.”

He hung up the phone and smiled as Lydia slowly walked toward him through the bar.

“Hi, have you been waiting long?” she asked, running her hand through her hair.

“No,” David pulled out the bar stool next to him. “What do you want to drink?”

Lydia sat down and gently placed her hand on David’s thigh. “Surprise me.”

David smiled. “Bartender, two double vodka and tonics.” The bartender nodded.

“Hmm…” Lydia purred. “You’re trying to get me drunk?”

David laughed. “When I got my current job I had to sign a statement to the effect that I would never drink. Can you believe that?”

“How can they do that? Doesn’t that violate your civil liberties?”

The drinks arrived and each took generous sips.

“Well, these government jobs supposedly can require enforcement of certain behaviors. Believe me, though, there’s a bunch of us that just sign the thing and then ignore it. Even the director thinks it’s a bunch of bullshit, so we don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Tell me more about what you do.” Lydia said, looking at David over the rim of her glass.

“Well, I actually can’t tell you much. You know how it is.”

“I guess. But, I mean, what are you? A bookkeeper, a tech?”

David grimaced with indecision. “I can tell you at least this much. I’m a scientist. My studies were in temporal physics. Do you know what that is?”

“Some. Just the basics of what they teach everyone. You study time anomalies and stuff.”

“Yeah. So, how about you?”

“Excuse me,” Lydia said, reaching for a napkin across the bar. She purposely used her right hand so he could see down her dress. David squirmed on his seat. She turned toward him and slipped her calf between his legs. He took a desperate drink from his glass.

“I’m sorry, what…oh, I asked what about you? What do you do?”

“I’m a physician.”

“What’s your specialty?”

“Neurology.”

Two hours later, Lydia was preparing a syringe in a bathroom stall. She slipped the needle into her arm and compressed the contents into her bloodstream. An almost instantaneous clarity flooded her brain as the compound released oxygen. She returned to David at the bar.

“So tell me more about what it was like to grow up on the moon.” David said with a slur, trying to get the bartender’s attention. Lydia slid her hand along his cheek and prodded his face toward her own.

“Why don’t we continue this party elsewhere?” she asked.

When the bartender arrived David paid up and carefully stepped to the floor.

“And why don’t you let me drive,” she said with a giggle.

David opened the door to his apartment and let Lydia enter first.

“This looks great,” she said. Lydia sat down on the couch in the living room and patted her hand on the seat beside her. She allowed her skirt to ride well up her thighs. David went to the kitchen and quickly filled two glasses with red wine. As he sat down a distance from her, Lydia slid toward him to fill the gap.

“You know, they say that regular consumption of red wine could be good for the heart,” David said, lifting the glass to his lips.

“Well, they’ve been saying that for a long time but haven’t been able to prove it yet.” Lydia smiled coyly. “But let’s drink it anyway.” She took a light sip and set her glass down on the coffee table in front of the couch.

“Lydia…” David hesitated, searching for the right words. “I don’t know exactly what to say. I feel so quickly like we have some amazing bond here. Like we were just meant, no matter what, to be together. Do you know what I mean? Do you feel the same way?”

As she looked at him, she thought about what he had just said. Lydia had to admit that he was quite likable. She wondered what might have happened if they met under different circumstances. But she reminded herself that she had a mission tonight and David had only one important role in it. Lydia slipped her hand into her purse and carefully removed a protective cap from another syringe. With her other hand she took David’s and pulled it to her breast. Leaning over, she placed her open mouth on his. David gasped. She briefly darted her tongue into his mouth and then withdrew a few inches from his face.

“You have no idea how much I want you right now,” she whispered. He moved to kiss her again but she guided his mouth to her chest. David began gently kissing the exposed skin of her breasts as Lydia pulled the syringe from her purse and gave it a quick inspection. With a well-practiced motion she buried the needle in his neck and gave him the shot.

“DAMN!!” he shouted, jumping to his feet, a shocked look on his face. “What the hell did you just do?!”

“Oh, you’ll figure that out in just a second,” she stated calmly. David’s fingers began to tremble.

“What did you do to me?” he asked as his arms began to seize up. He fell to the floor between the couch and the coffee table. Lydia casually put the syringe back in her purse and stood. “OK, time for business. Listen to me. I just gave you an injection that has paralyzed your major muscle systems. It won’t kill you. You will still be able to breathe, but you won’t be able to move for several hours. Oh, and you can still feel everything. That will be important soon.”

“Why?” he gasped.

Lydia chuckled. “Well, obviously because I want you immobilized.” She began removing items from her purse. She set a small notebook, an intravenous fluid bag, and a scalpel on the coffee table. She looked at him on the floor.

“I wish you had fallen back on the couch. It would have made this a bit easier.”

“What are you going to do to me?” he sobbed.

