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Date Last Edited: 04/09/2008

 

 

 

 

 

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Eat Your Carbs,

They’re Good for You!

 

By Karen Cole-Peralta

 

You may think after all of the talk lately about carb reduction that you need to avoid eating carbohydrates. But the exact opposite is the case. The kinds of carbohydrates you get from fruits and vegetables are a necessary basis of your daily diet. Instead of helping you “pack on the pounds,” they actually help you to burn fat. They are also a major source of fuel for your body, especially your muscles, brain and nervous system.

Carbs occur in two types: simple and complex. They are broken down into glucose, or blood sugar, which is metabolized by your body for energy. Glucose not immediately used by you is stored in your muscles as glycogen, but if your body has an excess of glycogen, it is converted into fat. However, because carbs prime your metabolism, you need them in order to burn fat. This is one of the major reasons you must not starve yourself and eat too few carbs. You must eat a good intake of complex carbs, such as those found in fruits and veggies.

Simple carbs, such as those found in candies and sweets, and also fruit, are turned into glucose quickly. These are the kind which can add to your weight problem. Complex carbs, such as those found in brown rice, veggies, legumes (peas, beans and lentils), and whole grains breads and cereals are digested and thus used at a much slower rate, giving your body time to prime its metabolism.

There are four calories in each and every gram of carbohydrate. Nutritionists say that 50% of your diet should consist of complex carbs. Simple carbs are high in calories but low in vitamins and minerals. These are the so-called “empty calories” that you find in sodas, deserts and other such sweets, and to some extent in fruits -- especially fruit juices and fruit juice drinks. You should be getting your major carb intake from whole fruits, whole grains and vegetables.

Good high carb veggies are peas, peppers, pumpkin, radishes, spinach, squash, succotash, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and turnips. Succotash, sweet potatoes and green cooked peas are the highest in carbs. You need several servings per day of complex carb foods such as these to maintain your energy levels and keep you from getting those “sluggish” feelings that make you feel sick and tired.

By eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables every day, you will be boosting your health through better carb consumption. The National Cancer Institute recommends that you have fruit juice -- or better yet fresh fruit – every day for breakfast. You should have a fresh fruit or vegetable snack every day. You need to stock up on dried, frozen and canned fruits and veggies. You must make these foods visible and easy to access throughout your daily routine. And you have to “sample the delicious spectrum” when it comes to the many different colors and varieties of fruits and vegetables.

You will get your “five a day” if you eat one cup of dark, leafy greens, one half cup of red tomatoes, one half cup of yellow peppers, six ounces of orange juice and one half cup of blueberries. This is only one example of how you can consume “five a day” of fruits and vegetables to keep your complex carb ratio up. Please notice this includes only one serving of fruit juice. Various nutrition experts state that you should eat whole, fresh fruits more often than drinking fruit juice, which keeps those simple sugars from adding to your weight problem.

This is because simple sugars are more concentrated in fruit juices than in whole fruits. You should eat at least two cups of fruit a day, in a variety of fresh choices, such as one small banana, one large orange and one quarter cup of fresh or canned apricots or peaches. Also, eating fresh fruit adds more fiber to your diet and helps flush toxins from your system better than only drinking fruit juice does.

You should also eat plenty of dark, leafy green veggies, which are among the best foods for you. Eat broccoli and kale, as well as mustard greens and spinach. Also, you should eat “orange” veggies such as carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkin and winter squash. For peas and beans, among the best are pinto beans, kidney beans, black beans, garbanzo beans, split peas and lentils. Foods such as these are extremely healthy, low in fat, and terrific for raising your energy levels.

Eating fruits and veggies will also greater lower your risk for cancer. Researchers at the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University have made “top ten” lists of the best antioxidant (anti-cancer) fruits and vegetables. Here are some of the most antioxidant members of the fruit and vegetable families of foods:

1)     Fruits: prunes, raisins, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, plums, oranges, red grapes and cherries

2)     Veggies: kale, spinach, Brussels sprouts, alfalfa sprouts, broccoli, beets, red bell peppers, onions, corn and eggplant

While the average American seldom gets as much as two servings of these good foods per day, nutrition experts say that five to seven servings a day need to become a staple of the ordinary American diet. You can easily sneak these into your family’s eating patterns. Try serving raw veggies at every meal, and take advantage of packaged, prepared veggies. Put veggies into your breakfast and lunch, and start each family dinner with a mixed green salad. Serve a salad entrée dish once per week, fill your spaghetti sauce with vegetables, and begin ordering a weekly pizza – with an extra serving of healthy vegetables.

If we were to eat more veggies and fewer processed foods, we as a country would lose weight, clean out our clogged arteries, balance our blood sugar and shut down a large number of hospitals in the process. This would roughly solve America’s growing health and obesity problems – in a nutshell.

 

The information in this article was gleaned from a variety of nutritious resources:

 

1)  Kidzword.com at http://www.kidzworld.com/site/p5244.htm 

2)  VegSource.com at http://www.vegsource.com/talk/weightloss/messages/85.html

3)  MedecineNet.com at http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=18407

4)  Womenshealth.gov at http://www.4woman.gov/faq/weightloss.htm

 

5)  Reader’s Digest RD.com at http://www.rd.com/content/openContent.do?contentId=16245

 

 

 

 

 

Search Engine

Optimization: Reindexing

 

By Karen Cole-Peralta

 

What can you do to get your website up to the top of the URL (Universal Resource Locator) lists, so that when people type a search term into a search engine, such as “cheap ghost writer,” they will get to see your business name somewhere on the first page results? Well, mainly it’s a problem related to the search engine “bots” (robots) and “spiders” or “crawlers” going over your site repeatedly, noticing changes in it, and reindexing your website.

To reindex your site means that the search engines are sending out their little machines to go over your site and notice any changes in it. They are generally looking for major changes, such as fresh content, major rearrangements to your site, and brand new pages.

If you add new pages to your website, Google Sitemaps may be a program which could provide you with some help when it comes to reindexing at least the sitemap for your site. Currently only a beta program being tested by Google, it could start a new trend in site reindexing. When you make a Google sitemap, you lay out several details about the content of your web pages, and you can get Google to download the changes as reflected by your sitemap on a regular basis; constantly, if the pages are continuously changing, daily, weekly, or even monthly. Please look into this potentially worthwhile program for all of the details on how to properly make a sitemap for your site.

If you submit your site to many search engines, preferably the greatest amount possible, you will get massive exposure for your site when it climbs up to the higher rankings as listed on each of these engines. It’s not enough to only submit your site to search engines, but it’s the only way to start when it comes to your site eventually climbing its way up each of the search engine’s rankings for your site. And if you submit your site to as many search engines as possible at least twice per month, you will get maximum results from this. It is only the first major step, but it is the only way you will be seen by visitors who use search engines to find your site. Then as you resubmit your site twice per month, it will most likely be reindexed, or recrawled by the search engines, and each change you make will be updated by the major search engines and probably also by many of the minor ones as well.

To really maximize exposure, blog about your site’s contents with links pointing to your site, then submit your blog or blogs to search engines twice monthly. Also submit your site to directories, which you often only need to do once. You can also submit your blogs to the hundreds of blog directories available on the Internet. This will increase the number of inbound links coming in to your site, which is still helpful when it comes to your site making it up to the first page level of SERPs (search engine results pages).

Increasing the amount of incoming links pointing to your site is always helpful. Use every method you can find to cause sites relevant to the services and products offered on your business site to place a link to your site on their sites. This can be through directly offering to trade reciprocal links with relevant sites, joining link exchange services and using them to help you find sites which are willing to trade links with your site, and starting your own links exchange program, which generally involves free exchange of links. You will want to only trade relevant links, because Google, the major search engine presently on the face of the planet, now punishes sites for trading links which are not relevant, i.e., “any old link” will not do. You must make sure the links are organic and relevant, which means they must relate to the topics of your own site. Make sure your keywords are arranged so that when you send out your links, the links contain your most important keywords in the title text and the description of the site as well. The title text is the one that links directly to your site, and the description immediately follows it.

Also, make sure that you have proper title tags, keyword tags and meta tags for your site. You can go to Submit Express for help with this and for help with submitting your site to multiple search engines, both through their free and paid programs. You will also want several other types of tags or codes in your website that will help you optimize your pages for search engines and get your site onto the first page of search engine results.

