Jeff Bernstein

P r a x è d e 6 GUARD. Praxède, you admit you have done this? PRAXÈDE. I did it. I knew of your law. I broke it. GUARD. Savages! All you religious outlaws. Wolves in sheep’s clothing—that’s what you are! Blindings, drownings, beheadings, mutilations; you preach, meanwhile, “Love your enemies”. PRAXÈDE. When my enemies are of the faith, yes. But when they are outsiders of the church, then I bring down the fires of hell on them! PRIEST. Hear me now! I denounce all violence! The militants are not of the true Church. Our wisdom must rely on persuasion, on teaching, and not on strength. GUARD. Whichever. Whatever you are, we are at war with you. We do not defeat you—we destroy you. PRAXÈDE. Go on, then. Allow me my victory. GUARD. What is that you say? PRAXÈDE. I laugh at you! GUARD. Yes? PRAXÈDE. You can kill me but you cannot hurt me. GUARD. Hurt you, Praxède? We’re not hurting you. PRAXÈDE. No? GUARD. You said you wanted to go home, yes? PRAXÈDE. Yes. GUARD. Tear her clothes off. Throw her in the grave. PRAXÈDE. Ah! Ah! PRIEST. No! GUARD. Now, you snake-eyed deceiver, get on your feet. Hurry! Pick up the shovel. PRIEST. I don’t want it. GUARD. Take it! Fill in the hole. PRIEST. I won’t do it. GUARD. I said fill in the hole! PRAXÈDE. Do it, dear father. Please. Make me happy. PRIEST. I cannot do it! I won’t do it! PRAXÈDE. Yes! Release me of all this evil and darkness. I want to die, so I can be reborn. GUARD. Right. You heard the girl. Get working. PRIEST. I won’t! PRAXÈDE. Yes, father! You will do it for me. PRIEST. No! PRAXÈDE. Give me my birth day into eternity. PRIEST. Ah, girl! GUARD. Go on, you heard her. Pick it up. PRIEST. Ah, girl! . . . You won’t be dead, only asleep. GUARD. Go on. Oh, Praxède, we have your sister. PRAXÈDE. Ah! GUARD. Go on! Fill the hole! Faster! Faster! PRAXÈDE. Not a single hair on our head shall perish, but in our patience we shall have our soul. tbc

P r a x è d e 5 GUARD. Good evening, young lady. PRAXÈDE. Hello. GUARD. Lovely night. PRAXÈDE. It is. GUARD. May we be of some assistance? PRAXÈDE. No, thank you. GUARD. Where are you going? PRAXÈDE. I’m going home. GUARD. We’ll let you go home. PRAXÈDE. Thank you. GUARD. One question, though. PRAXÈDE. Yes? GUARD. Does that shovel belong to you? PRAXÈDE. No. GUARD. How did you come by it? PRAXÈDE. I . . . I was walking back into the city, and this is the way I came. GUARD. Where are you coming from? PRAXÈDE. I was in the desert, praying. GUARD. To whom were you praying? PRAXÈDE. To god . . . s. GUARD. The gods? PRAXÈDE. Yes. GUARD. You’re not using this shovel? PRAXÈDE. No. GUARD. Don’t be scared. PRAXÈDE. I’m not scared. May I go now? GUARD. Go where? PRAXÈDE. Home. My family will be worried about me. GUARD. We’ll get to your family. What is that beside the shovel? PRAXÈDE. It is a hole. GUARD. Did you make it? PRAXÈDE. No. GUARD. You’re not using the shovel to bury something in the hole? PRAXÈDE. No. GUARD. Who are the dead filth in that cart? PRAXÈDE. I don’t know. GUARD. You didn’t bring them here? PRAXÈDE. No. GUARD. You know the proclamation against the burial of filth? PRAXÈDE. They were two young boys. GUARD. You see the crosses round their necks, don’t you? PRAXÈDE. No, I don’t. GUARD. Let me shine a light on them. See them now? PRAXÈDE. Yes. GUARD. You brought them here? PRAXÈDE. No. GUARD. Then who did? Your family? PRAXÈDE. I don’t know. No. GUARD. Why are you using the shovel? PRAXÈDE. I never. GUARD. You said your family will be worried? PRAXÈDE. No. GUARD. You didn’t say that? PRAXÈDE. They’re dead. GUARD. Dead. What is your name? PRAXÈDE. Praxède. GUARD. Whom were you praying to? PRAXÈDE. I told you. The gods. GUARD. [ to Priest ] Get on your knees. Young lady, do you see this? PRAXÈDE. I do. GUARD. What do you see? PRAXÈDE. You’re holding a knife at his throat. PRIEST. She was praying to the gods! GUARD. Shh. Praxède, whom were you praying to? PRAXÈDE. I was praying to Jhesu Cryst. GUARD. Who? PRAXÈDE. I was praying to Jhesu Cryst. GUARD. You know that’s punishable by death. Right here and now. PRAXÈDE. Good sir, to me a worse death is unbelief. GUARD. What are you saying? PRAXÈDE. I came here to give these boys a Christian burial. Right here and now. tbc

