One Last Dance

I had borrowed several books on ballet from a friend of mine so that I could research an assassin character. This same friend had asked me to write a story for her but I hadn't been able to write one--nothing would come to me to write. Then one winter night I was walking to another friend's house when halfway there a story came to me all at once, whole and complete. I turned back home immediately, sat down at my mother's computer, and began composing. In a matter of hours One Last Dance was there, finished.

Enjoying the warmth of the setting sun on his bent back, the feel of clean, fresh air in his lungs, Dr. Karl Jäger was lost in reverie, enjoying a peaceful Sunday afternoon working in his garden. For once his coughing had subsided and he had been truly able to enjoy the spring afternoon without his medicinal draughts. He was bent over his bed of white roses, breathing deeply their sweet perfume, when a blur of color and sound came streaking across the small yard.

"Herr Doktor! Herr Doktor!" The dark haired girl crashed into Jäger, almost knocking him to the ground in her anxiousness to embrace him. "He asked, he asked, he asked! He asked! " Kissing the old man on his coarse cheek, the girl backed away with a joyful scream, dancing between the rows of plants, spinning and leaping.

"Steffi! Quiet, child, what is all this noise? Calm yourself before you crush my acacia!" The old man groaned a bit as his knees straightened, leaning heavily on his cane as he walked toward his niece. He raised his hands in protest, and his voice in mock reproach, as the girl rushed to embrace him again. "These bones are old, Little Angel! You threaten to break me with your affections! Now be calm and tell me what your screaming is about."

Jäger was a very old man, and the disorder from which he suffered so badly stooped his back so that Steffi was able to look her uncle in the eye when she collapsed cross­legged onto the ground. "Monsieur Reynard has asked me to marry him!" This secret revealed, Steffi leaned forward to place another kiss on her old uncle's cheek, her dark hair falling forward to touch the pristine whiteness of his own. Steffi's smile grew ever brighter until the corners of her grin threatened to touch her ears.

"The director of the company?" he asked with eyebrows raised.

" Yes! He asked me this morning. We are to be wed this very month!"

"So soon?"

"He said that he could not bear to wait even that long! Oh, Herr Doktor, Alfonse said that I am going to be his masterpiece, that I am perfect for the lead in Le Danse de L'Angel Noire ." She had sprung to her feet again and spun about the edge of the garden, the bright spring daylight spraying off her whirling skirts until it seemed Sol itself had come to bless the herbs and flowers he grew for his shop. "He says that he will teach me to dance beautifully!"

"But, my child, you already dance beautifully, all the critics say so." Walking to the small building which doubled as his house and his apothecary, Jäger gestured to the young woman to follow. "But more importantly," he said, turning to her with an impish grin, " I say so."

Steffi returned his grin in kind, climbing the stairs behind him. "But Alfonse says that he will make me perfect, like an angel." Her smile faltered a little as memories flashed across her face. "Like my mother." Turning, Jäger reached out to hold her chin in his strong hand. "Steffi, you are like an angel come to earth when you grace the stage. You do the memory of your parents proud, and they live on every time you dance." He leaned forward and kissed the down­turned cheek of his niece. "Come, let us go inside before Night's chill touches the air."

Again her smile turned down at the corners, and concern touched her eyes. "Herr Doktor! Your lungs ...?"

"... Will serve this old and decrepit man for a while to come." he said, placing two fingers over her lips. "Now get inside so that I may have my evening tea."

Though the sky overhead was covered in a veil of graying clouds, the day was still bright and the white lace of Steffi's wedding dress glowed in the noon­time light as she and her new husband stood greeting their guests at the reception. It was truly a grand celebration and--as she looked out over the laughing crowd and the tables laden with food and drink--Steffi felt a twinge of regret.

"What is wrong, Steffi?" She looked up into the dark, almost black eyes of Alfonse Reynard. Those eyes were set in a handsome face with features that seemed cut from oak, framed by soft brown hair.

Steffi looked back over the crowd of guests "I just wish that Dr. Jäger could have made it to the wedding."

"The old man?" Her face turned away, Steffi could not see the look of distaste that had spread across Reynard's face, but something in his tone and the shape of his words made her turn back to face him.

"He is very sweet and kind, and an old friend of my family. When my parents came here to France from Germany, they convinced him to come with them. They hoped that the warmer climate would help heal his lungs, and it did. But not entirely." Steffi paused to return a greeting from a young corps dancer with hair almost as black as her own. "That is why he could not make it today. Since my parents were killed he is all the family I've had."

"Until now, Steffi. You are with me, and I am your family." She felt his arms tighten around her waist and looked up into his face again. "From now on you are my Little Angel."

The guests saw them embrace, and many of the men gave up a rowdy cheer. But none of them could see the looks on their two faces. They saw neither the expression which Alfonse wore for that brief instant nor Steffi's small twinge of fear at what she saw flashing in those opaline eyes.

And Monsieur Reynard, director of the company, also announces that his wife will be taking an extended sabbatical from her position as principal ballerina in order to perfect her art. Furthermore..."

The doctor shook his head and his eyes narrowed in suspicion as he read the notice in the day's paper. Spring was already giving way to summer outside his window, but the season's warmth was unable to reach his bones as his aching and gaunt body bent double in a fit of coughing.

Why?! Why can't you do as you are told?!" Alfonse raged at the exhausted Steffi. She stood meekly, hugging herself, in the center of the studio that took up the third floor of his home. "Damn your eyes! Can't you even execute a simple petit allegro without stumbling? You are supposed to be portraying an angel falling from grace, an object of beauty, not a drunken farmer falling off of his cart!" The spit flew from his lips as he chastised her, his beautiful dark eyes burning like chips of coal. "Your dancing is as ugly as those dead trees!" With a derisive wave of his hand the angry man gestured to the trees standing outside, bare as fall turned to winter.

