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Sunday, June 26, 2022

The Horrors That Hide by Julianna Rowe. Chapter Eight: The Waverly Mental Aslym

 

Chapter Eight:  The Waverly Mental Asylum

 

I figured Adam and John were not losing any time filling in the tunnel from the West Wing to John’s garage, and repairs to the hole I fell through to my supposed death. Although Hell wasn’t over yet considering my new living quarters.

On Sundays, Adam would visit me at The Waverly Mental Hospital. I had begged and pleaded with Dr. Regents to not allow him to see me. I told anyone who would listen, my story, but no one believed me, rather they thought I had lost my mind. I would sit and stare when Adam visited. I was afraid he might be recording me, so the less said I felt was the best way to handle this. Adam would laugh at me trying to break my silence. He knew if I got angry or emotional, the orderlies would tie me down again. He would say horrible things to me like how ugly I was, how his family was so happy I had been put away forever. Every visit was the same unkind rhetoric, but I continued to stare. When I returned to my room, I would write down everything I could remember Adam said to me.

Adam had also gone to medical meetings telling the doctors, nurses, and staff how I fabricated stories to gain attention. How I would claim I fell into a dungeon under our home, then crawled through a tunnel that came out a block away. How I thought he was trying to kill me. How I badgered him daily, never cooked for him, nor kept myself clean. That I would let our dog, Finn, outside with the gate open just to upset him. He told his family if anything happened to him, they should investigate me as the number one suspect. The list continued with how I believed Finn was my dad reincarnated, and how I talked and had sex with dead people. He told them I wrote notes to him saying I wanted him to die. That he had kept this all a secret for years, but since it had gotten so much worse, he had to get his wife, Jayne, help. 

Dr. Regents asked him why he never sought aid from their local General Practitioner. Adam wormed his way out of that one by saying it would upset his business, and her episodes were almost nonexistent before. Dr. Regents inquired as to what Adam might think triggered the severity of this last episode. 

Adam relayed that I had gotten worse due to my going through the “change of life.” Dr. Regents folded his arms over his fat belly, pursed out his bottom lip with a grunt, and a mere, “Ah, I see.” Like that solved the entire twenty-five hundred my life puzzle. Dr. Regents shared most everything with me Adam told him. He was one of those believers in total transparency. After several sessions with good old Dr. Mel Regents, I came to realize he fitted the description of a conservative male who if he could elect himself judge and jury smiling secretly as he sentenced every woman he came across to hard labor under his rule. 

During our so-called talks, he slipped up a few times, letting it leak out of his noble arrogant brain that his mother was a very cruel woman. I caught his fat eye tweaking and twitching each time he spoke of her. If I ever got out of this place, I would write the book about the crazies that tended to me in the crazy house at Waverly. It was all about money, and those that worked there were not evolved human beings at all. They were strategically placed there to maintain the system put in place to earn the owners their magnificent lifestyle. 

Adam fitted right into the groove of people they used to make it all work smoothly. I had to find a way to break this hellhole wide open. I had to become the therapist, not the patient. The kingdom cop, not the needy little woman. I would stand up alone and pull this ghastly brick Auschwitz out of its pit in Hell. 

As my adrenaline high left the building, my Mariska Hargitay, Law and Order delirious mental script left with it, and I sank back into depression. I lay there asking myself who did I think I was anyway? My mind answered swiftly, why I was little Jayne, the housewife who fell through the floor into her husband’s self-made dungeon of death. Why? Years of taking care of him, loving him, dusting his damn furniture, washing his dirty underwear, laying out his clothes for church where he obviously didn’t listen, smelling his stinking breath every morning, doing the dishes he ate off, cleaning the toilet he excreted his bodily waste into and for what? To end up in a dark dungeon with no food. It wasn’t just murder, he wanted me to suffer from no food or water, until my body withered up like a wasp caught between the window and the screen, no way out. Buzzing up and down and back and forth in the frantic motion to find an escape, but there was none, so it finally gave up and settled down in the bottom corner of the window and allowed itself to die. It had exhausted all its earthly physical efforts to save itself.