You will need to make your site HTML (hyper text markup language) compliant, that is, it will have to pass the various kinds of “checkers” on the Web today that make sure your site’s HTML coding is correct and compliant with modern standards. Some WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) and other site editors and programs do not run code that is compliant with some of the stricter standards for HTML compliance. Microsoft Front Page is especially non-compliant when it comes to a complicated, not text-only website, as it rewrites its own code and is often found to be not compliant with modern standards.

There are all of these steps, and many more that you will discover by looking around and by subscribing to free newsletters such as Web Pro News and Site Pro News. These will help you put together a website that will gradually climb to the top of the charts. You will find that by adding fresh, keyword-rich content to your site every day, by writing your own articles involving the keywords in each page of your site, by varying the keywords so that each page has content containing the keywords for that page, and by constantly updating your Google sitemap – not to mention many other such “tricks” and daily “trendy” activities – you will find yourself slowly but surely search engine optimizing your website. And your site will be reindexed on a regular basis by the search engines.

Don’t worry too much about fancy Google “algorhythms” and whether or not you can keep up with all of the Joneses, especially if you don’t have a lot of money to spend. Work, work, work on your website. Set aside an amount of time every day to thoroughly find and employ methods for optimization that will cause the indexing of your site on a regular basis. Resubmit twice a month, change your site’s content daily, make sure you have plenty of incoming links from sites relevant to yours pointing to your site, subscribe to Internet newsletters so that you can get the most recent information about how to optimize your site for search engines – do everything you can make the time to do.

And use the latest in xml code technologies, such as making pages for your site in rss, atom and ror rdf information code. It is easy to find the formats for these codes and information on how to employ them by researching this on the Web. Submit information about content relevant to your business and website to Wikipedia, the Web’s new major encyclopedia. Post to blogs, wikis and message boards, using your website’s URL as often as you can. This creates more incoming links pointing to your website, which you need. Submitting to thousands of FFA (free for all) pages may help increase your incoming link count, which does matter to search engines. However, Google is frowning lately on irrelevant links coming in to websites, and it may count FFA links as being “irrelevant,” so you will want to consider that. Also, one-way links count for more than links exchanges, apparently, so you will want to consider that carefully as well.

Remember: the most important things are fresh daily content and getting the search engines to reindex your site, as often as humanly possible, more often than daily if needed. Some search engines will only reindex your site on a weekly or monthly basis. Some will do it on a daily basis. But we are fast moving toward an era where the search engines will be continuously crawling your website, looking for any changes, for the bad or for the good, at all whatsoever. So the more often you make major changes, especially to the keyword-related content of your site, the more often your site will be reindexed.

Pay the price to list your site with Yahoo. It’s worthwhile. Pay the price to list with multiple directories, if need be. And set up with as many beta testing programs through Google, Yahoo and MSN as your site qualifies for. This will get your site reindexed and crawled repeatedly by these three major search engines. And look into programs being set up by the other major and minor search engines as well.

Whatever you do, don’t despair. On your way in the climb up the SERPs, you will probably find many other advertising methods, such as simply being listed for free with services related to your site, visitors coming in from your relevant links, and organizations such as WebRing, where you can list your site by joining webrings for free and advertise your site for a low amount of money. There are also PPC (pay per click) services where you can avoid the entire organic optimization process by simply getting listed above the general search engine results -- by paying for it directly. The two major PPC services are Google’s AdWords program and Overture’s PPC program, which covers Yahoo and almost all of the other major search engines.

But remember: whatever methods you use, you will want to see your site get reindexed on a regular basis by the search engines. This is if you offer a business or service where you want to be included under you own niche keyword search terms on the first page of results under such keywords. And you will want to see your business name displayed in a forthright manner so that you can attract visitors who type your carefully chosen search terms into the major and minor search engines. So get ready, get started: optimize!

Executive Director and President of Rainbow Writing, Inc., Karen Cole-Peralta writes. RWI at http://www.rainbowriting.com/ is a world renowned freelance writing, copyediting, ghostwriting, graphics and CAD, search engine optimization, publishing helpers, internet marketing, xml code authoring, free professional services, and supercheap dedicated web host and website development corporation. Four Seasons CDROM Store sells inexpensive cds: fun arcade games, business and ebook software and computer learning tutorials, all state of the art and new, at http://www.cdrommarket.com .

Copyright © 2005 by Karen Cole-Peralta.

 

 

 

 

Malicious Lies:  Slander and

Gossip in the Deaf Community

 

written by Frank James

rewritten by Karen Cole-Peralta

published in Deaf Community periodicals

and also on the WWW

 

            The Deaf community is so closely-knit that it’s relatively easy for it to become both an open public and tabloid platform for malicious slanderers and gossipers.  Deaf persons with grudges who are envious and full of anger or resentment can perform vicious character assassination through slander or gossip.  Such a hotbed of gossip and destructive rumor-mongering only hurts the Deaf community as a whole.

            Many resentful, babbling busybodies don’t even know the person at whom the gossip is directed.  Slanderers and gossipers perform their vicious acts for their own ulterior motives; usually the motivation is resentment, anger or pure envy of another person.  But others will recognize the slanderer or gossiper for what he or she is:  an irresponsible person with attitude problems and severe character deficiencies, inhabiting a shallow world of back-stabbing and stating negative thoughts about others.

            Unfortunately, it is human nature to repeat gossip.  It is only enhanced by the storyteller through his or her biased imagination, and always contributes to our self-destruction.  Gossip, or slander, is always a personal confession of the contributor’s own malice and imbecility; it is a low, frivolous, and most often a highly dirty business.  No one is safe from it.  Each and every one of us comes with quirks, idiosyncrasies, flaws and personal peccadilloes which others can easily attack and use for ludicrous acts of character assassination.

            To define terms:  slander is any words spoken with malice that are not provably true and which prejudice the reputation or professional practice of another person.  Gossip is the act of engaging in the spreading of slander, and is usually riddled with lies and insinuations.

            Imagine the following scenario:  a couple breaks up, due to incompatibility, as one doesn’t want to marry the other.  The one who feels rejected deeply resents the other, and attacks his or her character.  Slanderers often use rank generalizations, which are simply exaggerations of small truths.  Ignorant friends become unwitting pawns in this game, and through gossip spread the slanderer’s untrue or inaccurate version of reality.  It takes your enemy (the slanderer) and your friends (the gossipers) working together to hurt or destroy your reputation; the one to concoct the stories, and the others to spread them.  The slander in this scenario is merely plain old-fashioned anger at the breakup.

            The National Enquirer could learn the arts of slander and gossip from talking to the Deaf community!  Recently, a guy with an attitude problem was gossiping about Yours Truly in Arizona.  He was so easily duped that he fell for a slanderer’s story hook, line, and sinker.  However, it only backfired on him, as he had unwittingly become a victim of vicious gossip himself.  The Deaf community in Arizona had a field day gossiping about his pronouncedly dubious background.  The moral:  it doesn’t pay to slander or gossip about someone else!

            Another example:  in 1999, I was attending a National Association of the Deaf convention in Norfolk, Virginia.  I was interested in a mental health workshop.  A Deaf lady, whom I will call “Vicki,” was at the workshop.  She repeatedly attacked me as a person, disliking my work and proposals, and insisted I was not doing enough for the Deaf community.  She seemed to resent me because I was not able to attend a substance abuse workshop in New Jersey.  She was very disrespectful and made several unflattering remarks about me.  My female companion was furious at “Vicki.”  What boggles the mind is that “Vicki” works as a mental health counselor!  Her behavior certainly left a lot to be desired.  She needs to read Dale Carnegie’s and Norman Vincent Peale’s books.  “Vicki” will never win friends or influence people with her shallow attitude.

            Sadly, even deaf Christians know better, but are guilty of being gossipers.  And the Bible clearly frowns on slander and gossip.

           

            “He who conceals his hatred has lying lips, and whoever spreads slander is a fool.”—Proverbs 10:18

            “Do not go about spreading (gossip) slander among your people.”--Leviticus 19:16

            “Whom are you mocking?  At whom do you smear and stick out your tongue?  Are you not a brood of rebels, the offspring of liars?”—Isaiah 57:4

           

            Gossipers, BEWARE!  Whoever you gossip with will eventually gossip about you.  Read and respect the following short pieces, and see the light!

 

MY NAME IS GOSSIP

 

            I have no respect for justice.  I maim without killing, I break hearts, and ruin lives.  I am cunning, malicious, and gather strength with age.  The more I am quoted, the more I am believed.

            I flourish at every level of society, and my victims are helpless.  They cannot protect themselves against me, because I have no name and no face.

            To track me down is impossible.  The harder you try, the more elusive I become.  I am nobody’s friend.