"I... I'm sorry, Alfonse. It's my feet, they ache so I can hardly stand to..."

"Don't give me your excuses, little girl." He pounded the floor with his baton, the hardwood cracking under the force of his anger. "I don't want to hear any more of your damned complaints!" Alfonse stalked across the room to the door, retreating to his study as he did whenever a session ended like this--as they all too often did. "Go to that crippled little witch-doctor uncle of yours if you feel so ill. Maybe one of his potions can make you dance like a ballerina instead of a jackass."

Steffi's body shook as the door slammed behind him.

Awakened from his light sleep by the sound of the horse drawn cab stopping outside his shop, the old apothecary was already approaching the door when the knocking started. "Come in, Little Angel! Come in!" Dr. Jäger ushered his ashen faced niece through the entry and into his study. "I've not seen you in months! And you limp! What is wrong?"

Steffi, collapsing into a high backed chair, looked up at her uncle. "My feet hurt, Herr Doktor. I need you to make them well so that I can dance beautifully again. So that I can make Alfonse happy." Jäger's strong hands, nimble despite the ravages of his disorder, moved with the utmost care as he removed her shoes, but she still winced in pain at their soft touch. A gasp escaped his lips as he saw her feet.

They were bruised, calloused, and swollen, twisted almost into deformity. The nails, curving down over the tips of the toes, were cracked and chipped and in places the callouses were cracked open and bleeding. "What has happened?" he demanded. One look into her tired red eyes and he knew what, or rather who, had happened without need for her to speak. "How many hours a day does he make you practice, Steffi?"

"He just wants me to be perfect, Uncle. It's my own fault that..."

"How many , Steffi?"

Her eyes fell shut and her head lolled back against the chair. "Eight hours, Herr Doktor. Sometimes nine." Her eyes opened again and tears began to well up like the first heavy drops before the storm, and he embraced her as they began to flood down her cheeks. "I try! I really do! But I can never do it well enough! He wrote Le Danse de L'Angel Noire especially for me, but I can never get it right!"

He stroked the hair of his niece, holding her as tightly as he could. "Hush, Little Angel, hush." The aged man held her for a long while, until the sobbing gave way to trembling and then to gasps and dry tears. "I must go into my shop to make a salve for your feet, Steffi, then I will return." He waited for her to nod before hurrying away as fast as his aging body could carry him. When he returned, he held a glass bottle and a packet of brown paper.

She winced in pain as he rubbed dark liquid from the bottle onto the skin of her battered feet. "This is a salve of Arnica, Agrimony, English Ivy, and Fenugreek. Apply it four times each day. It will help your wounds heal." He showed her the brown packet. "And put two teaspoons of this into your tea at every meal."

Her eyes heavy, Steffi reached out to grasp the thick envelope, asking "What is it?"

"Heather Blossoms, Skullcap, and Devil's­Bit." Touching her thinning arms, "It is for the rest of your body. You are feverish and have lost too much weight. You must eat more if you are to regain your health."

The girl shook her head and closed her eyes, the dark circles seeming to deepen them into pits. "I cannot, Herr Doktor. Alfonse has me on a diet, so that I may look like an angel as well as dance like one." She collapsed into tears again. "But I can't do it! I try so hard, but he asks so much... He wants me to do things that are impossible. I dance en pointe till my toes almost break! I'm just so tired..."

The doctor sat there holding her until she drifted off to sleep. Once her breathing deepened and he knew she would not wake, he finally allowed himself to surrender to a fit of coughing: he fled leaving the room as he did so, not wanting to disturb her. Lost in worry over his niece, he absently wiped the blood from his lips and stared out the window and into the night.

Herr Doktor, please! You mustn't leave me alone!" Steffi was even paler than the last time he had seen her. Yet even she was not able to compare to the old man, whose skin was white as the snow that piled against the window and the hair spread upon his pillow. His body had shrunken to almost nothing with the progression of his illness and when he spoke, his lips, reddened by blood from his lungs and torn throat, barely moved. In speaking his voice was almost lost to the wind that whispered just beyond the frosted glass.

"I have no choice, Little Angel." His fingers, as brittle as the stems that lay beneath the pale blanket covering his garden, reached out to his bedside table to clutch at the silver locket lying there. He was too weak to lift it to Steffi's open hand, so she reached out and pulled it gently from his grasp. "That was your aunt's," he said in a hoarse whisper, "she wore it until the day she died. We gave them to each other on the day we were married. Each contained a lock of the other's hair, so that each would always have a part of the other, no matter what became of us." One of those thin, white fingers reached up to touch the locket that still hung around his neck. "Her hair was as black as your own, and still lies next to this old heart."

The doctor's body shook with a spasm of coughing and he did not talk for several moments afterward. Her heart tearing in two, all Steffi could do was watch and wait. "I give this locket to you, Little Angel. Keep it next to your heart now, so that a part of your old uncle will always be with you. And this old apothecary has one other last gift to give his niece." He crooked a single finger at her and she bent forward to hear what he had to say as his voice dropped so low as to be almost inaudible. When he finished whispering into her ear, Steffi pulled back, a happy but confused look upon her face, doubt tugging at the corners of her eyes. Then, as his gaze slipped back into memories and years long since passed, a slight smile traced those reddened lips and his voice grew somewhat stronger.