Pressure. Quiz Show (1994). Cinematographer : Michael Ballhaus.

"Do you pray?" "Yes, I pray."

P r a x è d e 4 “Keep still, Praxède, the guards are afoot.” And the little sister was reluctant to reveal her fear, or her second thoughts, for the idea of this task had been hers. Her eyes betrayed her mood, however; yet Prudentiana continued lifting dirt out of the grave. “Hold firm,” she said. “We’re close.” A torch fixèd and flaming at their feet flung a lashing of flickering shadows over the boys in the cart with their eyes open and throats slashed, while the wind scuttled the branches, grazing Praxède, who then wrapped both her arms tightly over her breasts. Her sister worked carefully at the earth. She rested, finally, stretched her fingers, then looked round with terrible foreboding, for the morning star, she saw, was risen, but the burial was not nearly finished. Prudentiana spoke : “Did you hear that?” “What is it?” Praxède’s heart was pounding. The older sister listened, brought her robe tightly round her, then said : “I’ll go and see.” “Don’t go!” Praxède begged. “I can’t bear it!” “But darling, it might be the priest coming.” She handed the shovel to Praxède, then said: “I’ll return. Stay here, finish the work.” Praxède stood alone under the stars, working at the soft and sandy soil, while her hands, her whole body, shook from fright, while the children lay there in silence; and she thought to flee—but kept on digging. She was still working the shovel in fright when the trees round her went ablaze with light. Men broke through the trees with torches in hand. It was the priest, leading three Roman guards. tbc

[ Star Spangled Night Photograph Dan Cristian Lavric Romania 2022 / Garden of Dreams Photograph Patrick Dumortier Greece 2017 / A hole in the mountain Photograph Kris Goris Belgium 2024 / Spiral Photograph Walter Weinberg Austria 2021 / EnSemble Photograph Jaime Travezán Spain 2017 / Northern Lights Photograph Luigi Morbidelli Iceland 2024 / Across the Universe Photograph Vikram Kushwah United Kingdom 2010 / Plot Holes #27 Photograph Tom Benedek United States 2005 / Nekropolis Photograph Patrick Dumortier Greece 2023 / Sphinx Photograph Patrick Dumortier Greece 2017 ]

Born on the Fourth of July (1989) / Saving Private Ryan (1998)

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Perplex'd the Greek (9.19) = Odysseus