Was that where I was, at the bottom of life in a corner waiting to die? I sat directly up from the undesirable lumpy mattress of my new home, looked at the discolored paint chips each hanging in a different direction, almost causing them to appear to speak to me if stared at long enough. They hung from the ceiling as though someone or thing were perched there, waiting for me to speak. And so, I did.

“God, or Buddha, or my dead Cousin Jake, I need guidance. I am not dead or even close to it. I am a loving, kind, strong woman who has been greatly deceived on this earth. I am in a position where I cannot find my way out. Every road has a dead-end from where I sit. I see no earthly escape. I am asking for spiritual help from every avenue available. I am asking the Universe to open the gates of mental awareness, to grant me the spirit of Mariska Hargitay to crack this mental institution, and watch it burn to the ground. I am asking and believing I will receive. Amen.” 

And then just before I fell asleep, my mind went to Finn. Anxiety set in and tears flowed silently.


 

Friday, June 24, 2022

Writings by Tommye Allen, inspired by the Holy Spirit, audio by Julianna Rowe


                                                     

                                        Find more writings at http://www.dearonelovegod.blogspot.com

Thursday, June 23, 2022

TThe Horrors That Hide by Julianna Rowe: Chapter Seven: Transferred

 

Chapter Seven:  Transferred

 

Surely, I was dreaming? I woke up on a thin mattress in a strange grey room on a metal bed alone. No bars like I had in the jail. Where was Lisa? Maybe this was a hotel room where they were hiding me. Maybe this was something to do with victim protection for me. I didn’t dare move. Terror coursed through every vein in my body. My mouth was so dry, and I felt as though I could feel my blood moving around inside me. My heart could be seen moving through the dirty white hospital garb I had on. Why did I have one of those awful garments on? My confusion was debilitating. I could see Todd and his lover or wife caressing, I saw Lisa smiling at me with hope in her eyes, I saw the jail, and then I saw Adam’s face, the dirt tunnel, and the note he left me saying he was murdering me. That was when I began screaming for what seemed like forever.

Unannounced to me, two men unlocked the door to my new prison, locked it behind them, and proceeded to yank me up from my sweet little nasty bed. The bigger one was bald and looked like he was right out of the movies as a bouncer. He held me up in the air and told me to, “Shut the hell up!” I hung helpless as his eyes glared into me and his hands dug into my armpits with pungency. The other man was holding something that appeared to be a cloth sheet. He came toward me with the sheet and told me to hold still if I wanted to remain intact physically.

I spoke. “Where is Lisa?”

Again, the big man told me to shut up. I started to cry, asking over and over, Where am I?” The smaller man put a hood over my head, and pulled a drawstring that tightened around my neck. I tried to stop crying, but fear had taken over my entire being body, mind, and spirit.

The big man yanked my arm into a sleeve, and then the other arm into the other sleeve. I was trembling beyond control as I wet myself. That was when one of them yanked my arms into a pattern that appeared as though I were holding myself, and tied it securely in the back. Jesus God almighty I was in a straitjacket, but why? Where was I? The big man directly threw me back onto the nasty little bed where I whimpered and pulled myself into a fetal position as I lay in my soiled attire. I was afraid to move, to cry, to do anything but try to breathe through that horrible hood that had been secured around my head. I had to be in hell.

No one came to check on me until the following day. I heard the door to my new living space click as in unlocking. I started to weep with fear the men were coming back to finish me off this time, but instead, I heard the gentle voice of a man asking his nurse who the hell left that hood on this woman, and why hasn’t she been cleaned up?

The nurse insisted she wasn’t aware the woman had been brought in. Officer Adrian did not call and let them know anyone was coming, nor did the orderlies write her in on the overnight chart.

The Doctor interrupted her, “Well never mind, just remove that dastardly thing at once.”