She sat back down. “That all depends on you. Let’s put it this way. I need you to tell me a number of things. If you don’t tell me what I want to know I am willing to hurt you in ways that will not be pleasant.” She ignored him a long while as she jotted things down in her notebook. David lay silent, trying to grasp what was happening to him. Finally he heard faint beeping as Lydia pressed buttons on a module attached to the IV bag. She set everything back down on the table and looked at David.

“OK, let’s get started. I need entrance codes to your lab and directions on how to operate the temporal transmitter you have been working with.”

“How do you…” David looked up at her with confusion. “No one knows about that. Where did you hear about it?”

“Let’s just say that I’ve been using many and various means to get a lot of information for some time. But that isn’t important. I know that five years ago your lab discovered a wave band with the quality of generating radio pulses backwards in time.”

“Yes, we discovered it, but we’ve banned any further experimentation. It can never be used because it could change the past.”

She scoffed and shook her head. “Oh, you’ve banned further experimentation. That’s a good one. Get this through your head. I don’t care about your policies. I don’t care about you. I’m going to use that transmitter or else I will dismember you piece by piece.” She picked up the scalpel and put the blade across the first knuckle of David’s right pinkie finger. “Now, what numerical code do you use to get past security?” Lydia waited just a second and then sliced and crunched the blade through his finger.

“CHRIST!” David screamed. She picked up the piece of finger and held it in front of his eyes.

“When I ask you a question I will get an immediate answer. I am not going to sit around here all night watching you contemplate whether or not you will cooperate.”

“Don’t hurt me…” he pleaded.

“Just decide right now that you will answer all my questions and you won’t lose any more fingers.” David suddenly convulsed as he began to vomit. Lydia turned him to his side as the contents of his stomach emptied onto the floor.

“I thought that might happen,” she said. “Now, if you tell me what I want to know I won’t cut off your ears…and your nose…” David closed his eyes and drew deep breaths. “And don’t think I won’t cut off other things as well.”

“OK! OK!” he cried. “I’ll tell you anything you want.”

Lydia shot a smile at him. “Really? I was expecting to have to cut off more than one finger to get you to this point.”

“No, I’ll tell you anything.”

“Good.” She took the IV bag and pulled along the length of attached tubing until she held the needle at the end. Bending down, she inserted it into his arm.

“What’s that?” he asked nervously.

“That is a poison that will be released into your veins in two hours if I don’t get back here to remove it. In other words, if you give me any false information that results in me being arrested… Well, I would be in jail when you are suddenly racked with horrible pain and die here. Got it?”

“Fine, I’ll help you as much as I can. Tell me one thing, though. What are you trying to do?”

Lydia thought about whether to share anything with him. “I’m trying to save my mother’s life.” she finally offered.

As she pulled her car up to the back entrance of the temporal physics lab, Lydia looked up at the full moon in the night sky. “Help me,” she whispered. She studied the codes she had written on her notepad as she walked to the door. David had said that, despite telling her everything, it would still be difficult to get to the lab and transmit the file without being seen by a guard. New security protocols did not permit entrance of the building without going past the front desk. He had given her a code which his friend Mark had told him could still open the rear door, but not without sending a signal to the front desk. A guard would be dispatched to investigate. If she proceeded immediately to the lab on the second floor she would have about two minutes to download the sound file, adjust the parameters of the temporal transmitter, and send it.

She stood before the large steel door and paused, taking several deep breaths.

“This is the moment,” she said. “I’m coming.” She spied the number pad beside the door. Surprised by how steady her hand still was, she entered the seven digit code. Relief flooded her as the red flashing light on the console turned to green. She quickly opened the door and walked down the hall.

“Straight ahead, four doors,” she reminded herself. Turning to the right she entered a new code on the stairwell entrance. Again a green light signaled success. She thought of David still laying on the floor at his apartment, his life hanging in the balance with her own. She had explained to him that if she succeeded in her mission, it would change the past such that none of the events of this evening would occur. It would only be if she failed that he would die from the release of the poison. A twinge of guilt hit her as she thought about the things she had done to him. She shook it off, concentrating on her mission. Climbing the stairs, she reached the second floor. “Sixth door on the left” she thought, turning down the hall. She punched the code and opened the door. The temporal transmitter was accessed by the main computer on David’s desk. She sat down and inserted the disk she had brought, trying to ignore the intense nausea her nerves were now beginning to produce. Because her voice was not entered for recognition, she used the keyboard to open the programs that ran the transmitter. A user box appeared. “One last code,” she thought as she typed. A new screen appeared with a series of information boxes. She typed quickly, entering the precise time and location for which the signal was to be generated. The date 3/7/2089 was recorded in one slot. 22:09 Standard Time went in another. Other boxes required complicated strings of numbers to indicate a small area in the precise location of her mother’s ship near the moon. Finally, she entered the radio-band length the ship would be receiving. Everything was ready. Once the program was launched, the sound file she had recorded would be transmitted back in time and heard by her mother alone as she neared the transport ship for the ill-fated rescue attempt.