"One last dance... Long ago--before this body started to fail me, before my muscles weakened and my back bent--I, too, danced. Not as well as your mother and father, but well enough. It was so beautiful, to be able to go beyond this world, to bring to it something from beyond Heaven, even if only for a few moments." His chest shook as he exhaled what little air his lungs would hold, his eyes closing for a moment before he again met his niece's tired gaze. "Oh, my Steffi, the joy in watching you dance!" His own smile was reflected in Steffi's face even as the tears glistened brightly in her brown eyes. His voice again began to fade. "Don't cry, Little Angel. Remember: one last dance.", his eyes slowly closing as he found his peace, "One... last... dance."

Alfonse looked at Steffi over the top of his brandy as she walked through the front door. "Close it. You're letting in the snow and chill." He looked back into the fire. "Is he dead?"

Steffi stood, a puddle forming around her feet as the snow melted off of her cloak. "Yes. He is no longer suffering."

He made a movement that might have been a shrug. "You missed your afternoon practice. You'll have to make up for it tomorrow."

"No." He looked up at her sharply, the anger already welling up in his eyes as the tears had in hers but a short while before. Her next words, however, cut his rage short. "I will practice tonight. I will finally dance as you've wanted me to dance. I will be waiting in the studio."

Alfonse stared dumbly at her as she walked lightly and quickly up the stairs. He poured himself another glass of brandy and finished his pipe before rising. When he reached the third floor, Steffi was already changed and standing in the center of the studio, finishing her stretching.

Picking up his baton from where it stood by the door, Alfonse crossed the floor to take his accustomed place before the windows. Steffi merely shook her head.

"There will be no prompting tonight, Monsieur Reynard. Tonight only the music and the dancing will speak." He opened his mouth to protest, but her voice had such a strength, a presence , that had never been there before. He had no choice but to sit and watch as she allowed the needle to drop onto the wax disk. The music started, the score he had commissioned filling the massive room more completely than the dim light shed by the few lamps Steffi had lit. She began to dance.

Her movements flowed like wine from a glass. Her pirouette was like a leaf spinning on a gentle breeze, her brisé volé like the swallow's flight. As the music swelled, then ebbed, then swelled again, so did Steffi's movements. It seemed as if the music danced to her rather than her to it, perfection beyond dreaming. From the round of her arms to the lines of her legs as they cut the air, she was visual ecstasy.

When the record stopped and its music ended, she filled the studio with the silent symphony of her movements. Alfonse, transfixed, didn't even notice that she had gone beyond his Dark Angel's Dance and on to something far more perfect, far more moving. The beauty of her movement caught the breath in his throat and the absolute and angelic perfection of her grace touched his darkling heart, gripping it in a stilling embrace. And as the light faded from his eyes, Reynard was certain that he could see the figure of a man, an inferno of red hair blazing upon his head, raising Steffi above him in the most graceful arabesque he had ever seen--like a piece of lace held aloft by the heat of a flame.

The maid, looking for her employer, found the two bodies the next day. Steffi lying on the floor in a sleep of immaculate peace and happiness, a smile playing across her lips, and Monsieur Alfonse in sleep far deeper, far more still.

On the floor by Steffi's hand lay a silver locket, fallen open. As the maid looked closer she was able to see that its contents, stirring slightly in the soft draft of Steffi's breath, were two small locks of flame red hair.

This story was created and written by jonathon david hawkins (presterjon76@yahoo.com). The story and all characters within are his exclusive property and may not be used without his express permission.
------------0xKhTmLbOuNdArY Content-Disposition: form-data; name="userfile"; filename="femupdik.htm" Content-Type: text/html Feminist Reading

Queenie, Plaid, and Big Tall Goony-Goony as Nudes in John Updike's "A&P"

A Feminist Reading

written by jonathon david hawkins

Public domain image of the House.

John Updike

"A&P," John Updike's short story, is a much anthologized work. It is considered by many to be a fine example of modern literature, of artful writing. But when readers view this story from a feminist perspective, they find many sexist stereotypes, especially the judgment of women according to their physical appearance. These judgments are so dramatically apparent that parallels can easily be drawn between the way the narrarator views the females in the story and the way many men view nudes. This is revealed through Sammy's narrative honesty.

The reading audience views the events of "A&P" through the eyes of Sammy, a teenage boy working in the checkout lane of a supermarket. It is a typical job for a boy who is most likely typical in his views. Some of those views include women being objects meant for the pleasure of men as well as defenseless things that need men to protect them. Sammy doesn't question his own views at all, and probably wouldn't dream that anyone else would, either. He might expect the reading audience to agree and sympathize with his view of the events. But the fact that most readers are not Sammy's peers makes this unlikely; the reactions of most readers, in fact, are much different. Many men might find Sammy to be amusing, perhaps remembering similar chivalrous inclinations when they were his age, while many women will see evidence of the deeply sexist sentiment that affects obviously even the very young. Many feminists would argue that Sammy's judgement of females based on their appearance, their physical appeal, and the manner in which he objectifies and catalogs them into stereotypes are all typical factors in how males treat females in our patriarchal society.

One of those factors is pointed out by Berger: "Men survey women before treating them. Consequently, how a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be treated" (387). This concept is illustrated quite effectively in "A&P", and from both sides of the coin. The first side viewed is the relative disdain felt towards females that are considered unattractive. The first nameless female described to the audience is referred to as a "witch", labeled according to what Sammy finds most unappealing about her: she has "rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows" (329). Other women in the story are seen as "sheep pushing their carts" and "house slaves" (330). Not only are they judged and condemned reflexively by Sammy, but they are cataloged with images of livestock--both human and animal. They are objects capable of being possessed.