The nurse did as directed. When the bag came off my head, I gasped the rancid, urine-smelling air several times as though it were a fresh mountain breeze coming off the morning sea. It momentarily calmed me as I spoke timidly.

“Why am I here sir? Officer Lisa told me she would be right back, and I would be released, but she never came, then I was drugged by Officer Adrian, and that is the last thing I remember until I woke up scared, then two men came into the room and viciously placed me in a secure situation. Please help me.”

“Madam Jayne, I am Dr. Regents and you have been committed to the Waverly Mental Institution by your husband.”

I started to sob uncontrollably while trying to speak my story. Dr. Regents told me to calm down, or they wouldn’t be able to remove the constraint, or better known as the straitjacket. I was near hyperventilating when I recalled how to hold my breath to stop from passing out. If I didn’t stop, they were liable to leave me in my distress another day. I was hungry and had to use the bathroom as well.

Dr. Regents instructed his nurse to remove the binding and get me cleaned up. He would be back after his rounds.

Adam had signed the committal papers and left the building. That was of course after lengthy talks with Dr. Regents about his wife’s mental distress and other wild lies to protect himself.

I calmed myself internally saying to my brain that after I told Dr. Regents the truth, he would help me. He would sign me out of the godforsaken place. But, go where? I suddenly thought. I have no money for a cab. I have no home and no vehicle. I was told Lisa no longer worked at the Third Street Police Station, but why so suddenly? And if Adam had the authority to have me committed, who would be able to undo that?

I began trembling, realizing the gravity of my already serious situation. I couldn’t stop shaking when the next fear surfaced. If I didn’t gain control, what would they do to me next? I had heard horror stories about these places. I had already been tortured by those two smelly thugs. Tears began to pierce my cheeks like hot irons. Why did my tears feel so hot? Just then the door opened, and another man walked toward me with a tray of food. He sat it down, all the while never taking his eyes off me to the place of a creeper.

He turned to leave, then turned back to me, and mumbled, “What’s wrong? Why are you shaking like that? Are you sick?

I shook my head as the tears fell like a speeding train with no sound.

“You will be fine lady. Just relax and give it time. You’ll get used to it here. They all do.”

I muttered my name to him as I clutched my gown in front of me, fists tight and arms crossed. He in turn told me his name was Arthur, and if I needed anything to let him know. I asked how I would do that, and he responded he worked almost every day and would be checking in on me as often as time allowed him to. I thanked him as I continued shaking.

A while later a nurse came into my room. I hadn’t been sure any women worked there until then. She took my temperature and upon viewing the thermometer she made a curious sound. I asked what? She didn’t answer. I was still shaking and asked if I could have another blanket as she left the room. Arthur returned with two white pills and a blanket. I was afraid to take them until he assured me, they were aspirin to take my fever down.

Arthur left as I sat huddled in my blanket staring at the food tray. A small glass of milk and a bowl of cold oatmeal with the consistency of glue. I thought it was what my grandmother used to call porridge, or was that in the song we sang as kids?

“Pea’s porridge hot, peas porridge cold. Some like it in the pot nine days old.”   

That is what this was. Awful thick and probably leftover. A piece of white bread spread with something. It didn’t appear to be butter, rather I believe it was lard. Yellow lard. I began swallowing over and over to stop the vomit from erupting from the depths of my mind. The mind that was connected to my stomach wanted to regurgitate the entire past three days, and then I passed out after some delirious talking, sobbing, and screaming. The orderlies came running in, but I was out cold thanking God, because they would have bound me again had I not been.  

The nurse waved something horrible under my nose that brought me back to the reality of the black hole my life had turned into. She told me to turn on my side, and without any warning, she pulled up the ugly wrinkled gown to expose my derriere to the thugs, and now Arthur as well while she shot a needle directly and without ease into me. Dear God, what are they doing to me now?

I begged, “Please don’t touch me anymore. Please leave me alone.”