“STAND UP AND STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER!!!” Lydia turned her head quickly and saw a guard in the doorway, gun drawn and pointed at her. “STAND UP IMMEDIATELY OR I WILL FIRE!!!” he barked again. Instinctively she turned and looked at the key board. As she reached to transmit the file, she heard the sound of the shot. Before she fully knew what had happened, Lydia found herself on the floor next to the chair. She felt an excruciating pain throughout her chest. As blackness began to cover her vision she saw the guard standing above her.

“David…save him…” she said weakly. Lydia tried to take another breath but gagged on the blood filling her lungs. “Only one more key,” she thought as she slipped from consciousness.

David sat in the lab and watched the dozens of official people busily circulating. His hand stung badly with pain emanating from his lost finger. The security officers had arrived at his apartment just in time to remove the IV. The muscle paralyzer had begun to wear off a few hours later. Through the office window he saw the orange glow of sunrise.

“They still haven’t been able to ID her,” a guard said getting off the phone. “The coroner said it will probably take hours to compare her finger prints and dental records with the file banks.”

Frank Remington, the lab’s director sat down next to David. “Are you sure she didn’t tell you something that would help us figure out what she was trying to do here?”

“She didn’t tell me anything. She just tortured me into giving up the security codes.”

“Well, all we’ve been able to figure out so far is that the parameters she entered link up with an accident that happened 26 years ago. The space agency is getting back to us with more details.”

David stood up from his chair and walked stiffly to the computer. The screen was still set as she had left it. An investigator sat at the desk and studied the numbers she had typed. David’s thoughts were a jumble. “What was inside her that she could do all these things?”

Frank followed him and pulled him aside. “One thing is for certain. This secret is out. The temporal transmitter will have to be dismantled. We can never risk having the thing actually used in a way that would affect the past. And we seem to have had a terrifically close call here tonight.”

“Yes,” David agreed. “But what would have happened if she had succeeded?” he thought.

“You know,” Frank began. “You should be ready for what’s coming. There will be an investigation. Your part in this is not totally innocent. They tell me that you had a measurable blood alcohol level. You know I don’t care, but this will be used against you.”

“I understand, Frank,” David said, looking past him at the computer screen.

“What I am really trying to say is that if you resigned it might make everything a bit easier.”

David sat back down. He could not shake from his mind the image of Lydia’s lovely face beaming at him from her bar stool. “We were meant for each other,” he thought. Across the lab, David saw an investigator studying the keypad Lydia had used. He remembered that it was only because her voice was not entered that she had needed to use it. He laughed audibly.

“What the hell is so funny?” Frank asked.

“Computer,” David said loudly. “Authorization David Schiller 47973. Transmit file.”

“NO!!!” Frank shouted as the computer whirred in response to the command.

Lydia sat at the computer and lifted her daughter Sandra onto her lap.

“Mommy, show me the story again.”

“Computer, run program Capt. Miller.” Lydia said softly. The interactive display began.

Year 2089, March 7, 22:04 Standard Time. The transport ship Paloma, carrying 179 colonists, fires its braking rockets as it readies for the lunar landing. A still undetermined malfunction disables the ship. It begins descending toward a crash on the moon’s surface.

Capt. Sarah Miller is piloting a lunar colony recon craft. Notified of the transport’s difficulties, she changes course to attempt a rescue. It remains unknown how Capt. Miller knew that the ship had become positively polarized by the malfunction. It is believed that if she had carried out the mission as ordered, her own ship would likely have been disabled by an electrical surge. Instead Capt. Miller adjusted her own controls to generate a positive polarization on the recon ship’s hull. Flying under the transport she was able to magnetically repel the other ship into a stable orbit. However, this sent her own ship into a trajectory toward the moon’s surface from which she could not recover. Capt. Miller was hailed as a hero who sacrificed her own life and saved all 179 colonists. Before she died, she sent one last transmission.

Lydia smiled as she heard her mother’s voice.

“Lydia, I know this isn’t what you meant me to do, but your message told me how I could save those people. Always remember that I love you.”

David entered the room, embraced his wife and daughter from behind, and kissed each on the cheek. “Honey, I have to go to the lab for a while. They’ve finally decided to dismantle the you-know-what.”

“Thank God,” she said. “Don’t be too long, OK?’

He kissed Sandra on the forehead and then kissed Lydia tenderly on the mouth. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Mommy, what did grandma mean? What message did you tell her?”

Lydia hugged her daughter tightly. “I don’t understand it. But I do know that she loved me. And I love you.”