C O M M E R C I A L B R E A K The Holy Tears of Christ . . . Preserved Among the impossible relics that have given such a great deal of mockery to the Huguenots, the holy tear of the Monastery of Vendôme is not the least bizarre. The [untitled] poem we are publishing is, we believe, the only work in verse that has been published on this subject; but this is not the only work that was written. The first prose work is the True History of the Holy Tear by François de la Saugère, printer to the king [L'Histoire véritable de la sainte Larme, available online]. . . . On this subject, we [also] know the work by J.-B. Thiers, Dissertation on the Holy Tear of Vendôme, Paris, 1699 [Dissertation sur la sainte larme de Vendome, also online]. Recueil de poésies françoises des 15e et 16e siècles (Paris : Jannet, 1855), I.43–54. The story of the Holy Tear derives from the account of Lazarus’ death and resurrection in John 11:32–7, in which Jesus shed tears after seeing Mary Magdalene weep at the sight of her brother’s empty grave: one of only two instances of Christ weeping in Scripture. Deeply troubled and moved, he visits the grave and performs the miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead. . . . At the moment the tears were shed, an angel caught them in a phial, which he gave to Mary Magdalene for safekeeping. Helen M. Hickey, "Capturing Christ's Tears", in Stephanie Downes et al. (eds), Feeling Things: Objects and Emotions through History (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2018), 58–71. [ Self-reflection macro photograph of dewdrop Inna Etuvgi Sweden 2022 / Memories about Aurora Lights Photograph Inna Etuvgi Sweden 2020 / Rainbow Morning Photograph Inna Etuvgi Sweden 2022 ]

David Horvitz, წვიმა [ Rain ]. ISBN 978-3-945900-58-1. "There are 64 different terms for rain in the Georgian language. Artist David Horvitz worked with Tbilisi-based curator Elene Abashidze to collect these words." [ Readings Painting Arcelio Brignoni United States 2016 / 1 Mixed Media, Digital on Canvas Tobe Roberts United States 2021 / La naïade Photograph Patrick Dumortier Greece 2019 / Mystic Portal Mixed Media, Digital on Aluminium Tobe Roberts United States 2020 ]

P r a x è d e 3 Praxède saw a copse of trees ahead. When she came near it she began to hear soft sounds of movement rustling inside. Praxède thought she recognised the sound; it was the effort of shovelling dirt and then the dropping of it off the blade. If she was right, somewhere inside this dark woodlot a shallow grave was being dug. Praxède entered in uneasily; then all went dark. The yew and the ilex crowding around her obscured the moonlight; so she went forward carefully, by touch. Long ago, perhaps, this grove commended a god or goddess. It was a pious place, a retired, contemplative recess. Then her footsteps snapped twigs. So she went still; and waited; and no more sounds came to her; the shovelling had stopped all its effort. Gooseflesh rippled along her arms and back. She took a breath, and then she went forward, not wanting to go on, but going on, pushing through the trees, her senses alert, blazing further on into the darkness. Out of the shadows came a hand that grabbed at Praxède. It took hold of her robe and it was no friendly gesture she felt. She tried to escape but she was yanked back, and stifled a shriek. Then Praxède writhed, Praxède wrestled, she squirmed in the grip of the enemy, moving so wildly that her arms and legs went bloody from cuts carvèd from branches closing in round her. Then she saw her death flash before her eyes. That motivated the strength inside of her. She heard her robe tearing, then she was free, and leapt ahead, and looked back at her foe, and saw it was a statue standing mute. Praxède wiped her frightened tears away. What had caught her was a figure of stone holding a scroll of writing, with winged feet; the sculptor had rendered well the clothing of fluted fabric borne back on the wind. But the sculpture was stricken by decay. Time had scrubbed all its facial features bare, so its expression was emotionless. Also a fountain that had burbled here had long since gone dry. Praxède moved on further into the heart of the woodlot; and found her sister Prudentiana, who stood over the dirt, digging a grave by a handcart holding two dead children. “Careful,” she said. “They might bury us in this.” tbc