            Once I tarnish a reputation, it is never the same.

            I topple governments and wreck marriages.  I ruin careers and cause sleepless nights, create heartaches, and foster indigestion.  I spawn suspicion, and generate grief.  I make innocent people cry into their pillows at night.

            Even my name hisses with evil.

            I am called Gossip.  I make headlines and headaches.  Remember, before you repeat a story, ask yourself:  is it true?  Is it fair?  Is it necessary?  If not, do not repeat it, KEEP QUIET.

--Author Unknown

 

            And remember this:  Great minds discuss ideas,

                                             Average minds discuss events,

                                             Shallow minds discuss people.

            Which are you?

            --Ann Landers

 

            When people gossip about successful Deaf people, our whole community suffers.  “Crab Theory,” by Deaf Life editor Matthew S. Moore, refers to the destructive practice of Deaf people pulling and putting down successful Deaf persons.  This is done through vicious gossip (back-stabbing), spreading false rumors (slander), sending hateful e-mails, etc.  It’s based on a real-life phenomenon:  when crabs are captured and tossed into a bucket, if one crab tries to escape by crawling up the inside of the bucket, the other crabs pull it back down.  It’s probably instinctive, a panic response on their part.  So no crabs ever escape.  This behavior in crabs is widely held to be a myth, but has been observed.

            The problem of “Crab Theory” is not unique to the Deaf community.  And when successful Deaf leaders complain about the lack of support and downright hostility they encounter from members of their own Deaf communities, that’s crab theory.

            Here is just a partial list of known victims of slander and gossip in the Deaf community:  actress Marlee Matlin, Miss America Heather Whitestone, Dr. Ben Soukup of CSD, Dr. David McKee, Gallaudet University President Dr. I. King Jordan, and countless other prominent Deaf individuals, including Yours Truly.

            Remember, before you repeat a story about someone, ask yourself:  would I want this sort of thing said about me?  If not, do not use the story as a tool to hurt someone else.  You never know when something truly damaging can be said about you, too.

 

 

 

 

The Last of a Dying Breed

 

by Karen Cole-Peralta

published top of the front page

of “Seattle Downtown News”

(photo not available)

 

            What does the term “newsboy” mean to you?  To me, it conjures up images of Captain Marvel Jr., the comic book hero who loudly hawked newspapers at a stand in a mythical town of yore.

            Right here in downtown Seattle are half a dozen old-time newsstands, the kind that tend to be made of wood and painted green or brown, with a simple roof for shelter in a downpour, and a hard-edged lean-to look.  Spare and spartan, such booths have existed here since at least 1919.  But the news hawkers are in deep danger of disappearing forever…potentially overnight.

            Just as he closed for the day I met with one of the men in the downtown newsstands, peak-chinned and hawklike, green-eyed, small, lithe and sharp as a news hawker should be.

            We sipped two dollars worth of coffee at the Turf near First in the Market’s part of downtown as he told me about his particular newsstand at Third and Union in front of the old Woolworth’s building.

            “My name is Pat Hickey.  I’ve been here since August of 1975.”  Twenty-eight years hawking papers from inside an old run-down newsstand.  “I manage the stand.  My boss is Dennis Hogan.

            “It was put up in 1919.  The legendary Frank Turco opened up the stand.  He ran it until his death in 1966.  There have been 85 years of continuous service on this corner.

            “Some of our customers are wealthy men who own horses and depend on us to sell their racing forms.  We make most of our money selling the racing forms.

            “When they built the bus tunnel and narrowed Third Avenue, we lost most of our car trade and never got it back.”

            Times and PI sales have fallen off pretty badly over the years on account of so many vending racks on all the downtown corners.

            “You see, people don’t depend on newspapers anymore, because they get their news off the television.  The truth of the matter is that the downtown newsstand, for decades a fixture in all the major American cities, is going the way of the dinosaur.”

            I interrupted Hickey with “I caught you just in time!”

            “Well, sort of.  Due to the fifteen cents profit per paper.  It goes to the dealer or the owner of the vending rack.  Ten cents is the wholesale price.  We buy it for ten cents and we sell it for twenty-five, hence the fifteen cent profit.”

            To clear fifteen dollars one would have to sell 100 papers.

            “In the old days selling that many papers was nothing.  Now to sell 100, one would have to have hot headlines or a great day.”

            Frank Turco, Hickey told me, was middle-aged when he founded the first downtown newsstands.

            “He came out from Pittsburgh, PA and he lost a leg in a train accident in Montana.  He was quite an industrial entrepreneur.  In not too many years, he had newsstands over a good portion of downtown Seattle.”

For a long time, he was one of downtown’s most recognizable faces; people in the thousands knew him by sight.  In the 1940’s he ran for city council as a reform candidate.

 “A reform candidate is one who’s going to, you know, radically reform the whole system.  Politics in the 40s were very corrupt,”  Hickey stated significantly.  “Frank Turco was very involved in union politics.  He was the head of Seattle’s newsboy union.

            “It was sort of a closet union…it was set up for the benefit of the union to make money off the newsboys who made peanuts for money.  Turco was a newsboy and believed in justice for the working man.  You gotta handle that with a little more skill.  He was exploiting the newsboys.”

            Too soon, Hickey had to get back to his beloved newsstand.

            “The idea is, you’re in a dinosaur, and you may be catching the tail end of something that really has a very long history.”

            Downtown newsstands are almost as old as the cities.  Over the years there have been hundreds of colorful newspaper vendors, such as PI Mary, an eccentric old lady who sold papers down on First.  She went back to the Second World War.  She would boldly go right into the First Avenue bars, and directly sell papers to the customers.

            “We’ve definitely been a part of the fabric of downtown life.  Unfortunately, most of the newsboys have been pushing up roses for a long, long time,”  Hickey sighed.

            When I left the newsstand, an unknown gambler in the booth, whispering to Hickey, “I.M. Anonymous” by name, closed its green doors at me as a definitive sign-off.

 

 

 

Recent Samples

of Fiction Writing

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

THE ANTICHRIST

VERSION 666


original idea by Cloise Orand II
ghost written by Karen Cole-Peralta

published by The Floating Gallery, NYC
and Port Orchard Publishing of WA State

hard and softcover formats

 

PROLOGUE

Many world cultures are based on a cycle of birth, destruction and rebirth. The symbol of the Ouroboros, a serpent or dragon swallowing its own tail, has existed since the dawn of civilization. Yet no one is completely sure where it comes from. We only know that it signifies eternity. The ancient Mayan Sacred Calendar places Earth in a last cycle of life that will end near the winter solstice of 2012 AD. Many other civilizations and faiths maintain a belief in reincarnation, continuous birth and return. Only three world religions use the concept of linear time instead of cyclical time: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

What if we have all lived the same life, and done the same things countless times? What if the world is trapped within a bubble in time where everyone is doomed to repeat the same actions over and over again? Would worldwide religion and the government want you to know about this, or would there be a monumental conspiracy to cover it all up?

Some people currently think that the Illuminati, a highly secretive group which is supposedly a wayward branch of the Society of Freemasons, is responsible for such a conspiracy. They believe that the Illuminati have infiltrated every branch of government, NASA and all of its works, and every religion on the face of the planet. It is said that Fatalism, or the religious doctrine of a preordained and immutable future, is being used to control our hearts, minds and spirits. Religion is being used to keep us unaware of what's happening, in order to maintain a power structure of the elite over us until our deaths, and possibly until the death of the entire world.

This book explores the possibility that life as we know it is going to end on December 27 of the year 2012 AD, as outlined by the ancient Mayan culture of central Mexico. Their most sacred and accurate calendar, the Tzolk'in, which is based on the 26,000 year cycle of the Pleiades, states that 13 cycles of 400 Mayan years will pass before the calendar ends. It begins in 3114 BC on August 1, which is very near the time of Creation as perceived by the Jewish people (roughly circa 3750 BC).

If you count every century as a single "day," as some Biblical scholars do, the world's first day could have begun with the century of 3700 BC, and the last day, or the day of completion, would have been the century of 3100 BC. This juxtaposition seems to be much more than coincidental. However, these are merely calendar estimates concerning Biblical Creationism, and as most scientists now know, our world is much older than that.