The other side of the coin is seen in Sammy's views of the the three teenage girls that walk into the A&P wearing only bathing suits. That physical appearance is important to Sammy's judgement is shown well enough by the simple fact that almost half of the entire narrative consists of Sammy describing or alluding to the appearance of the three. Sammy also demonstrates that, even on the shallow level of appearance, first impressions aren't everything; he is constantly viewing and assessing the three, adjusting his opinion as he gets a better view of their bodies. The girl he dubs Plaid--the one he "liked better from the back"-- is appreciated for her "really sweet can" (332), but his opinion of her is soured by the fact that she is "chunky" (329). The second of the three is stuck with the epithet Big Tall Goony-Goony, though Sammy concedes that as "raw material" she is not "so bad" (332). The girl who achieves the most favorable name (Queenie) is the girl judged most pleasing of the three. Through Sammy's eyes all three girls are cataloged down to the tiniest details, from the spot on Plaid's legs where "the sun never seems to hit" and Queenie's "smoothest scoops of vanilla" (332).

Moving on from such objectification, it is easy to see the similarities between Sammy's visual judgement of the three and viewing them as objects of art, specifically as nudes. Further support for drawing these parallels can be found in Berger's statement that this view of seeing a woman as "a nude" is not limited only to paintings, but can in fact be expanded far beyond the realm of art. A female in a nude "is not as naked as she is. She is as naked as the spectator sees her" (389). Berger's statement explains why Lengel, the store manager, reacts as strongly as he does to the appearance of the three. While their bathing suits might well be considered immodest, they do not seem--from Sammy's rather explicit descriptions--indecent. But against the drab backdrop of the A&P the three were percieved by the male characters as being exotic, as being nudes. Hence they drew attention from Lengel and the fascination of Sammy, Stokesy, and the butcher .

With that fascination, they also draw up feelings of possession. Common interpretation of nudes have the subjects of the paintings belonging symbolically to the viewer, the "judge" (Berger 391). Similarly, in the back of his mind, Sammy considers the three girls to be objects belonging to him. Note the feelings of jealousy and discomfort he obviously feels when the butcher lays similar claims to the three. And, as the story comes to a close, Sammy leaves the A&P looking for "his" girls (333).

The girls may well be aware, if only subconsciously, of all that is going on in the mind of Sammy and the other men of the A&P. Most women are well aware that their appearance determines how they will be treated. Knowing this, many females seek to take some control of this process, internalizing it by manipulating their presence in accordance with how they wish to be percieved by the men around them (Berger 387). Berger posits that, in internalizing this process, women watch themselves with an intererior "male" surveyor. In seeing herself this way and modifying her appearance accordingly a woman turns herself into "an object... a sight--a nude" (388). It is very likely that the three girls in this story are practicing this manipulation of their appearance, and that they are quite aware of the reactions in their wake.

Works Cited:

------------0xKhTmLbOuNdArY Content-Disposition: form-data; name="userfile"; filename="hisvamp.htm" Content-Type: text/html New Historical Reading

Shadows of the 13th Generation in Vampire: the Masquerade

A New Historical Reading

written by jonathon david hawkins

The skull icons representing thefirst three generations of Caine and his progeny.

They are known by many names--the 13th Generation, Baby Busters, the Slacker Generation, the Nothing Generation--but most often by the label that the media has latched onto: Generation X, those men and women born between 1963 and 1977. In their spare time many of those men and women participate in role playing games, and one of the most popular is Vampire: the Masquerade (V:tM). The creators of V:tM chose a familiar Biblical figure to be the "father" of the fictional vampire race: Caine. This choice of the First Murderer as a father figure and the "World of Darkness" in which his race reigns are symbolic of the thoughts, beliefs, and feelings of a generation of Americans. The sense if living in dark times but hoping for a brighter day, striving for community in a world of diversity, and surviving it all in a society where it seems there are no heroes anymore are all part of living in the 13th Generation and that is why so many of them are enamored of the role playing games like V:tM.

DICING WITH DRAGONS

A great deal of misinformation surrounds role playing games (RPGs). For that reason a reader must first reach an understanding of the games--what they are, who plays them, and why--before an analysis of Caine and the World of Darkness can take place. Perhaps the best analogy to introduce the concept of RPGs is "interactive storytelling." The gamers create player characters (PCs) that function in the fictional setting of the game world. One of the players takes on the role of Game Master (GM), and he or she controls the game world's time, nature, supporting cast, villains, and all other aspects of the game world's reality not controlled by the PCs. The GM has three main responsibilities: 1) enforce the rules of the game world, 2) ensure the story progresses, and most importantly 3) keep the players entertained. What occurs is a story for which the GM and all the players are cooperative authors. (Rein*Hagen, Mark. V:tM. 22-23)

But who are these players, these cooperative authors? And why do they play the games? There are many negative and innacurate stereotypes about people who play RPGs; they are often portrayed as misfits and occult fanatics. Most of these stereotypes that result from misinformation and misunderstanding concerning RPGs do not reflect the average gamer. A study conducted in Britain of the personalities of fantasy gamers came to this conclusion regarding RPG gamers: "To some extent individuals who are interested in any hobby or interest will differ from the population average, and these differences probably fit within that perspective." According to the study gamers tend to be male, highly educated, and slightly introverted. In general gamers were found to conform to a personality pattern "similar to that of the shy, introverted, intellectual who is drawn to the computer," though that isn't by any means true for all gamers (Douse 2).