My terrified mind brought a memory to me of Nurse Ratchet from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” God, I didn’t need that memory, or did I? She didn’t like anyone telling her what to do, much less a patient. Holy Mother Mary was I Jack Nicholson? That nasty nurse ran her psychiatric ward with an iron fist, using abuse, medication, and sessions of electroconvulsive therapy. The battle of wills I didn’t want to ever get into with her, but I had already unknowingly started it. I was in deeper than when I fell through the floor into Adam’s murderous hellhole trap beneath our home, or jail. How could this get any worse? But it did.


 

Sunday, June 19, 2022

The Burning Barrel.......by Julianna Rowe

 The Burning Barrel     by Julianna Rowe  


  I was standing in the kitchen working on making potato salad with my eyes closed because I am dealing with COVID or Omicron FATIGUE.  It is real!  I can hardly stay awake.  This is day 19 and from what I have heard it may take a couple more weeks for me to be awake again.  I am a very energetic person who in my entire life has never felt such fatigue and I can only pray, love, hope, it goes away without attaching its ugly head to me like a bad tic. I can also only pray, love, hope, Mr. Right doesn’t come to the door like Javier Bardem, I mean Felipe on his moped asking for my love for life because I would go.  Yes, I would go and fall off the moped from COVID fatigue and lose the most beautiful man on the planet.  Damn.

  This feeling is the same as before surgery when the anesthesiologist instructs you to begin counting backwards from 100.  Hell! You only get to 98 and you’re out.  This is 99 from the time you wake up until you go back down in the nighttime. You forget when to feed the cats, or feed yourself because you can’t taste it much anyway, when to shower, when to eat, take your couple of pills, and try not to think about when it might go away and if you will ever find Felipe again. 

That led me to begin thinking about if I should die tomorrow.  Not today, or tonight, but tomorrow.  I have no idea why not sooner than later.  Blame it on COVID, idk.  But I did think it.  As I was peeling the organic eggs with my eyes shut due to COVID fatigue and the need to eat at some point, I wondered if I cared.  I have been here a long time. Maybe I am tired of here.  I wondered who would really care?  I have tried to rid my life of not all unnecessary things but some.  I detest the thought of kids coming in and throwing my life into black garage bags with no forethought.   Would they miss the love letters from a couple of my Felipe’s?  Would they publish the books I have written and left in cyberspace?  Would they notice that the second drawer of my dresser on the right side has messages from God?  Do they even know I can hear from the spirit world?  I began imagining the golden words inside blackness being picked up by a “garbage’ truck and taken to a land fill and dumped like rotten food.  Yet it isn’t rotten food, it is manna from heaven and I bet the ground it is dumped upon would be blessed for the generations to come because those words are alive just as when God said, “Let there be light!”  Yet there is a little part of me that wanted some recognition from my people.  They always thought I was lessor a person due to some serious life mistakes. Oh, I didn’t go to prison, although my son did.  I wanted them to be proud of me.  I wanted my friends to value my loyalty, my humbleness, my ability to let them be who they are without judgment.  To appreciate my giving nature. And to understand why I chose partners who misused me.  Whom I allowed to because I thought I was helping them find their way in this difficult world.  I think I sacrificed myself thinking it would benefit me spiritually like Jesus did.  But I was wrong.  I should have been more obedient to myself for each sacrifice was a form or earthly quick sand that sucked me farther into the abyss of life.  Am I stupid?  Nawh.  I am too caring. How does one stop being too caring?   They say I should love myself more than others.  Jesus loved others like I do.  But then he died a horrible death while asking God to forgive those that hung him with nails on a cross.  Jesus Christ!!  Is that my fate because I care too much?  I don’t want to care that much.  I want to have some sort of good on this earth versus survival.  Or “simply” be appreciated and understood like I understand when others mess up. 