In fact, this book relates to a timeline that is an endless cycle beginning roughly 2,000,000 years ago, in the time of the missing link, or first appearance of mankind. This cycle has no real beginning or absolute end, and thus is an Ouroboros, or snake/dragon which swallows its own tail, perpetually manifesting an infinite and eternal universe. It culminates in the year 2012 AD, when the Earth is hit by a giant comet and changed forever, slowly turning into an uninhabitable frozen orb which eventually must become the exact same world as the planet Mars. Before this happens, a group of intrepid, technologically advanced people known as the Antis, lead by the actual Antichrist, must travel backwards in time to the planet Venus, to begin life anew and to perpetuate an eternal cycle which will keep mankind forever evolving and alive indefinitely.

We have much established research pinpointing the Cydonia region of Mars as corresponding to the Giza region of Egypt, where the five Great Pyramids reside. On Mars lie the ruins of incredibly similar structures, which are obviously artificial as they encompass many straight lines and right angles which are impossible to form accidentally in nature. These structures, along with the famous Martian Face, which remarkably appears to be the crumbled ruins of the Egyptian Sphinx, pointedly correspond almost exactly to the Great Pyramids of Egypt. This establishes a very current scientific theory, postulated and detailed in this book, that Mars is indeed the planet Earth in the not-too-distant future. If this is so, then the planet Venus, known by the Romans as Lucifer, or the Morning Star, must also be Earth in its distant past. We have found a lot of highly valid scientific evidence indicating the potential validity of this remarkable theory.

We propose now to show you an entirely realistic history within this book, based on hundreds of hours of solid current scientific research and factual data from a wide variety of interrelated and extremely credible resources. We suggest that the prophesied Antichrist of the Bible will appear very soon in our times and establish a New World Order, fulfilling all of the soundest of the many Biblical prophecies. Then he will leave in a spaceship with the twelve people of his eternal destiny, known as the Antis, to begin life anew on Venus just before the predicted cataclysm engulfs our forewarned but doomed planet, on December 27 of the year 2012 AD; or as it is known and dated by some Christian scholars, AC 2012.

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Parallel Worlds of Meaning 
 
 
original idea by Tom Paris
ghost written by Karen Cole-Peralta
published in downloadable PDF format
 
 
(Note:  Some of the below contains language that may be unsuitable for younger readers.)
 

It was very late at night, and I knew I was in mortal danger.  You could almost swear a presence was waiting for me, that it was lurking insanely within the walls of my vastly shadowed and dimly-lit house.  I had just left my boring, stunningly monotonous job, and was so totally exhausted that I tripped over something huge and sprawling on the front porch, something that squished and moved unspeakably strongly, and crawled to rest directly underneath me.  I cried out, reaching for it!

To my surprise, it was the carefully packaged box I’d been expecting, badly battered and dented from its lengthy delivery processing.  I gasped in sheer delight!  It contained the oversized, bargain-basement, user-friendly time machine I had ordered three months ago.  The thing was from the renowned world-wide factories of the legendary inventor Steven L. Gibbs, who had created the very first time machine, ever.

Rushing inside with it, I shoved it end-over-end, roughly pulling and scraping the box along the parquet kitchen floor.  I stopped, finally ripping wide its already fallen-apart cardboard.  What a peculiarly black, plastic, eerily shiny machine was revealed, loaded with gizmos, dials and switches, all kinds of tiny metallic levers just for you to pull!  But it looked small, withered, unmajestic, as if it was missing something important. 

Of course!  I had bought the cheapest possible upgraded version, the one without the special space-time modulator interface.  No expensive zero vectoring was involved, and it could only take you a few decades back or forth in time.  However, it did contain the infamous tesia coil, deep within its hyper-dimensional resonator, and thus it had the proven capacity to take you to any one of several parallel Earths...and to change your life, potentially forever.  I could use it well, I figured; my life couldn’t possibly get any worse.  So what if I died, or never returned?  No one would miss me.  No one!  Well, maybe my Mom, but what the heck, I could probably write.

It was extremely exciting to find the obvious “on” switch, activate the machine, and then raptly attend to its low, almost bell-like sonorous hum, like a moody cow’s lowing...hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Who needs manuals?  Chuckling to myself, I started playing with the minute control switches.  I laughed louder and even more maniacally as the dials all sprang to screamingly crimson life, and the humming sound increased into a deafening, high-pitched roar as a time travel vortex exploded wide open, over ten feet high and wide, sucking up all the space in the middle of the room.  I finally thought enough to turn on the kitchen lights, but had to fight the tremendously pulling vortex like a crazed demon just to reach the wall!  I hit the switch.  As I turned, the gaping hole changed, glowing softly gangrene as an inter-dimensional doorway formed at its ceaselessly gravitational heart.

Wrenched away from the wall, I was sucked into a whirlpool of energy, SHOOMED around like a well-wring dishtowel in the washer’s final spin cycle, and then thrown up like spit into grayish daylight.  I hurt. 

But not too badly.  I stood, wobbling, and paused at my surroundings.

Where, and even less importantly when, was I?  Shrugging, I checked out the scenery.  The quiet was stark, somehow electronic, like a noiseless background humming.  An emptiness surrounded me, but seemed to slowly fill itself up with objects.

It couldn’t be.  It was only a small town, like those pretty little ‘burbs from the 1950’s, before any unhappiness or desperation had entered them, or any other kind of weird. . .people.  People?  Feeling hollow, I dimly walked over to the nearest street sign; it boasted strangely familiar alien writing, which you could almost make out.

I walked away into a sprinkling of steam, like on those moist July days in Louisiana, the bayou land of my long-ago youth; millions of droplets of vaporous rain fell, streaming down my uncaring face, and everything was coated with a thin spray of foggy mist and stickily pernicious dew. 

It only added to my overall sweat and fatigue, and the deeply groaning misery of failure and despair.  This place was not exciting at all; it was merely dark, dank, and disappointing. 

The fine particles of rain, gleaming greyly in a twilight haze, were quite similar to the thin spray from a cheap dime-store perfume bottle. 

Sighing, I looked skyward, and gained my very first acquaintance with the sad iron grayness of air that always seemed to loom overhead in this land, as heavy, black stratus clouds hung over the foggy streets.  People; could such a thing as that live here?  Who would they be, the Grey Rain Aliens of Rainworld?

Yet there they were, slowly moving into view, misty, a barely visible crowd of middle-aged men and women.  The emerging men all wore grey flannel suits with spider-slim neckties, and casually strolled with their obvious wives down the rain-immersed sidewalks.  Their pants were ironed straight as an Indian’s arrows, and their 1950’s flat-collared shirts sported French cuffs at the wrists.  You could even swear you saw twinkling diamond cufflinks gleaming at you through the fog.  And they all wore equally grey fedoras or homburg hats, every one of them.

The women?  Well, they were all draped in similar fashion, drably in grey, the clothes being of a similarly spartan fabric, and each one wore a full skirt with a firmly belted waist perched primly above it.  But each female middle was a bit on the thick side; not perky, only mooshy like a wet marshmallow.  As they strutted by me, I could see no lipstick, eye makeup, or earrings, nor could I smell any perfume.  And they all wore basically grey, schoolmarm 1950’s style ladies’ hats...

Either these people highly value sexual modesty, or the Mormons have taken over an entire planet.  I reasoned this softly to myself as I sauntered down the sumptuously tree-lined boulevards.  They were fairly narrow, and each was flanked by greyly, wetly besprinkled two-bedroom ranch houses, all of them lined up bungalow-style.

My, was this ever a sweet little small town, I began to mutter under my sweaty, steaming breath.  Then suddenly I came out into a small patch of bright sunlight.  Yes, it actually was daytime, although it turned out that around those wet parts, you’d hardly ever think so.  And I saw a delightfully cozy little restaurant, and of all things, a malt shop, on a carefully shaded corner of the swiftly drying street, as I found myself approaching what had to be the small ‘burb’s downtown area.

My mouth dropped open.  I couldn’t believe anything I was seeing.

Stores stuck out at crazy, old-fashioned angles, everywhere.  Small antique shops were bursting with peculiar devices not seen in over half a century, things like tube radios, vinyl records and their players, eight-track tapes, black-and-white TVs, and tape recorders with reel-to-reel tapes, all of which spilled out onto the sidewalks.  There were these enormous sales going on, and the signs seemed to indicate, in that same strange but almost readable alien language, that most of the items on display cost less than ten cents!  And as greyly ancient as everything was, it all looked weirdly brand-spanking new, like fresh rainbow-colored slick acrylic paint had been plastered all over the vast grey canvas of life in a small ‘50s American town.  “Americana” seemed to mean everything in this, well, “city.”  But that isn’t all there is to life here, as I was to find out.