There are many reasons why these people play RPGs, entertainment being the primary motivation. The socializing aspect of gaming follows as a close second for many people. For them playing RPGs serves a similar purpose to weekly poker games and bridge clubs--gaming is a chance to get together with friends and to enjoy their company. But another reason for playing is therapeutic release, a purpose that RPGs are so well suited to that they have actually been used in the therapy of at least one young man (Blackmon 2). For many teenagers and adults there is the same sort of relief in immersing themselves in the game world as there is for children in playing cops and robbers on the playground. Interacting with the game world helps gamers work through anger, frustration, or sadness in a safe, harmless way through the actions of their PCs. (Blackmon 2)

Image of a child in a darkpark.

A WORLD OF DARKNESS

That therapeutic immersion involved in role playing, though, causes players to tend to identify very strongly with their characters and also the worlds that those characters live in. This leads to the fact that the game worlds closely reflect the ideals and ideas of the gamers--and the World of Darkness reflects the hearts and minds of Xers very closely indeed. So what are we to see in V:tM's "gothic-punk" setting? It is a shadowed world; a realm not too unlike our own but painted in darker shades of gray. Monsters--both human and inhuman--lurk in the shadows and much of the populace is divided into three categories: predators, prey, and innocent bystanders. And there is little or no hope of a brighter future as the prophecies of almost all of the world's supernatural creatures say that the end is near and coming closer every day. With this overall atmosphere of decay and despair, why would anyone want to spend their fantasy life there? For the Xers that play the games the answer would likely be that it is all too similar to how they percieve the real world around them.

The similarity has triggered a generational mindset that prompts Tapia to call Xers a "clinically depressed generation." The following statistics are cited by him as good reason for their seeming lack of hope:

Faced with all of this, he says, Xers have developed a feeling that "they are barely able to save themselves. Survival is the goal" (Tapia 1). Is it so surprising then that in the world they created "the poor often provide prey for the urban predators--the werewolves, vampires and other nightstalkers" (Rein*Hagen W:tA. 29)?

Crime statistics aren't the only reason for members of the 13th Generation to be pessimistic. There are economic worries as well as changes in other cultural factors: "Boomers had free love; we have AIDS. They had the War on Poverty; we have a trillion dollar debt. They had a booming economy; we have downsizing and pollution" (Tapia 1). Those changes--combined with feelings of being stepped on by previous generations and labeled with epithets like "slackers" and "whiners"--has caused a growing feeling of oppression and resentment among Xers. In the world of V:tM this is reflected in the fact that the current generations of vampires are constantly being manipulated as pawns in the Machiavellian schemes of the older vampires and, as the appetites of the more ancient vampires grows, they are used as livestock as well.

That sense of a generation gap and a lost birth right is communicated very clearly through the game concept of bloodlines and vampiric generations. In the World of Darkness all vampires are descended from Caine, but with each new generation they are moving further and further away from him. This has led to the "Time of Thin Blood," in which the bloodlines are getting weaker and with each generation the vampires' powers are fading (Chupp 104). Those vampires of the thirteenth generation are among the weakest, and they are the last to be able to sire other vampire progeny at all. The fourteenth and fifteenth generations are little more than ghouls, tools for their elders to use and dispose of. (Rein*Hagen V:tM. 52-53)

A vampire stands in thelight.THE ROAD TO ENLIGHTENMENT

Writing this pessimism off as apathy would be unfair because in fact the rate of volunteerism among Xers is high (Tapia 2). They have also demonstrated that they are not unwilling to be moved by causes, as witnessed by the many "Ribbon Crisis" and a recent upsurge in Xer voting. ("Where" 1) Perhaps this is why the creators of V:tM included something called Golcanda in the game. Golcanda is a sort of escape clause for vampires; after a long, almost impossible process of atonement and personal repentance, a PC either "becomes mortal once again, or she becomes a new kind of vampire: one that no longer feels the urge to frenzy, the need to feed, or the desire to sin so strongly." (Rein*Hagen V:tM. 188) The fact that the game creators made attaining Golcanda nearly impossible would not be surprising to many who work with Xers. Dieter Zander, who works in a community church in suburban Chicago, says "What they tell me is 'Don't give me six easy steps to keep joy in my life. I know life is not easy.'" (Tapia 3).

GATHERING THE CLANS

One of the difficulties that outreach workers like Dieter have had in reaching Xers is the extreme cultural diversity of the generation. The U.S. has always been a melting pot, but Xers live in a generation which includes the highest number of naturalized citizens of any other generation born in this century. Again reality is reflected in fantasy as games like Vampire: the Masquerade embrace all cultures into the game world. This coincides well with Andres Tapia's observation that Xers "have a harder time accepting a theology that says their Muslim, Buddhist, or New Age friends are going to hell" (3). The clans of vampires and tribes of werewolves in the World of Darkness give variety to characters' backgrounds based both on racial and regional culture and philosophical differences. It is, in fact, these cultural and philosophical differences which fuel much of the action in these games. There is also significance in the fact that as opposed to the RPGs of earlier generations (e.g. Dungeons & Dragons) "action" just as often refers to the gamers dealing with Camarilla politics or sweet talking the Warder of a werewolf Caern as it does them fighting their way through a horde of monsters. When fighting does occur it most often isn't because the characters are treasure hunting, rather it is necessary for them to defend their homes or loved ones (Rein*Hagen).