I know many believe me to be vain because I post nice photos of myself on Facebook or my blog.  Yes, I do.  Because I am trying to love myself more not only spiritually but tangible.  My mother chose to burn all my lifelong photos in a burning barrel.   She murdered me in a sense due to her anger and inability to see past here own needs. That was when I was in my 2nd decade of life and I still tried to make her love me.  I don’t anymore.  But that took 7 decades and wasted time.  Do I sound like a victim?  I was.  I am no longer. I fear my mother is now. Poor woman.

Sure, wish Felipe would come along for one last ride!  I deserve it.  Or a sweet vacation cabin where I can listen to the birds and hear from my guide, oh, and the sound of Felipe riding up on his Italian moped of course. Or on a horse, in a car, or on foot….. LOL


I will post the next Chapter of The Horrors that Hide tomorrow.. I took a necessary detour today!!  

Friday, June 17, 2022

"Blessed by Knowing Long Suffering is Patience" Writings by Tommye Allen

I have been testing out doing some audio's for my mentor of 45 years, Tommye Allen.  You can find thousands more writings at: http://www.dearonelovegod.blogspot.com  

Blessed by Knowing Long Suffering is Patience

Testing: Dear One, Love God by Tommye Allen narrated by Julianna Rowe aka Diane Ogden

Testing for my mentor of 45 years who is inspired by the Holy Spirit.  See many more writings on http://www.dearonelovegod.blogspot.com    


If you have any questions of comments please reply at dianeogden.ogden@gmail.com

Monday, June 13, 2022

"The Horrors That Hide" a novel by Julianna Rowe

 I will be posting a new chapter of my latest novel .....daily 

                                                The Horrors that Hide by Julianna Rowe

Intro: There he is again, lying in his recliner, hiding from something, or maybe just the world. He might act like the most approachable and sensitive person you could meet, all the while learning how to manipulate emotions and actions to serve his purposes that would seem to have been led by someone in the hereafter world.

 

                                             The Horrors That Hide     by Julianna Rowe

 

                                                     Chapter One:  Law and Order

 

During an intense episode of Law and Order, Adam and I heard a strange noise coming from one of the bedrooms in the West Wing of 532 S. Monroe. It wasn’t unusual to hear strange sounds on occasion from that area. Everyone knew about the kid, well I guessed he was nearly a man, considering he had graduated high school. Anyway, he committed suicide in that wing of the house, thus the strange noises, not to mention lights flashing on and off by themselves, especially during a full moon. He made it obvious he had something he needed to finish saying on this plane, yet there was no means to do it except by using electricity and sound waves. Made sense to me, considering I believed the world would come and go, slash revolve around simple and complex physics.

Ordinarily, Adam and I would ignore most anything that occurred in that wing of the house. It had been all but closed off since Auntie Rose died, except for Adam’s men’s night. Drinking and gambling. Despite the fact there hadn’t been any activity in such a long time, I decided to check it out anyway. I wanted my husband to do it, but we all knew men didn’t see and think about things differently. He would just disregard, and continue watching the television as usual.

I was flipping on lights as I went along the corridors. Well, it was only a cross between a corridor and a hallway, but sure as heck felt like a passageway to another world when the light decided to blow out. The walls were painted a dark green with mahogany trim, making it darker. I squealed like I had a reason to be afraid. It was more like a scream, but no one rose from their big brown leather chair to see if I were alright. He loved seeing the damsel in distress in his old cowboy movies, but when it came to his wife checking on strange sounds in the night by herself in the old mansion, she was on her own! Little did I know how much on my own I would be. 

Oddly, the flashlight had been put back in its proper placement in the kitchen pantry. I didn’t think much about the corridor light burning out until I noticed the guest bedroom lights were also out. I guessed it was a breaker that needed flipping, but what was the noise we heard? I was wandering toward the breaker box in the back closet, thinking it was strange how the floor was creaking. My mind reassigned itself to months past where we had all the old wiring and fuses electrically updated to breakers. As I came back from my trance regarding our expensive overhaul of wiring, I realized I had never noticed such weakness in those floorboards in the past, but then it had been some time. Actually, never had I had to rescue a lighting issue in our home. I mean, come on, it was a brand-new system. I opened the door to the metal breaker box and stepped inside. That is when my world went into a forever reverser.