As you went past them, you could see elderly people merrily passing the time of day with raw young teenagers.  And there were some different folks, rocking away listlessly for endless hours on their small front porches, even socializing with their neighbors, apparently.  So there is a realistic variety of people here, I thought quite happily; but this turned out to really not be the case.  It was just a particularly joyous moment for me, before I learned better.  For both you, all readers everywhere, and also myself.  About what the Choams were.

Hey, I know exactly what I’m gonna do with these people, I smirkingly thought to myself.  I’m gonna...

I STARTED! at a purring, loud whirring noise.  A subcompact electric vehicle had whooshed past me.  All the passing cars were alike, none larger than a Geo Metro, and they made a sound like you’d expect from a souped-up golf cart, an eerily familiar and low-pitched whine.  There didn’t seem to be very many of these cars, and that’s why the noise had startled me.  Or they were slowly appearing from nowhere, one by-one, like some half-hearted aftereffect of my time-space vortex, I guessed.  These cars, which I instantly deemed “toys,” were either parked on the street or tucked away in a shed near a house; there were no garages, hereabouts.  I would never see one the entire time I was there.

I was hungry.  There was finally a farmer’s market, and when no one was looking, I grabbed an apple, like I used to do with my brother, back when we were kids.  There was plenty of fresh produce, and obviously no such thing as a huge, multiconglomerate grocery store anywhere in your sight.  And no cops!  I took off, munching my apple, eager to explore.

As I meandered through the many little parks dotting the landscape of this idyllic ‘50s town, looking for trouble, the thing I noticed the most that was missing from my new grey Fantasy Island was dogs.  None in the small yards, none being taken out for a stroll.  It gave me a slowly growing uncanny feeling, just the start of something big; it wasn’t clearly appropriate.  No dogs.  Why did these people fear pets?

The sun spread its setting substance over my archaically narrow street, and when it finally disappeared, the whole place reassumed its haunted, fakey, greyly moist atmosphere.  The dropletting mists rearose.  All around, things had become positively spooky.  On a cool, breezy summer night, the streets were abandoned like they’d rolled up the sidewalks; the electronic quiet redescended, no crickets chirped, and no “party hearty” music was blaring from any of the completely silent houses or restaurants.  Not very far above me, just as in the ‘50s, the bending iron streetlamps glowed like a hovering carpet of stars.  The eerie greenish haze around them was so wildly familiar...like animals.

I was caught nervously pacing under one such streetlamp, unable to figure out where to go or what to do.  Two burly men popped out of the raw darkness, and quickly approached me.  Damn, they were the most obvious cops!  They gently spoke, but in sheer lockstep unison, like Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, only saying, “Who are you, Mister?”

"Charlie, I'm a time traveler," I muttered back.  Damn, I hate cops!  They won’t even believe me!  I wanted to kick myself for not hiding deep within one of the quaint little parks, under a gigantic, sprawling tree, so like the weeping willows of my old-time Louisiana bayous.

However, "When’re you from?" was all they softly inquired, in a funny yet mostly natural accent.  They both spoke English.  As I was to learn, most of the people there spoke a closely related language, one that was always most queer to me.  One that sounded like the wrong way out had surely been taken, that the wrong row was all there was left to hoe.  Anyway, the Tweedle Brothers took both my arms and non-violently escorted me to what turned out to be the Centerville police station.

 
End of excerpt
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

(Adult Fiction--we can only show a squeaky-clean excerpt here)

 

Office Politics

 

by Karen Cole-Peralta

published in NYC on the Web

and performed as local stage productions

at several in-house theaters for adults

by Producer Miguelito Don Quixoté

(illustrations too adult to show)

 

Dina and Shinea huddled together and watched as Michael, the new office boy, grunted and groaned over the copy machine.  “Damn thing always needs fixed,” he griped to the general air.  Sweating, he began removing his shirt, revealing his muscular hot body.  “He’s gorgeous,” Dina whispered into Shinea’s ear.  “A dreamboat,” Shinea agreed.

Over in another corner of the office, Ruby was just finishing up the day’s reports.  She had to rush home to pick out something elegant and get ready for the big office party that evening.  It was the Boss’s birthday.  Nobody was allowed to miss that shindig; everyone and their horniest dog would be there.  Glancing with a sigh at her watch as she swept silently out of her cubicle, Ruby thought: perhaps I’ll make someone into my dog tonight!

Ruby sidled over to the two girls breathlessly eyeballing the cute office boy and hissed censoriously at both of them, “Sorry girls, he’s all mine.”

“I doubt that,” Shinea giggled.  “There’s a new girl from Packaging and she’s already set her cap for him.”  “What?”  Ruby, though seldom nonplussed, was.  She was the type to thoroughly analyze certain people, then move slowly into vivisecting their vibrating mental carcasses.  If that was the fate they so happened to deserve.  It usually was. Catching her by surprise was a very rare event.

“The new girl is Kathy Viatta, that Italian number.  She’s almost a sylph, Ruby, but with an ass the size of Manhattan Island.  Four years younger than you.  And she’s as sweet, naïve and innocent as the day is long.  Sorry, but you’ve lost our Michael,” Dina apologetically demurred.  “He’s already asked her to the party!”  The two ladies twittered like softly fluttering leaves, not meaning to laugh at their redheaded coworker.  Ruby Dakota was the best and hardest worker Viceroy Inc. had ever hired.  “Almost a sylph?  I’ll make short work of her,” breathed Ruby to herself.  Her ample bosom rose and fell with a gathering storm of sensuous anger.  “Will she be at the party tonight?”  “Of course, she’s new, but everyone from our department has to be there.  You know the Boss.  Say, Ruby, why don’t you play one of your famous practical jokes on her?  The Boss always loves a good laugh.  Do something sexy!”

“Something sexy…”  Ruby’s alabaster chest and throat, choked with rage, swelled, her perfectly round nipples swiftly hardening under her tight silver satiny blouse.  It pulled threateningly at its genuine pearl buttons, revealing through its cracks an emerald green bra underneath.  Her signature ruby choker almost popped off her taught and reddening neck.  She took a straddling stance, suddenly dominating the entire office, and declared, “By the midnight hour, get ready for the sexiest, wildest, and cruelest practical joke that you’ve ever seen in public!”

 

 

 

 

FAN FICTION: A MOST

GENRE-OUS OFFER

 

by "Robin" -- Karen Cole-Peralta

Published by The Deep Blackberry Pit fanzine

(Illustration not available)


 

Slow pan right to the usual eerie shot of Rod Serling, in color this time, standing there with that maddening know-it-all smirk on his face.)

...what happens when someone crosses the line into the reality of her wildest dreams, only to find that the end of them is closer than she thinks? Picture if you will, a woman who wants only to live life to the fullest, who finally finds herself stepping smartly into...the Twilight Zone.
 

 

A MOST GENRE OFFER



 As though it knew of my presence, the white park bench embraced both me and the snow. I stretched slowly, yawning, taking a content appraisal of my surroundings. Covered in newspapers that crinkled and floated off me banally, as though all was suddenly well, I simply stood up as the snow caressed my face. Why was the park bench white? It seemed odd.

I remembered being so hungry, and lying down in Central Park to sleep. I was very cold. I knew it was somewhere near Yuletide. But I had no home, no place to go to celebrate the holidays. My husband...had been cruel to me. I had ended up outside, asleep on a bench. The newspapers had been my last refuge of warmth, and they now blew around my chilly feet.

I was standing, and had a touch of my former disability, which involved turning left. Patting my head with the flat of my hand, I discovered my handicap had rather abated, which was a nice feeling, and I heard a female scream to my immediate right. It echoed around in my head like a narcissistic wail of mistaken ecstasy.

It was regal, absurdist, and I knew better. She was in trouble. I suddenly bent over in a humble bow, like I was reintroducing my Marsha Larts self to me. I could trash me. Had I done so? Was I dead at last?

Running would be best. I must not be thinking straight, I mused. Therefore, I had best get over there, and see what I would be interfering with.

Toddling off in that general direction, I found a tragic panoply of a winter’s scene. There were four young guys. Three of them lined up to one side on my right, and the dude to my left was clearly the leader. He...had a rather menacing looking long knife in one hand, and was threatening "the girl" with it. She was simply standing there, laughing, held in another's arms. The leader started tossing his knife from one hand to the other ever so lightly. I was watching, and clearly looked intrigued, like I rather enjoyed the sight -- to fool them.