P r a x è d e 2 Praxède moved under cover of dark, roving the Nekropolis and its plots outside the city, near where the Christians were left to rot, their corpses provender for carnivores prowling the desert waste. In sight of the cemetery, beyond the open scatter of corpses, the walls of the sleeping city stood indifferent. In the starlight, bright enough to read in, the predators, night-arriving, scavenged through the broken pieces of earthen urns divested of their ashes a long time since, while cypresses whispered in the wind and all the ruins of farewell stood silent. But she felt alive, Praxède, and fine; and negotiated the statuary and crypts and marble tombs by memory, for she was obeying a detailed plan. How dour, this place, this wasteland of relics. Many were fallen, some were demolished; and the cold that numbed her skin had nothing to do with the season, which was summer. She went carefully through stinging thistles with thorns overgrown, using the shadows and moving by the light of the full moon. Keeping track of her were beady red eyes, diabolical looks watching in the dark; maybe rats; feral cats; or wild dogs who would tear her to pieces, her sister too, if given the chance. And there were worse threats to unsettle her. Her heart beat fast, her hands perspired, and she felt anxious, for Praxède, trembling, was aware of the night guards patrolling the area. In fear of this she felt great dizziness, a lightheaded euphoria of fear. Yet onward she continued her errand, rushing to meet her Prudentiana. Like the other Christian vigilantes, she was out in the evening, hoping to destroy the temples of the old gods. But youthful Praxède had a secret which can only be shared with the reader. Was she ready to give her life for this? She was only sixteen years old, a child. She loved to strip naked by the river and lay cozy on her back in the sun, delighting in the grass on her body and dreaming of her good fortune to come. When men saw the flourish of her figure which was splendidly developed for her age, they went favourably wild for her, at which she would smile inside with joy. But were those pleasant times all over now? Now her own life might be in jeopardy. For all the promise of her native beauty, she might never marry, and never know of the joy of increase and multiply. If she accomplishes the strategem, might she maybe be granted a reprieve? If she could bury the dead with last rites, maybe He would save her for another day? Either way she had to accept her fate. Burying the dead, breaking Roman law, might mean the end of her life. So be it. Wanting to live, she was yet prepared to die; and felt a strange exhilaration at that, for in that feeling she understood freedom. tbc

P r a x è d e ________________________________________ SCROOBY. Look. Prudentiana and Praxède, sisters sitting at table together, parents and brothers stirring around them, occasionally offering a word; the time is just after the evening meal. Listen to the younger one, Praxède, speaking of the burial of the dead! PRAXÈDE. I could almost cry. I know I am right! I know I’m right! PRUDENTIANA. Sister, you’re turning red. PRAXÈDE. Be not afraid of those who kill the body— PRUDENTIANA. After that, they can hurt us no longer. PRAXÈDE. But he’s wrong! PRUDENTIANA. Whatever Praxède commands; I wouldn’t dare to correct Praxède. PRAXÈDE. Our dead are full of hurt, for they wander homeless, unfixed from any foundation, just as wind blows boundless through open air. PRUDENTIANA. Why, Praxède? PRAXÈDE. No one will bury their bodies in earth. When the Romans refuse Christian burial, the souls of all our unburied brothers and sisters are doomed to wander forever. Being unburied, and being deprived of the rites of the faith of our fathers, they are unable to enter Heaven. Do you want to hear my opinion? PRUDENTIANA. Yes. PRAXÈDE. The Romans get it wrong, then repeat it. The problem is not a Christian problem. It’s common deceny that buries the dead. MOTHER. So what are you saying, dear Praxède? PRUDENTIANA. It’s polite of us when we bury them. PRAXÈDE. And the burial rites the priests perform benefit the living as much as the dead. How comforting is the order of things, when the priest in the graveyard says aloud, “O death, where is thy sting?” PRUDENTIANA. That is moving. FATHER. The living have a right to enjoy a funeral. PRUDENTIANA. Is enjoy the right word, father? FATHER. It is. Holding the torches splendidly shining, and the people in procession singing the hymns, we follow the dead like champions! BROTHER. And our last rites bring others to the faith, as St Paul said. FATHER. By this, the unbeliever may be convinced, and brought to worship God. PRUDENTIANA. Dear girl, is this what you call philosophy? PRAXÈDE. Yes, if you feel the more human for it. MOTHER. It is an evil end to a good life, an insult to the faithful who lived well! If it’s burial that gives the dead life, then there is no afterlife of the soul if we are disallowed a resting place? PRUDENTIANA. Dear Praxède, maybe it’s time to whisper. PRAXÈDE. Why, Prudentiana, what is on your mind? tbc