As I stepped in, the floor gave way, and opened the death-lingering container rabbit hole it would become. I shot straight down nine feet, landing on a soft clay surface of an unknown substance. To think terrified was an understatement. Immediate recall went to the Florida man who fell into the sinkhole from his bed in the middle of the night while screaming for his brother to help him as he sank thirty feet never to be seen again, suffocating as his muddy breaths sucked dirt into his nasal cavity down to his thrashing throat and gasping lungs. I was in shock as I slowly regained a few brain cells, allowing me to think it was purely an accident. The floor simply gave way in an old house, and Adam would soon come and find me. This time he would have his own personal damsel in distress, as in the episode of Law and Order I had just walked away from in our peaceful living room. His favorite fantasy was right before him. The only thing lacking was the railroad tracks, and me tied to them with the train coming. Little did I know it was much worse.

Finally, able to stand up and survey the damage, I noticed no caving hole in the ceiling from where I had crashed through the closet floor. My breathing was becoming faster out of fear, and then the gasping began. I was suffocating. I realized there wasn’t enough oxygen for me to survive in that hole of death. I cupped my hands over my mouth, trying to stop the hyperventilating, yet wishing for death to come soon, so the suffering would cease, but death did not come. I was having a panic attack. When I finally overcame the injustice of the situation on my body and mind, I saw a door showing me a dimly lit path. I suddenly felt as though I were in a movie scene where Lois Lane or Nicole Kidman were in dire need of saving, but Superman and or Tom Cruise never showed up. I was not short of oxygen, rather I was gasping for air due to fear. But, I was underground, or was I? I must have had a concussion, and I was delirious was the only logical explanation.

When my breathing came back from death to life, I walked toward the open door, passed through it almost afraid I might never get back to the place I dropped from the closet a million miles ago in our West Wing. My screaming for hours went unnoticed. Why wasn’t Adam coming for me? Surely, he had checked on me, or had he fallen asleep in the huge leather chair that had taken my place long ago. Oh, how I had missed holding him, caressing him, touching his skin after he was clean-shaven. How I would let him rest his head on my shoulder while I gently played with his auburn hair, moving my fingers down across his forehead, then over his closed relaxed eyes onto his nose, then across his soft lips. Sometimes he would retrieve one of my fingers into his mouth, gently caressing it and then releasing it back to me. 

I screamed his name. “ADAM, help me! HELP ADAM PLEASE!”

But, there was no answer. Adam did not come. After a while, I stopped screaming, and figured he would wake up and find me eventually. Trying to calm myself, I meandered onto the odd surroundings I had fallen into. I thought how Adam would be shocked at these underground quarters someone from the past had designed very well, for what reason we would surely discover. 

Yet the décor was not old-fashioned. If this had been a hiding area during the Civil War or for slaves. No, this was more a state-of-the-art modern-day décor. It was fully furnished, and that was when my gut sensed something amiss, and I became frightened.

Was this the work of some diabolical genius who previously owned the home? No, I had owned the home for many years, but how was whoever getting in and out of this underground prison? Was there food here? I continued walking around, attempting to assess the situation, all the time trying to pretend this was not happening to me. I had fallen into a deep hole in the direction of Hell on Earth. Like those sinkholes in Florida, we would see on TV, but my sinkhole came furnished. This just wasn’t normal. Of course, it wasn’t normal for God’s sake. I had just fallen through the floor of my home into what I didn’t know what.

What was Adam doing? Was he looking for me? Did he fall asleep, and wouldn’t even miss me until morning? And then what would he do? Would he think I got up early and went somewhere? I started screaming, until my throat gave me definite signals to stop, or I would end up with throat polyps and talk like a heavy smoker the rest of my life. At the rate I was going, there wouldn’t even be surgery to fix the polyps, because I was never going to get out of this place. Anxiety riddled my body like buckshot on a bear’s behind. What if Adam thought I simply decided to leave him for a better life somewhere—to disappear. 