She was laughing merrily, lines of drug tracks on her arms, and was "grabbing the strawberry" like crazy. That means she was enjoying her last moments. Guy was going to slice and dice her. I thought, hey, it's my turn. I am, after all, Marsha Larts! Don't I hate all such rippings? Maybe I shouldn't…what is -- caring? Isn’t it what Christmas is all about, I thought squeamishly?

It's true that my husband knew more martial arts than I ever would, I mused to myself. But he only used them for self defense, and when he got defensive he was impossible to appreciate. He had given me a permanent disability while I was under his tutelage, and the general shape I’d been in lately was lousy. Sometimes I felt like I’d lost all ability to feel, about myself or anyone else. Still, that girl needed help, or I would be stuck observing her murder.

So I grabbed her left arm, swiftly jerking her away from there, and danced The Unexpected. I moved right into place as "the girl," as Laughing Boy behind me took me right into his big ol' arms. But he was shaking with laughter, certain about what would happen next.

Everybody seemed to be having a great old time, and most of their seasick emotion eluded me completely. I was sober, and they were under water, filled with alcohol and crystal meth. I stood there smiling, and said, "You look like a great leader, guy. Say, what's that?"

"Huh?" he said, his Male Self suddenly alerted to the presence of a wise gal. He stood perfectly motionless, getting his drug-tired self to reappraise the situation. Which made a perfect moment to Japanese-karate-style sidekick him. You see, I really didn’t know what knives are.

That was indeed unexpected. The knife went flying, I pulled the right arm of the guy holding me simultaneous to that moment of lurching time, just as I twisted sharp too, and I was out of there.

I took off, running like the wind, but knew I was going to run out of it. Like a character in a movie, I tried to relish the moment of my demise, while fleeing. I was grabbing that final strawberry, as they had told me to do in Karate Class. I wondered why they had prepared me to die. I would only be unconscious forever...was that what my husband, the one who had hurt me, had wanted? No, he was too altogether into dying for me.

Unfortunately, I was now headed down a weirdly angled city street. Curious and a little off in my timing, I started to lose "running abilities" as I right-angled into an obvious dead-end ally. I was slipping on the snow, and surely was heading toward my downfall. I slid into the alley, and saw the end of the road -- and death.

Tears began streaming down my freezing cheeks, and froze instantly. Wheeling around, I grabbed two frost-covered trash can lids that were handy. I thought maybe I could distract the thugs, as I could at least lift those things. They weighed about as much as sea foam. I lifted Flotsam and Jetsam, waving them around at the oncoming pack of guys. They definitely had all their Larger Knives out now.

I didn't matter. Somehow that girl did. I would at least die fighting.

Then, something swooped straight out of the cold and isolated darkness itself, and clobbered their leader. I could tell it was an evil thing, not a good thing, that was so swooping and darting and ploughing through their faces like several sledgehammers leading at once into nowhere.

Languages, once written, can never be taken back or destroyed, came a voice into my head, clear as a bell, like the insanity around us.

The trash can lids, as though disappointed, drooped down to my Marsha Larts sides. For indeed, my name was not that, and something most intriguing had shown up. I kept up a brief time of holding trash can lids before me as I felt their coldness sink into my grasping fingers. It, whatever it was, seemed to be a ninja made of no substance, and it took out the other three one at a time as they looked up, robbed of their easy victory.

Then the moving shadow of a sudden took the shape of a very large man. "Jesse Jackson? Not the dead Bruce Lee?...no, Vlad Tepes," I muttered under my disgruntled gasping breath, referring to Compte Dracula, the Moslem ruler who had killed the 700 Christians of The 700 Club. “Jim Crow?” Was this a racist figure, with which to spook superstitious blacks? Nah, I thought, honest to gosh, from an even older Italy..."Pierrot--?" A somber doll this, one with lengthy black horns on his head, and yet somehow it was so. And finally, I thought to myself, the thing somehow smacked of a medieval Jewish knight.

But that was not what Pierrot had been, though, quite. Out of nowhere, I was smack dab in the middle of the Commedia del'Arte, the centuries old farce of farces, of the clown and the serious man. It was ancient, Mediterranean, and mystical. What could I make of the serious man?

Pierrot had been white, handsome, and held up a head of straight black hair. He had contested with the curly haired Harlequin the Madcap Clown for Columbine the Beautiful, lost, and then hung himself due to losing his "wife." It was the woman he was going to marry. That was the Italian “del’Arte” thing, I recalled so vaguely from my dreams. It dawned on me; this black, masked and still hard to see figure must indeed be...Pierrot.

"No," said this deeply masculine but vaguely boyish-sounding voice, "I'm Me." I thought: I can't believe how much I feel at this moment of time. I'm disappointed. I had lost the fight. It would have taken less time if I'd been killed. What did this now mean? I had risked my life to save another's -- for what? For this?

You see, it simply wasn't Vlad Tepes, or any such vampire, knight, Kung fu artist, medieval Moslem leader or Italian farce comedy star who was standing there before me. I immediately phased into an abject terror mixed with my lack of disability, changing into a childish sense of wonder. No it couldn't possibly be...Bateman.

How understated. The snow blew about in the alley, swirling around his draped costume, the grey and blue-black suit of The Bateman, a mere comic strip, book and movie character.

"Who are you? What do you think you're doing?" was said to me in this deep, bell-like carefully measured tone of an actual someone trying to reach an actual someone else. I choked, reaching for my own knowing throat. I had something very strange to tell him, as though it now gripped my brain, and I knew what it was well in advance.

He only thought I was "one of them," a street punk, and was trying to "reach me." Was it possible that I was like Columbine, and that Old Italian Farce, so faded in the echoes of time, had caught up with me? Was it my turn to dance away, off the cliff and into infinity? Surely -- not with him. Not with such a laughable premise!

Why, this was evidence of the downfall of Western civilization!

Because he really was "The Bateman." And he was angry at me, for so much as existing, for being what he wasn't; what...was he? A comic book superhero, or Pierrot? I knew what I had seen back there, and my mind was screaming that as much as this looked like Bateman or The Bateman, it was indeed the old Italian serious man.

He was standing there, thinking. I dropped both trash can lids with a loud clatter as "one of them" took off running and made it to elsewhere. Must have been an onlooker. The other three boys had been flattened. I achieved a wise gal look on my face, and shrugged. My husband was a tall Semitic Jew, non-practicing, who to me had always looked a lot like the Jester. I’d always thought it to be a mere coincidence. Now I had to stop and wonder…could it be? He had told me that though Jewish, he hated all Hebrew people. He was somehow anti himself.

The Jester...that would absolutely have to be Harlequin, from The Harlequinade. Nothing, nowhere, and no one else. The Madcap Clown himself.

But now Bateman was going to arrest me, or something.

And the Jester had reeked summarily all along of being Harlequin. The many bright colors of his costume clearly showed it. That comical character of yore, which was surely now going to take vengeance against me through such a ridiculous proxy as this -- The Bateman.

Vengeance—again? Harlequin had won so many times at the Harlequinade. He had made fun of the police, and he had practically pulled the rope that had hung Pierrot when the serious man had finally suicided...from losing Columbine to him.

If anything ever began to happen, or if "Bateman" there ever even moved. Snow swirled coldly about us both as he stood patiently watching me. A final clatter of noise seemed to hum in the background, as if some cars were nearby.

I squeamishly thought to myself about this. The Jester had started out as a "grubby" Jew in Detective, in the very first panel of the very first comic book strip he had appeared in, December of 1940. Harlequin had lost his battle in the eventual death throes of the Harlequinade, so long ago. He was not “pure.” Racism had pulled its own ancient strings, one way or another. Harlequin was either too boring or too evil, and therefore Detective had found their victim, someone to lampoon as a villain, apparently. Casting him as a Jewish miser was fairly typical of their occasionally dismal style. A clown to contest with a vampire, for the kids buying "all in color for a dime" funny books. Bateman had merely been a Suprememan ripoff, a detective as a superhero. I remembered it.

My husband, on either the same or the other hand, had not been any too heroic. He was a curly black-haired clown. He had been up until now my loving and laughter-ridden companion of many years, and we had practiced the martial arts together. But I have already told you about him. He wasn't...nice.

And this weird guy in front of me didn't look any better than him. If anything, he was meaner, tougher and more domineering than my mate. And younger. He now recalled to me nothing more than a black suited boxer, or perhaps a pro wrestler.

The Bateman, or whoever he was, remained motionless, with that cape surrounding him like an enormous black wrapper. Then he shrugged it off with one arm. He stood there silently, as if appraising me. I briefly wondered if I was good-looking at all to "The Bateman." For some strange reason, I was wearing a short sleeved shirt and shorts, which didn’t help much in the cold.