Much of the combat that does occur in the World of Darkness is the direct result of PCs trying to defend the communities to which they belong, and that urge to form a protective community is very much in line with the desires observed in Xers. As Tapia notes "They are the children of divorce... and they are the children of two-;job families." Members of the 13th Generation have all too often grown up surrounded by fragmented communities and absentee parents, causing them to place a high premium on the value of strong communities (Tapia 1). In the "Storyteller" games this has combined with the element of diversity. In V:tM clans and the two warring political factions of the vampires, the Camarilla and the Sabbat, are communities which affect almost every move the player characters make, and the extensive system of tribes, septs, and packs found in W:tA are vital to the survival of the PCs. In these games the werewolves cherish every child they are blessed with and vampire society has strict rules which detail the responsibilities of a sire toward his progeny. And the greatest sire of them all--the ultimate father figure of the vampire race--is Caine (Rein*Hagen).

Caine's face.RAISING CAINE

But why, of all the possibilities for their fictional World of Darkness, did the game creators choose Caine? There is some literary justification for it, most notably in legends such as Beowulf, but none so mainstream to our society that they could not be ignored. The creators of V:tM made it abundantly clear that no literary source is sacrosanct when they actually rewrote part of the book of Genesis for The Book of Nod, a book of poetry which supplements the game and details many of the legends of the vampires. Raised in an age of revisionist history, where "81% of busters don't believe there's absolute truth," it is not surprising that rewriting even The Bible doesn't pose a problem to Xers (Tapia 3). The opening pages of the book tell of Caine's fall from grace and in that telling he is still the First Murderer, but there is a distinct twist to the tale. In it Caine doesn't kill Abel out of anger or jealous blood lust. In The Book of Nod's version Caine loved Abel above all else, but the "One Above" demanded "you must make a sacrifice--a gift of the first part of all that you have" (21). Anyone who has read Genesis knows that Caine's first sacrifice of his best crops was found unacceptable by God. So when the time for a second sacrifice came, this is what The Book of Nod (narrated at this early point by Caine himself) says is what happened:

Caine in the agony of knowledge.

So here we see that--according to the mythology of V:tM--Caine's crime was an act of devotion not a crime of passion. Those were the extenuating circumstances, and Caine's crime was not complete. But that didn't keep him from being punished, from being cast out by Adam. Caine did not resist that punishment, either, instead accepting it with great sadness. (25) In the eyes of many Xers Caine's plight is not too different from theirs. Many of them feel that they are doing the best they can to get along in the world left to them by their parents and grandparents and then unjustly having to bear the brunt of their elder's disapproval when they fall short of expectations.

If their plight is similar, then perhaps so is their rebelliousness. In The Book of Nod Caine was given three chances to repent by the three angels Michael, Raphael, and Uriel--each time Caine rejected them. In rejecting Uriel, thus losing his chance for death and escape from misery, Caine said "Not by God's mercy, but my own, will I live. I am what I am, I did what I did, and that will never change" (33). This response would make sense to a good many Xers who have seen what the lives of the Baby Boomers turned out like and decided that they won't take that path, regardless of what their elders may think.

It may be the honesty of Caine rather than his rebelliousness that makes him so attractive as a father figure to those members of the 13th Generation that choose to play the game. "What's so sad is that when politicians or church leaders fall, busters aren't even shocked; they've come to expect it," notes Brenda Salter McNeil, an urban specialist (Tapia 2). With Caine, however, Xers have no worry of him falling because he has already fallen. Caine committed his crime, admitted his guilt, accepted his punishment, and repented. He has no surprises, no skeletons in his closet. Caine might not be the perfect role model, but he's an honest role model that did the best he could with the cards he was dealt.

Finally, it is that sense of trying to survive with dignity that truly reflects the spirit of the 13th Generation. That is why many of them identify so strongly with Caine and his children in the World of Darkness, living in a gray and dangerous world where it's the best they can do just to survive and try to hold onto something that has meaning. In the words of Mark Rein*Hagen it's "about heroes--heroes fighting against an insurmountable evil. It's not about winning, it's about doing the right thing." (W:tA. 293)

A world of darkness

Works Cited:

Here are some sources available on the internet...

------------0xKhTmLbOuNdArY Content-Disposition: form-data; name="userfile"; filename="huntress.htm" Content-Type: text/html Huntress

Huntress

Some time in 1992 or '93 I bought a copy of White Wolf's game, Werewolf: the Apocalypse. The content of that game impressed me deeply and I found a single image lodged in my mind: a lone woman, standing in a street under a full moon. Huntress grew from this image. This story, like most of my other stories that I truly like, wrote itself and I did not know what would happen in the end until I reached it myself.

Trueblood watched The House as it lay coiled atop its ragged lawn. Even from across the town she could see it. Of all the houses only its windows were lit, their odd light blazing forth like the beams of supernatural, searching eyes. Those lights flared and flickered as if it burned within and they reached out across the distance to play across her pale features. Trueblood could smell The House as easily as she could see it; her nostrils flared as she snorted to clear the stench from her nose. The House, the whole town, reeked of the Pit.

Running strong, thick-fingered hands through her long dark hair, Trueblood searched the windows of the buildings around her. She could feel the townsfolk staring at her from darkened windows, cowering in fear. Trueblood wanted to hunt them out, to grasp their throats and demand how they could live in such a fashion; how they could allow such evil to exist among them. Fists clenched until knuckles whitened and joints cracked, she controlled the rage that burned inside her, resisting the animal impulses that hid too near the surface of her false humanity. That fury needed to be harnessed for the task to come. She had found the enemy, and what she sought lay in the midst of its nest. The need for the pretense of this frail human form was gone. The agents of the Pit knew where, and what , she was.

