From steve@starport.COM Sat Aug 5 09:25:02 1995 Newsgroups: alt.kalbo Path: starport!steve From: steve@starport.COM (Stephen R. Savitzky) Subject: But not yet quite forgotten... Amethyst Rose Sender: steve@starport.com (Stephen R. Savitzky) Lines: 42 Organization: Grand Central Starport Message-ID: Date: Sat, 5 Aug 1995 15:54:19 GMT The Mandelbear crawls out of his tent, blinks at the early morning light, and stretches. He looks much more like a human today than a fractal; the veils between the worlds are wearing thin. In the nomads' desert the campfires all have faded; only a thin stream of smoke rises from a pile of cooling ash. A lizard makes its morning rounds, moving slowly in the still-cool air. The sky is the color of some baby's eyes. In California the morning air is also cool, and the sky is the exact shade of bluish off-white that Steve Savitzky uses for window backgrounds on his computer screen. Thin indeed. He sips his coffee and looks out the window at the fading yellow paint on the house next door. Five minutes ago, more or less, he puts his copy of Yeats' poem _The Stolen Child_ back on the shelf. Fifty years ago, a single bomber takes off for Hiroshima; it will arrive the following morning about this time. Five years, one day, and about six hours ago a baby is stillborn, killed several days before by the effects of untreated high blood pressure in her mother. It will be a few days before her father sets the Yeats poem to music. Five years later, yesterday, he only remembers once or twice that it was August 4th. In the desert, he scoops up a pebble from the sand. An amethyst, of course. Deep within its translucence can be faintly seen another world again; a child of no discernable age walks briefly through a clearing among a stone forest. She looks neither left nor right, and after she is gone there is nothing at all that moves amid the stones. Near one of the trees is a bush with leaves of jade and thorns of black obsidian; it bears a single amethyst rose. He puts the pebble in his pocket, where it will vanish as he goes once more between the worlds. "It's been five years" he says to the desert, and the few now awake in the still-cool morning. The warm winds will take his words to those who come after. "Maybe I won't do this again next year. I looked in the Bar and the Coffeehouse, and no-one seems to have remembered. Just as well; I haven't been to either place in months." He lifts a little cup of Arabic coffee to his lips; it is dark-brown, sweet, and scalding hot, the consistancy of sludge. He raises the empty cup in a little salute before he sets it down. In another world he does the same with a black mug of ordinary coffee, and turns back to the screen where black letters fill a page exactly the color of the sky. A car goes by; the kids will be waking soon. As he fades from the desert he whispers her name again; "Amethyst Rose." The veils between the worlds and times swirl back in place. -- / Steve Savitzky \ Cyberspace: an alternate universe where magic works /__ / h: steve@starport.COM\ http://www.starport.com/people/steve/ /___ \ w: steve@crc.ricoh.COM\ http://www.crc.ricoh.com/people/steve/ \___ \____ Kids' page: _____/ http://www.crc.ricoh.com/people/steve/kids.html __\__ From mmbt@andrew.cmu.edu Sun Aug 6 22:38:54 1995 Path: starport!rahul.net!a2i!news.clark.net!news.sprintlink.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!solaris.cc.vt.edu!news.duke.edu!godot.cc.duq.edu!hudson.lm.com!news.psc.edu!fs7.ece.cmu.edu!casaba.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!postman+ From: Mary Mark Newsgroups: alt.kalbo Subject: Re: But not yet quite forgotten... Amethyst Rose Date: Sun, 6 Aug 1995 10:04:21 -0400 Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 37 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: po8.andrew.cmu.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >The Mandelbear crawls out of his tent, blinks at the early morning light, and >stretches. He looks much more like a human today ... Five minutes ago, more or >less, he puts his copy of Yeats' poem _The Stolen Child_ back on the shelf. >Fifty years ago, a single bomber takes off for Hiroshima; it will arrive the >following morning about this time. Five years, one day, and about six hours >ago a baby is stillborn, killed several days before by the effects of >untreated high blood pressure in her mother. It will be a few days before her >father sets the Yeats poem to music. Five years later, yesterday, he only >remembers once or twice that it was August 4th. Merrigold listens quietly, remembering other posts she has seen in years gone by, regretting the loss of this child. Others regretting the deaths at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She picks up a few grains of sand; watches them trickle through her fingers, a few caught and carried by the wind. >"It's been five years" he says to the desert, and the few now awake in the >still-cool morning. The warm winds will take his words to those who come >after. "Maybe I won't do this again next year."... As he fades from >the desert he whispers her name again; "Amethyst Rose." "As often as you need, Steve. When and where. It's been what - 10 years? since my dad died; I still grieve for him, and still post most years on his birthday, usually some memory of him that has meaning for me. Just as you post memories-of-who-might-have-been with Amethyst Rose." "We love who we love, even when they are not near." -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mary Mark work phone: (412) 268-3409 Computer Science/Psychology work fax: (412) 268-2844 Carnegie Mellon University "JOY (le`): [Chinese Character] Pittsburgh,PA Also means music. The ancient symbol email: mmbt+@andrew.cmu.edu pictured drums and a bell on a stand." http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/mmbt/www/MaryHome.html From tjl9@aloha.cc.columbia.edu Tue Aug 8 07:15:10 1995 Path: starport!rahul.net!a2i!bug.rahul.net!a2i!infoseek.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!panix!news.columbia.edu!aloha.cc.columbia.edu!tjl9 From: tjl9@aloha.cc.columbia.edu (Thomas J Lee) Newsgroups: alt.kalbo Subject: Re: But not yet quite forgotten... Amethyst Rose Date: 7 Aug 1995 21:12:27 GMT Organization: Columbia University Lines: 20 Message-ID: <405vjr$sd@apakabar.cc.columbia.edu> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: aloha.cc.columbia.edu steve@starport.COM (Stephen R. Savitzky) wrote: >"Maybe I won't do this again next year. I looked in the Bar and the >Coffeehouse, and no-one seems to have remembered. Just as well; I >haven't been to either place in months." Tom answers, "I remember. I didn't remember the date, but I remember." After a moment he says, quietly, maybe a little brazenly, as if saying something that has to be said once, "I could put it in the almanac," then he backs off with, "but I suspect you'd have told me before now if you wanted this date in there." Take care, | Tom Lee (tjl9@columbia.edu) | Lamplighter (shortenable to LL) Pleasantly circumluded by choice| http://www.cc.columbia.edu/~tjl9/ "Have the courage to live. Anyone can die." -- Robert Cody