Who was this guy really, and why was he dressed up as...the dark knight?

"You are going to tell me what your role in this is," Brice Wayne breathed into my errant ear from too far away. Something told me this man was somehow named that, memories and fleeting impulses did. I had used to read scads of those silly comic books while growing up. And indeed, I had shown that "cop" there fighting capabilities, and had to deal with him -- while at the same time trying to figure out what to tell this...human being.

"Yes, you're right, Brice," I muttered, "Good old martial arts are to save only me. Self defense." I had to droop down to Columbine’s status in my innocence. She was, I think, the innocent ingénue of that old Italian farce. "After all, it's always self defense, isn't it?

"What are you doing here?" was said in this quizzical Italianesque voice, one that enveloped my soul with deeply baritone overtones of stolid hurt-you Cop. He would kill me, his voice implied, if I so much as moved.

Wondering briefly if this subhuman monster ever molested people, I shrugged again. "Thought so," I breathed, it is indeed Bateman, and Suprememan is nowhere in the vicinity of..."Is this Gothic City?" I wincingly asked him. I realized that whoever he was, he could kill very quickly.

"You know where you are, do you?" he asked me back. It sounded like he was pumping me for information. Maybe he didn't know me at all. It sounded like a command taken strictly for an early grave.

I thought, does this man read minds? He used to clobber my ferocious husband on a regular basis, somewhat. My…husband? But that had been my one true love, not The Jester. It was surely a coincidence that they looked so -- alike. My husband often liked to dress colorfully. A strange coincidence, that's all.

If this was Bateman, wherever I was, what did that make me? Who was...I? Surely, no, I was not Columbine! That was only Columbine High School, where something awful had happened, too. The black suited Bateman-like kids had shot some of the other kids at a high school. I was not seeing Bateman. I was dreaming, but everything was real. And I had a feeling my hair had gone right back to being a bright and cherry colored red, as when I was a teenager.

And what was worse, at an earlier point in time, I had been named Karen Louise Cole…Schwarz.

"Climb on my back, and up we go. On board now." What? I thought, as weird fantasies go, this one should disappear rapidly. Maybe if I shut my eyes, it would all go away. But I had to open them and go over there, and be next to him. It was like a command from a very serious man, and I was utterly forced to obey it.

I moved behind him, and got on his back. We were heading up the building at a rapid pace, and I barely had time to clutch those broad shoulders as that Damned Jock went straight up the alley wall. I saw the technical equipment, trembled, and grew dismal. I finally had to say it.

"Is Harlequin really my husband?" I screamed aloud as we made it over and plumped like bricks, my knees bouncing without too much pain, onto the rubbery roof of the building. That Giant Sucking "Moslem" or Musselman who had once been my childhood God and Hero stood there, looking at me as though I were something that was only vaguely amusing. I don't weigh that much, I thought, as he lead me over to some metal pipes. I felt very embarrassed and ashamed of myself.

"No, but he’s probably only your basic hilarious Jewish 'sidekick.' I've met several of those. Remember Jerry Lewis? Actually, he was the main guy and Dean Martin was the sidekick. Did you ever watch their movies? I never had the time to enjoy…" Before he could finish, I cut him off curtly.

"Take care of my girl, Woman Hater," I muttered as he chained me to the old, grey pipes sticking out of a slab of concrete, probably something worth studying as I was going to be standing there for awhile. I meant the girl I had earlier saved by this curt comment. She was surely wandering around out there somewhere.

"So that's what you are, a woman hater?" was chuckled as he simply clicked the handcuffs into place. They were loose, and I was suddenly on a long leash. How long I would be standing there, I didn't know, time enough to find what to tell this overdressed wombat or whatever it was who was calmly leaving me. "Oh and Satan, there, would you go look out for my...girl?" -- He was gone.

Quite disappeared, having hopped off the roof like a demented humungous chocolate bunny the size of a football linesman. I didn't even know what those were actually called. How had I placed that sidekick back there, I wondered.

First time in my life I'd ever really done that. I'd karate sparred with my husband, but he'd always won. That was my husband, the one who...had done what? Something, I knew. I watched the snow fill the space where Bateman had been.

I knew why he'd done that. He went looking for her. Maybe she needed more help. Surely that was it. She was wandering around in the cold.

I thought, maybe he's right to have chained me. I wouldn't have stood there forever. Maybe I would have jumped off, merely to see if I could fly. Perhaps Bateman knew what I was! Cold, tired, and a little too well off. Where was my old and familiar disability, though?

I was "on Earth Primus," having landed from plain old Earth, the planet that wrote about the adventures of Bateman, etc. Somehow I needed to tell him so when he got back. Meanwhile, to wait the time out, I thought of The Girl. Why was there another planet full of us…victims? Why was my disability vanished, why was there air, what is Gothic City? Dear God, it was everywhere I could see. Is Gotham City in New Jersey?

I looked around, and the place seemed to materialize before me, as if it was an area of New York City that lay untrammeled by its acres of skyscrapers. Coated whitely all about me, as far as my blinking eyes could grasp, roofs peaked and sloped so that I could only gauge everything for a short distance. I sighted along the minaretted rooftops of a gleaming silver-grey neighborhood.

But several monumental buildings stretched in a greyly sprawling, spreading group, overpowering in their rugged austerity and achingly far away, forcing themselves into my newly heightened sense of awestruck wonder. This city contained --held insanely -- over many dozens and even more of them. There were the usual NYC-style shining tower shapes of rectangles, but inhabiting a much bigger metropolitan area. The whole gigantic sprawl of a city could only be described as unspeakably huge, gargantuan, spread out further than my eyes could see. And I suddenly realized none of it was blurry. I could see without my glasses.

I thought, possibly all I could ever see was Gothic, from this low and relatively flat crowded rooftop anyway, and what part of "town" was I in?

It looked like one district, almost carefully laid out, but with the usual sudden erratic problems of individual, grainy structures that inhabited their huge vista of space. It was a city, yet like none other I'd seen before in my thirty-five years of life. It hit me that a younger me would die to explore a city like that. I would haunt its snug little shops, read its newspapers, and drink its exquisite coffees.

The VIEW! As it slowly appeared, it was a gargantuan of monolithic color. Sounds of beeping cars and grinding busses pulling up to curbs festooned my ears. This WAS Gothic City. Greens, blues, silvers, reds, purples, sparkling golden were the twinkling lights of the distance between us. Astonished, I strongly yearned to head for the Heaven that was obviously out there. What was that like at night for the Bateman? The place needed Gabriel’s Trumpet to announce it. In the broad daylight, it made Frisco’s sunset mall of loveliness look like a distant memory. It made NYC’s looks become a pale comparison study. It dwarfed Dallas, Texas in its own beautifully symmetrical way. There was no weight on those floating lights, as though the swirling colorful palette of an actual artistic hand had drawn it all for a comic book spectacular issue.

I could finally see All in Color for a Dime. Gothic City lived and breathed all around me, although I had a clutching thought about drug abuse, ladies of the evening, and cheap hotel rooms. And I knew I was too old for it. I took one deep in breath, and all of the pollution was mysteriously missing. And yet I smelled a cheerful breezy air all about me. Were there bloods out there researching? Did anything of the black race have a chance against the supposedly chosen people? The group I’d fought were as white of trash as I had ever seen. Surely there were black heroes about, brown wonders with strange...I'm imagining this dream I'm having here, I thought.

What in the world did such a juxtaposition mean? How could there be drug abuse in such a situation as this? Surely there weren’t enough jobs available. The city bustled too harshly, beauty that she was. There was crime in this trap of a Queen. Maybe Metropolis, being King, did not have enough resources to spread them around. Maybe NYC, the Jack somewhere nearby…I got randomly lost in speculation. What the Jester had to do with such a very odd deck of cards.

Such a Heaven on Earth deserved to be only entered by young lovers, and the young at heart who could jam their millions of souls into a steady stream of hotel rooms. They were appearing, the antlike people, bustling on the streets, zooming at a brisk walking pace into and out of the glassy, glistening hotels…the word “hotels” didn’t do those buildings justice. I would die gladly to keep such a city clean. I was young again, able again, and the immense broad gargantuan that was The Big City was finally there, after having been hinted around at poorly before. There were superior, colorful babies being born at those hospitals over there. Or were they being torn to ribbons to seek out the chosen people, and experimented upon? Where they being torn to blind rags was in order to make others valiantly see?