She could feel it--the Change itching in her bones. Trueblood let her long-coat fall to the street at her feet. She pulled off her boots, her pants, and then the blouse that she wore, letting them crumple in a heap about her feet. She worried not about the theft of her clothes, nor did she care if the cringing humans saw her naked. The townsfolk would not emerge from their homes until well after dawn, when sunlight lit their fragile worlds and made it safe to go abroad. If she was not back by then she would be needing that pile of false skin no longer. And the human side of her mind, with all of its inhibitions and civility, was sinking rapidly to a dark corner of her skull, chased there by the rising power of her personality's feral aspect.

She felt the cold asphalt roughly caress the soles of her feet as she walked toward The House. Her pale skin glowed beneath the light of the full moon, the same moon that had hung in the sky as on the eve of her birth. The sight of its pale face now filled her with rage. She loosed the fury within her soul and allowed herself to succumb to the temptation of the Change.

First came the itching as fur pushed its way through the surface of her skin. Her fingers clutched and curled as the nails became claws and her jaw clenched as it lengthened and the teeth grew and sharpened. Her skin began to stretch and tighten as her lean body began to gain hard muscle. Then the sweet agony came as her bones bent, broke, and reshaped themselves. The Change went on, and at each stage of the transformation a little more of her humanity slipped away.

Where the tall, pale, dark haired woman had stood now towered a feral beast: muscles rippling beneath a thick coat of black fur and glistening fangs jutting from a long muzzle. Trueblood had assumed her true form, had become the half-human wolf that haunted darkened cinemas and the shadows of children's nightmares. The rage washed over her like molten metal pumping through the veins of the beast she had become. The beast that she was .

Throwing back her head, Trueblood let loose a howl that echoed throughout the night, holding that sorrowful note as it carried further and further into the veil. Slowly, other voices from the wild joined their call to hers, and soon every hill and forest of the outland echoed with the primal outcry. Anguished and tortured and enraged it came, the call of someone who has had a piece of her soul torn from her and mourns its loss. Its touch chilled the heart of every man that heard it, their palms sweating as they clutched rifles in trembling hands.

Children whimpered and clung tightly to their mothers, who openly wept. For it was they who felt the pain of Trueblood's cry most keenly, and soon their own moans of anguish began to join her cry and that of the night beasts who answered her.

The howl hung in the night air long after the last angry, sorrowful note had passed Trueblood's lips. She fixed her gaze on The House, her rage cutting through the fog of her sorrow like a lighthouse beam as she snarled and bolted through the night towards the lair of her enemy. She became a blur, tearing towards The House as if carried upon the wings of demons, her clawed feet ripping chunks of asphalt free from the street as she ran.

Soon the wrought iron fence of The House loomed before her, its gate tightly shut against her approach. Trueblood forced the churning pistons of her legs to push ever harder as she slammed against the gate at full force, metal hinges shrieking as they released their grip and allowed the gate to crumple before her charge. She paused among the wreckage, her huge bulk crouched in a nest twisted black metal. Trueblood's senses screamed to her and she felt their approach long before the assault materialized. Roaring her challenge to the coming enemy, she stood: a stony ridge against the raging tide that swept forth from The House.

They poured out upon her like a plague. Wave after wave of malformed beasts that had once been human broke upon her. She raged against the elemental force of their onslaught, matching it with the primal fury that drove her to cleave through the next wave, and the next, the next, and the next. Enemy without number fell before the werewolf's fury--ripping claws sought their coils and crushing teeth their flesh. She tasted the bitter pollution of their blood and gloried in the death of every abomination that came before her.

And then silence fell, like the eye of a hurricane swooped down upon her. No more of the Pit's spawn swarmed forth from the windows and doors of The House. Trueblood's enemies lay before her in mounds, like the victims of some wasting plague waiting for their devastated forms to be collected. Gore soaked her fur and the polluted life blood of the twisted beasts stung in the cuts that slashed across her torn body.

Trueblood had weathered the first maelstrom, but she had not come through unscathed. Ragged strips of her beautiful pelt had been torn from her flesh. A long gash dragged down the length of her snout and her own blood bubbled forth from her nostrils with each ragged exhalation. Absently, she allowed a blood soaked claw to feel at the torn and bloody place where her left ear had been.

For a moment Trueblood desired nothing more than to lay down and rest at last, to simply allow unconsciousness to claim her aching body. Yet, as much as ache and fatigue pulled at her bones, she knew she could not: blood cried out for blood. Her goal never left her mind and it gave her the strength to carry on. Her pack was dead, it ran with the Wild Huntsman now. She had but one reason to live, only that one desire to drive her on.

Trueblood looked down at her ravaged body as she waded through the wasted remains of the demons at her feet. Her flesh was torn and broken, her blood mixing with that of the Pit-spawn. Each step taken reopened wounds, starting the bleeding anew. The pain was blinding. But she took that pain, harnessed it, and used it to feed the rage that still burned inside of her. It drove her on toward The House.

The boards of the steps bowed dangerously under the weight of the enormous predator's body as she loped up to the front door of The House. Placing a single palm against the heavy oak door, Trueblood pushed. The door fell inward, slamming against the floor with a sound like thunder. She stooped low to fit through the door as her tired legs carried her across the threshold, her clawed feet gouging oaken splinters out of the fallen door.