[ Sunrise or Sunset? Drawing Maryna Bugai Greece 2023 / Catacomb of Priscilla Rome / Columbarium Hominum Photograph Peter Zelei Hungary 2018 / Calz. de Los Frailes Photograph Thomas Haensgen Germany 2024 / Regina Coeli parish Photograph Thomas Haensgen Germany 2024 / Illusion Painting Nina Pietsch Germany 2019 / Interdimensional Hands Painting Jacob Lacour United States 2018 / Death Valley Painting Veronika Demenko Ukraine 2024 / In the Garden Photograph Patrick Dumortier Greece 2017 / Mother in purgatory Photograph Paul Gadd South Korea 2024 / Child hand Sculpture Andrea Bucci Italy 2014 / Into the Oven Photograph Dietmar Scherf United States 2014 / Last Light Photograph Patrick Dumortier Greece 2019 / Akropolis Photograph Patrick Dumortier Greece 2018 / Apollon Photograph Patrick Dumontier Greece 2020 / Walls & Skies Photograph Patrick Dumortier Greece 2018 / Walls & Skies Photograph Patrick Dumortier Greece 2018 / Walls & Skies Photograph Patrick Dumortier Greece 2018 / Anastasis Photograph Patrick Dumortier Greece 2018 / Head #4 Photograph Paul Gadd South Korea 2023 / Miss Mongolia Photograph Paul Gadd South Korea 2018 / Landfill #1 Photograph Paul Gadd South Korea 2023 / Apple tree Sculpture Andrea Bucci Italy 2020 / Tree Photograph Patrick Dumortier Greece 2016 / La tresse sensuelle Photograph Patrick Dumortier Greece 2019 / Epiphany Photograph Patrick Dumortier Greece 2015 / Death Valley in color Photograph Hélène Vallas Vincent France 2009 / Logos, Ethos, Pathos and Kairos Photograph Kleoniki Vanos South Africa 2019 / In the Garden Photograph Patrick Dumortier Greece 2017 / Acrylic Mandala Painting Jekaterina Muhhina Estonia 2023 / Flower of Life Painting Jekaterina Muhhina Estonia 2023 / Joyful Energy Photograph Kleoniki Vanos South Africa 2014 / Laguna de Caltongo II Photograph Thomas Haensgen Germany 2024 / Night Sky Above Photograph Adam Humphreys United Kingdom 2022 / La naïade Photograph Patrick Dumortier Greece 2019 / The Sacred Road Photograph Patrick Dumortier Greece 2015 ] P r a x è d e P r a x è d e P r a x è d e

c o m i n g s o o n L a v i e d e P r a x è d e [ Nekropolis Photograph Patrick Dumortier Greece 2025 /Nekropolis Photograph Patrick Dumortier Greece 2024 / Northern Lights Photograph M Tchaikovsky United Kingdom 2015 / La naïade Photograph Patrick Dumortier Greece 2019 ]

Book of the Passion of Saint Margaret the Virgin SCROOBY. Then the governor was there. He took his sword from his side, and held it. So Margaret waited, and caught her breath, relishing the freedom of the dawn air while the dragon went back under the earth. She was relieved to have survived the night. Then, watched by all the believing people, Margaret's head was severed from her body. MARGARET. But if he thought he was silencing me he was dead wrong. PEOPLE. Look! The head, disunited from the heart, still speaks, as if from the heart! SCROOBY. And the people who were there that morning swore forever after that the young lady spoke for many hours to the people, sermonizing on the grace of persistence. Those who heard her never forgot that day, but remember a very beautiful head, and it's said that even the governor benefited from all she had to say. THE END.