I could get the right job in that thing. I would become an office ant for it. The girl I had saved deserved it, she was so young and so pretty and so utterly heartless. She could do such office work. She was young enough to be trained for it.

But I knew I wasn't that age…I was supposed to be billowing with weight and over-the-hill anymore, feeling too goddamned good to remember how terrible of a physical condition I'd been in lately. I checked my nubile body out, finding it altogether female and there, and smiled lazily to myself. I must be drunk on some new wine. I was wearing a green cotton top and my old baggy Army shorts, which showed off my legs extremely well, and for some reason I felt better than I ever had in my life. My legs felt eerily like they had no color, and all of them.

I'd definitely been "fixed" by someone. Yes, I was real, but most of my disability was gone, and I turned to the right, feeling so much better about myself and hoping that Suprememan or Supremegirl was watching. Frowning, I knew it had to be one of those two who'd done it, and made me be this way.

Can't trust anyone else, I spurted out in a laugh. I had not been sliced and diced, at least. I'd had a Mexican friend who'd thought the Justice Legion of America in the comic books, of which Bateman had been the vice president, was actually the Klu Klux Klan. He hated them completely. But I thought they'd make an excellent Greek chorus for this tragic play.

That, that, I laughed, I'll wake up from this soon enough, suddenly thinking of The Girl and her nonexistent life; he's out there trying to chase her down, and she's a "druggie" who thinks she's fine.

Perhaps she's Columbine, I gasped! What was her name? He's talking to her, I figured, and I "got jealous," after having had a decent go at trying to help her. But maybe she always had a rotten life. He probably wasn't beating her up. Most cops don't really do that. They try to help. But he might have her down on her back in a cheap motel, somewhere. I hated him.

Anyway, maybe he took her home. Perhaps I was only...Pierrette. She was the least important character in the ancient Italian mystery play. She was supposed to marry Pierrot...that's right, and she didn't. She merely slipped offstage. Did she end up hanging herself, too? I was all hung up on the handcuffs. I looked at the edge of the building roof, longing to jump off it and die. Columbine had danced off a cliff, and I totally had forgotten what had happened to Pierette.

It was so cold. I began shifting my legs back and forth to keep myself warm. Would "Bateman" ever return? The very thought of it made me sick. Surely, that was a new form of cop who knew martial arts, all dressed up as Bateman. I was in New York City still, and this was only a dream. Furthermore, they were really doing it, and I had read about it in the newspapers, near the stories about the gangs of teens who were raping, knifing and killing people in Central Park.

Some dream. I breathed, sighed, looked out into Gothic City. Might be worth exploring. Might be like NYC of my wildest dreams. I cackled suddenly and clamped my own hand over my mouth.

Then "the sight" happened. He looked mildly tired as he climbed back over the roof. He strolled over to me, as though something was on his mind. Or Mind? Let's see, these guys are more highly evolved life forms than me, sort of like the X-Men from Marvel, but slower or something, and human enough to relate to. Or, he's just some bastard of a ludicrous cop. I showed him what I thought of this with deep tiredness on my face.

Let's see what he does with that, I reflected.

"Yeah. So, who do you think I am?" The very idea startled me out of my reverie. I hadn't expected him to say anything like that, so fiercely and protectively, so deeply. The voice there was quite austere, was letting me know what I was, and was angry at me. I paused, gathering myself, and said, "Who, me? Uh unh. I'm an ex-journalist, sorta like -- Clark Kane, your buddy Suprememan there -- but my name's...Marsha. Do you know what's up with that?”

"What's up with what?" Said harshly, slowly, almost movingly. I nearly wretched my lunch out with the aching and utter disappointment I felt, even though I was hungry. It was true! This was a weird new police tactic, not Bateman!

What had I been thinking, I grabbed myself and inwardly shouted, no, this is not Bateman! I have to collect my soul, and tell him off. Now.

"Brice, I know who you are. This is Earth Primus," I choked into my palm. "Remember C. Bates? The guy who rewrote all your stories, changed your suit, put a yellow circle around the bat on your chest, and reestablished everything about your planet? The hippie writer for Detective? That didn't exactly hit your newspapers, did it?" All that spilled out of my mouth, spewing out beyond my capacity to understand. I had to say it; there was nothing else to say. Maybe if I played along with the farce, "Bateman" would confess his falseness.

"Okay," said the same voice, sounding totally tired. "What are you doing here...no, come home with me, and...I'll show you where I'm living...right now." I remembered that The Bateman didn't necessarily get a lot of sleep at night.

"So you do read minds? But I'm married..." I stumbled out, feeling extremely embarrassed. What I'd said. No, that was not right. I breathed to myself, thought it wasn't, and collected myself. "Please remove the handcuffs."

"Of course. Calm down. You're riding piggyback all the way home."

Okay, I thought. And I told him what I remembered of my entire life story as we swooped through the enormity that was Gothic City down to the car. It was tumultuous and too lengthy to herein describe, but scared me a little less.

"James Band of NYC, you homebody you, oh Haunter of Gothic City, don't...something me," I breathed into his comic-book ear. I was sure his real ones were somewhere under those Mr. Spock-like protrusions. Maybe he wouldn't do that. No, he wouldn’t cut off those ears.

"No, I'm technically deaf today," he intoned like a distant church bell. We made it to the car. Good old...Batemobile. We landed with a pronounced thump, and I staggered over to it, my head reeling from all that. The car looked so weird, and yet so normally familiar. My parents had owned a lengthy Cadillac with tailfins.

"You must be used to soaring. Swoop and snatch. I mean, you like Suprememan, you! You will not take anything unacceptable out on me, who am, is surely imagining this. Not!" He’s dressed up as the enemy, I reasoned out, slowly, over along period of time.

"No, it's not. I'm not. Get into the car, vagabond. And do exactly what I say.” Who knows what he was making of my knowledge of his identity. Probably wants me to stay at home all day. What will we do while I'm trying to stay faithful to my husband?

But he had done something terribly wrong, my usually sweet man had, something undeniably hideous -- which I could not remember.

It seemed in a dismal blur to have to do with my husband's breaking open my breastbone, ripping my screaming chest open, and tearing out my…soul. It had hurt. There'd been great pain and blood, everywhere. Then I’d passed out.

"'Nkay," I blurredly intoned as he opened the car door. I was wobbling on my feet after the wild and windy ride. It had taken some time, and it was growing dark outside. I was staring at the car, which looked pristinely black, but menacing.

He nodded, while looking carefully at my head, and blithely he ducked my entire body down into the vehicle. I sat there waiting as he climbed artistically, the same old familiar moving shadow, down into his own side. “Whatever you do, don't turn me over to, uh, them,” I suddenly said. “The JLA.”

"What, the Justice Legion of America?" Who were those, I mused, that group of superheroes with their own Earth-centered satellite, of which The Bateman was supposedly a member -- or something like the B'nai Brith or the Italian Anti-Defamation Legion? Strangers in suits, who fought for civil rights? Or was the Justice Legion of America only the Klu Klux Klan, like my Mexican friend had told me before?

He had really hated the JLA and would never read their comic books. That "Bateman" the concept was mas o menos a racist ode to a version lower-than-Suprememan --of the Black Man -- had probably hit him too. It seemed an accident, yet Bateman was clearly not as powerful as Suprememan.

Meanwhile, I was with that same racist cartoon character. Where to now?

"No sweat. We're going to my apartment, and we're leaving for there starting right now. You'll be safest at home, o careless female. You know too much. You'll have to stay put while I figure out what we should do with you."

The car swiftly fired up, and we were out of that shadowy back alley after all of the vehicle's systems had shut on -- too rapidly for me to follow.

I sat back, lurching not at all. "So tell me why we're moving so fast and easily."

"Might be Suprememan," intoned The Voice of The Bateman, "But this incredible journey is mostly being brought to you by me, a lot of technical equipment including ozone positors that you can't possibly understand, and my need to fill you in is...nonexistent." Long pause. "As yet."

"Understood," I whispered ramblingly, glancing around. We were on the freeway pretty fast, honking at exactly one fannish driver. I guessed the guy was just saying hello. The Batemobile strutted neatly to her own purring repose, nonchalantly maneuvering into place as though circumscribed lines and angles were all around, guiding and lighting her way. The snow was glistening, streaked by the side windows without affecting them, and in an instant was melting.

The same gorgeous sight, Gothic City, was still out there. Now it was starting to "jewel up," or become lustrous with the many bright lights of late evening, reminding me of one time I'd entered San Francisco at night. It was so beautiful.

"I finally broke down and thought 'her,'" I said, to measure his mental telepathy. I no