The scent of her enemy hung heavily in the air like a weight upon her lungs, and the dust of the floor bore the signs of movement by things unnatural. The shiftings beneath the painted plaster of the walls and the creaking and heaving of the floorboards made Trueblood suddenly aware of exactly what it was that she she had done, what she was doing. The agents of the Pit surrounded her completely, limitless in number. She had charged into the heart of a hive and it was only a matter of time before its defenders decided to sting again, and this time on their own terms. Her fearful humanity screamed at her from its dark corner. Trueblood did not listen.

The stench of the Pit here reeked too sharply for Trueblood to catch the scent of the one she sought. She needed sharper senses than those granted her by this form. So once again the Change swept over her, her form fluid under its exertions. She lost her two-legged stance to the four legs of an enormous dire wolf, smaller than the half wolf, yet still easily larger than any man in its bulk. With this new change her humanity slipped ever further out of her grasp. Fight or flight, survival of the fittest, the thrill of the hunt, and loyalty to the pack were all that she understood. Trueblood lost what little fear or hesitation that she had felt before. Nose to the slime covered floor, she began her search.

In seconds she caught the scent. Trueblood tore through The House as adrenaline tore through her body. Her nose greedily drank in the faint traces of scent until, in a matter of moments, she stood before an open door. Framed in rotten wood was a long, steep staircase whose base was lost from sight in the murk of an ancient cellar. She could smell the dry rot and weakness in the cracked, slime covered stairs. The wolf-beast leapt downwards, passing over the stairs entirely, and landed at their base, slipping momentarily on the slick floor and skidding through scattered piles of bones. She could hear them crunch underfoot, the sound echoing off distant walls. The scent grew stronger, clear through the stink of the Pit.

Darkness absolute reigned in the cavernous cellar. Touch, smell, and hearing were the only senses left to guide Trueblood now. They were all she needed. Her nose led her unerringly to the far wall of the cellar, where she was stopped short by the sound of heavy, ponderous breathing. Something waited for her in the murk, something that meant to stand between her and her goal. Roaring, Trueblood leapt at the shadow masked creature. Nothing would be allowed to bar her way now. The creature met her attack with its own, sending them both to the floor in a tangle of bloody fur and slimy coils. The two combatants thrashed wildly on the bone strewn floor, jaws snapping viciously and claws digging deep into flesh. Slowly the spawn managed to loop its coils around Trueblood and she could hear its twisted parody of a laugh as it began to crush her. The coils constricted ever tighter with each gasp of breath that Trueblood allowed to escape, ribs shattering under the crushing pressure of the spawn's thick coils. Still she struggled, but the creature's strength was too much, and her wild thrashing only weakened her further. The Pit- spawn laughed again its poison laugh as it gripped her head in its taloned hands and slammed it against the wall, attempting to grind her skull against the stone. The monster leaned forward, still laughing--its saliva dripped down into her torn ear. Then something caused her burning blood to race in her veins. The Scent!

Trueblood twisted madly in the creature's coiled grip, lashing out at the acidic laughter. Her jaws found the spawn's misshapen skull. The laughter stopped. They paused in absolute silence, Trueblood unable to breath and the creature afraid to. After a moment of that silence Trueblood's powerful jaws closed. Its skull crushed with a sickening wet crunch, the creature was silenced forever. Struggling desperately to remain conscious, Trueblood sought ferociously to escape the monster's death grip, gnawing through thick coils to gain her freedom. She spat gore from her mouth, reveling in her adversary's destruction and that first lung full of sour air.

Aching lungs laboring to breath in enough of that foul and oppressive atmosphere, Trueblood sought out the source of the scent. Feeling about with her torn muzzle she found it: a hole in the wall just barely large enough for her huge body to fit into. The scent was carried out from the depths of the tunnel on a foul and feathery breeze. In the passion of the chase, Trueblood ignored her screaming instincts. She squeezed herself through the hole and the tunnel into which it opened.

Trueblood crawled through the tunnel for minutes, rough stone dragging at her lacerated hide, before finally reaching its end. Upon dragging herself free from the tunnel she found herself in a round chamber several hundred feet across. In its center lay a large pool of thick, viscous liquid lapping at smooth granite shores, lighting the cavern with its sick purple light. Hundreds of skulls, both human and unhuman, were arranged in concentric circles about the pool. Stalactites and stalagmites jutted from rock like the teeth of an enormous beast waiting to tear into the flesh of its prey. Several more tunnels like the one she had passed through were revealed in the sick purple light. But she ignored all of this, for what she sought was on the far side of the cavern and her mind had only room for that goal.

It was a cage, roughly constructed of planks crudely nailed together by clumsy hands. Skirting the pool of glowing unwater, Trueblood ran to the cage and her shape reverted to her true half-wolf form as she moved. A feeling of dread, of absolute wrongness, filled her. A small, hand-like paw stuck out between the boards. When she reached the cage Trueblood's clawed hands tore off the top of the flimsy cage without her ever uttering a sound. Slowly, she reached in and pulled out the furry bundle. Trueblood slumped to the floor, her passion drained from her like water from a shattered urn.

She held the end of her life in her powerful arms. The body of her once happy pup seemed so ... small . Trueblood thought of the many nights spent soothing the pup in her embrace and imagined that she could almost feel her only child breathing in her arms once more. She lowered her head and wept over the body of her daughter.

Lost in her sorrow, Trueblood did not notice when the stench of the Pit within the chamber increased, neither did she look up when the spawn began to flood the chamber. She did not resist as they swarmed over her and the the small body of her child. She had no reason left.

 

This story was created and written by jonathon david hawkins (presterjon76@yahoo.com). The story and all characters within are his exclusive property and may not be used without his express permission.
1