Book of the Passion of Saint Margaret the Virgin SCROOBY. I was eating macaroni and cheese once, and swallowed, and a lump of mozzarella got stuck in my throat, and I couldn't breathe; and I had lots of time to think about it. Some moments, I think, shouldn't be thought through; think of Cryst's agony in the garden. MARGARET. I am in the belly of the dragon. The beast is moving, I hear it roaring; and this foul pit soaks me to the skin. But I'm far from over. If they want me they must take me, for in their taking me they'll be haunted; my curse will follow them! SCROOBY. So far, so good. MARGARET. Pray on, Margaret! Pray! I pray to find what's best of you in me. SCROOBY. Now we have it on good authorities dragons suffer from sluggish digestion. She might be caught in this hideous pit an entire night. So what might her plan be? MARGARET. Don't give up! Just keep going! Keep going! SCROOBY. Then she said something I never forgot. MARGARET. Whatever is best in ourselves, start there. SCROOBY. So she kept talking. It was her talking that put her in this pit in the first place. All night she prayed inside this church of hers, and prayed herself back to life, for the air coming out of her during her prayers swelled the monster's belly considerably, discomfiting the beast; and as long as Margaret stayed down on her knees and prayed, the dragon couldn't digest anything. Then she crossed herself, which grazed the belly walls, and in a violent expelling our Margaret went flying through the air. She soared high among the stars, our young girl, and came down softly in a bale of hay, safe and sound. tbc

Rilke See the machine : how it rolls and avenges and distorts and weakens us. It takes our power, too, without passion, drive, or faith. "Moralite Nouvellé", in Ancien theâtre françois (Paris : Jannet, 1854), 3:87. Bourgeois, marchans, dames et damoyselles, Je vous salue en Generalité, Vous suppliant que prestez vos oreilles Affin d'ouyr nostre Moralité, Que faicte avons, non par mondanité, Mais pour le vray declarer seulement Au nom de Dieu, pour quoy la verité Vous congnoistrez icy presentement. Artists, merchants, ladies and damosels, I greet you as one, asking you to listen in order to hear our morality. What we do is not out of vanity, but to declare truly to the world, in the name of God, what is the truth; you shall hear it now.

Please consider how mind-numbingly bored these characters look at work. Years on, the boring work literally saves their lives.

Book of the Passion of Saint Margaret the Virgin SCROOBY. Margaret came back and sat with her head low, cross-legged in her cell. Her many pains still leaked blood; and her heart was desolate. It was then that the governor returned to the bars of the window. He called out, "Are you here, Margaret? Where is the faithful of God? Do you hear a friend calling you?" MARGARET. Thank you, governor, for stopping that pain. SCROOBY. So then he took the opportunity and he slipped an arm through the prison bars. OLYBRYUS. Take my hand. MARGARET. Why? OLYBRYUS. For strength. MARGARET. You are so cold. OLYBRYUS. As someone said, That tears it. MARGARET. What is this? My wounds are healed. OLYBRYUS. And you feel no more pain? MARGARET. No. OLYBRYUS. Good. MARGARET. How did you do that? Who are you? OLYBRYUS. I just couldn't bear to see you like that. MARGARET. Come in here. OLYBRYUS. Sure. We're friends. MARGARET. I have you now! SCROOBY. She caught him by the head and threw him down. DIABOLUS. Get your foot off my neck! MARGARET. Just keep still, you! You fiend under the foot of a woman! DIABOLUS. Oh blessed Margaret! I am overcome! MARGARET. Stop blubbering. Tell me, why have you come? DIABOLUS. I came here to counsel you to obey the hope and request of the governor. MARGARET. Why do you tempt so much? And so often Crysten people? DIABOLUS. I hate virtuous men and women! I very much desire to exclude them from bliss, which I myself had and lost, never to have it again. MARGARET. I take this sword by your side, and use it! Flee hence, you wretched fiend! DIABOLUS. You have killed me! SCROOBY. When she severed the head from the torso, all her bloody pains returned to torture her, and the minor devil vanished in the air. In agony she paced her cell till dark. [ City Lights in Motion Photograph Raquel Sarangello Argentina 2024 / Lights over Lower Manhattan Photograph Ellen Averick Schor United States 2029 / City Lights Photograph Hulki Okan Tabak Turkey 2019 ] tbc

