» Day 23 of 60 days of torture training.



She's the balance beam...and I keep falling all around her fairytale.

-'Balance Beam' by Blue October

---

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

(Translated by Clifford E Landers)

Prologue

ix.

The Alchemist picked up a book that someone in
the caravan had brought. Leafing through the pages, he found a story about Narcissus.

The Alchemist knew the legend of Narcissus, a youth who daily knelt beside a lake to contemplate his own beauty. He was so fascinated by himself that, one morning, he fell into the lake and drowned. At the spot where he fell, a flower
was born, which was called the narcissus.

But this was not how the author of the book ended the story.

He said that when Narcissus died, the Goddesses of the Forest appeared and found the lake, which had been fresh water, transformed into a lake of salty tears.

"Why do you weep?" the Goddesses asked.

"I weep for Narcissus," the lake replied.

"Ah, it is no surprise that you weep for Narcissus," they said, "for though we always pursued him in the forest, you alone could contemplate his beauty
close at hand."

"But...was Narcissus beautiful?" the lake asked.

"Who better than you to know that?" the Goddesses said in wonder, "After all, it was by your banks that he knelt each
day to contemplate himself!"

The lake was silent for some time. Finally it said:"I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected."

"What a lovely story," the Alchemist thought.

---

The Poison that fascinates by Jennifer Clement

Judith Ann Neely met Mr. Alvin Howard Neely when she was 15 years old. She thought, “This is a man who takes whatever he wants and he wants me.”
They drifted through Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Taxes looking for rainbow and pots of gold.
He called himself ‘The Nightrider’
She called herself ‘Lady Sundance’
He’d say, “Lady Sundance, let me tell you, nothing in this world is ever going to get used up that you can’t have any. For you, this is a land of plenty.

She’d say, “You’re just sugar to me.”
He’d say, “Lady Sundance, I’d buy you the moon if it was for sale. Honest, I would. I can carry you. You are as light as a feather. I think you are a guitar or violin maybe-just all hollow inside.”

She’d say. “But I make no music.”

He’d say, “I hear your love songs even if you don’t sing any. You’re a song, baby, a beautiful song.”

They knew how to pull out a gun from under their coats and jackets and march people through the trees. They collected souvenirs from their victims and even kept photographs they found in people’s wallets: a girl in a birthday party hat; a man in a boat; a child taking a bath with three rubber ducks and three women smiling holding a bottle of champagne in the air.
One photograph is of a yellow and white canary in a birdcage hanging from a long hook on a porch. It’s tiny, black bead-eyes look straight into the camera. This was Judith Ann’s favourite photograph.
She’d say, “What stupid motherf***er carries a picture of a canary in his wallet?”
Lady Sundance knows all the parts of a smooth bare shotgun by heart:
Butt plate
Stock
Pistol grip
Trigger guard
Trigger
Hammer
Breech block
Forearm
Barrel
Ventilated rib
Muzzle
Front sigil
He’d say, “Remember the first time, you were shy like a young doe, wanting to talk to these people and make them feel like it was a picnic in the woods, like it was some kind of party or something. You’d ask about the weather, or you’d ask their names, or where they were from like we were going to have conversation or something. Like you were carrying sandwiches in your bag.
She'd say, I had to get used to this kind of loving I didn't know that loving and killing was away to be.”