Book of the Passion of Saint Margaret the Virgin SCROOBY. On that first morning, after he left her in prison, she was taken from her cell on his orders and brought before the people, where she was made a stern example of. The governor ordered her to be bound in an instrument, hanging by her arms, with her feet dangling high off the ground, and she would be beaten with iron rods. MARGARET. Oh Father most glorious, our Savior, as I believe, support now your sufferer who raises her prayers to you, you who are in Heaven. OLYBRYUS. Strip off her clothing! SCROOBY. He ordered this, and Margaret stood naked in the village square before all the eyes of people who knew her. They took her hands and bound her wrists in iron cuffs, so that she hung with arms outstretched high over her, a long sad sight. Soon the blood was coming from her body as water pours from a well. MARGARET. I beg of you that I may be delivered! Keep a place for me in paradise. Deliver me out of this world so I may no longer be here. SCROOBY. There were many people who wept, and said : CITIZENS. Ah, Margaret! We are sorry for you and for your body so cruelly torn up. Now you have lost your beauty forever because of your stubborn misbelieving. If you believe, they will leave you in peace. SCROOBY. Margaret found her voice and spoke out to them. MARGARET. Evil counsellors! Go away from me! This torment of my body saves my soul! SCROOBY. And then she prayed. MARGARET. They will drop my body in with the worms, the ones that gnaw at me and chew; but I will lie happy in that my marriage bed! SCROOBY. Margaret turned her eyes to the governor, who took up his robe and covered his face, so that he might not see the blood on her; and she said to him : MARGARET. Loathsome filthy weasel! Do you see the bridal wounds you give me? You enjoy your power over my flesh, but Cryst holds my soul in his arms. SCROOBY. Well then. The governor commanded that the girl should be lowered from the iron device and clothed at once, then shut up in prison. All those who saw remarked on her shining brightness while she dressed herself, and prayed. MARGARET. You give us what we need not in Heaven, but here below. Gracious god, I thank you! tbc

Book of the Passion of Saint Margaret the Virgin Slamming against the wall were percussive thuds, and cracks expanded out from the slamming of the head of the dragon on the stone; and Margaret panicked and brought up her hands to withstand the toppling of the wall; and the thudding kept coming, then the head of the serpent was horribly displayed inside the prison cell, occupying space while masonry stones showered down on her. The head moved on a neck elongated most loathsome, filthy and foul; then it roared, and its tail slipped cunningly through the bars, poisoned with a mortal sting at its end; now the specklèd tail attacked her with angry sting and glanced off her shoulder and she fell in the dirt, her senses dazed; then the tail swung around her body and lifted her up off the floor and out of the prison through the crack in the wall and into the night air; and the tail slithered around her tight enough to push blood to her head; and she saw herself brought up to a wide-open mouth with fanged teeth and Margaret screamed and was tossed inside. Then all went dark while she bounced on the tongue, and the air caught in here stunk vile as poison, and the cool edge of an ivory fang incised a bloody scratch along her arm. Then the filthy tongue lurched, and she was gulped by the pillow grip of the neck muscles down, down into the belly of the beast, and the slippery feeling was humid and damp as she moved in the contractions of the dark airless passage of the throat. tbc

[ 01 Window Photograph Martiniano Ferraz Brazil 2022 / 02 Devil's Throat Photograph Anthony Georgieff Bulgaria 2005 / 03 Hands Painting Prisac Nicolae Romania 2023 / 04 Lolly Lights Photograph Cade Turner Australia 2010 / 05 Colors of Things Photograph Leo Schulz Germany 2020 / 06 North Head V Photograph Cade Turner Australia 2012 / 07 Balade Parisienne Photograph Kwanghae Kim South Korea 1998 ] ] Autant en emporte ly vens / Gone with the wind Where are the holy apostles dressed in white, joined with friends vested in holy stoles covering their necks all heated with parley? They die as well as servants. They are eaten up by life; they go as far as they go. Where are the eldest sons, the valiant, the wise? Where are the lords from all the realms? Have they really disappeared under our noses? Gone with the wind. François Villon