Wait, stop, think! 

There had to be an exit for whoever constructed this fortress. They—whoever they were—had to get food, and at that thought, I headed for the refrigerator. EMPTY! I stood staring, knowing this meant because I didn’t die from the fall, I would surely die of starvation. No food. I loved to eat. That was when the tears began falling, and as they fell, I also realized that would deplete my body of any extra fluids as well, so I had better stop the bawling, or as my dad used to say, “Oh stop your bellowing.” As in a cow bellows. A terrible thing for a dad to say to a little girl, but he was an old farmer, so it went.

I needed to stop my brain from wandering and begin thinking about how to escape. Escape what? I simply fell into an old passageway for slaves from the civil war, but in my heart, I knew that was not true. The décor was too updated. I started dragging and piling the furniture one on top of another at the area I fell through the closet floor. I climbed my makeshift ladder of instability, and was almost to the top when we, as in chairs and more chairs all crashed to the floor. The floor was made of old barn boards, yet was unusually clean. Who had kept this hidden area of confinement clean for his or her satanic purposes? Damn, I was scared. Where was Adam? Why wasn’t he banging on the floor? Of course, he wasn’t banging on the floor, why would he? But where did he think I went? And what time was it? I had no cell phone with me. Nothing. And now I had to pee. I began searching for a commode or something usable as such. There were dark narrow hallways leading to more barn board walls, each of which I pushed and pulled, attempting to find a secret exit. There had to be one, and there had to be a toilet of some sort for people that hid here at one time. I eventually came upon a tiny room closed off with a metal door. How in the name of Sam hell did anyone get a metal door down here? I carefully opened it to find a man-made shit hole, a five-gallon bucket, as in my parents’ house on the farm, and written on the wall was a very personal sign that read:

“Dear Jayne, I decided this was much easier and less costly than getting a divorce. My life with you has been like what this room represents. I hope you enjoy your short stay. Love Adam.

Frozen was putting it mildly. I was frozen with more pain-filled anger than I had ever known in my entire lifetime. Hate was operating as a skilled surgeon through every vein in my body. To Hell, if I would let him get away with this horrific crime. Starving me to death, after all I have done for him, and with him,  and just because we believed differently politically, or so I thought. I didn’t plan his death, because he didn’t vote for who I thought he should vote for. I always remained silent when he talked incessantly about his conspiracy theories, and how the government was listening to our phones and spying on us in our homes, and how the last election was this and that, and so off the charts unrealistically unbelievable. How the past President drank the blood of I couldn’t remember who or what.

The tears were starting to come again. The anger subsided, and the pain came in rushes like storm clouds over an already beaten down cornfield. The fruits of the land were laying down dried up and nearly dead. Like I felt. And with that, I sobbed myself to sleep on the soft purple sofa that sat on the barn flooring in my large casket of death. When the anger in my blood woke me, I wondered if Adam felt less guilty buying such a soft purple sofa for his wife to lie on while she starved to death, and what was he going to do when my body started to stink from rotting under the beautiful mansion we had built together for years. Wasn’t he afraid I might haunt him? I will! I will! No, he didn’t, because he didn’t think that far ahead.

I began to dream, or was I in that state of in-between, thinking about how Adam had walked into my life uninvited. Was that passive-aggressive? All these years was he planning to kill me? Suddenly, my mind was reeling in a thick distasteful memory mixed with many good years. My thoughts came in pictures of lovely flowerbeds with sudden mudslides smothering and snuffing the life out of them in a fraction of a second, and then my mind went back to the beginning again, that first day I met Adam.

He had walked over to the booth I was dining at and slid himself smoothly onto the soft leather seat opposite me. I looked up from the trance I had been in while eating the meal I had been momentarily alone with. I turned my head slightly to the left, looking over the top of my newly purchased pink leopard glasses, waiting for the intrusive stranger to speak. Obviously, he was waiting for my reaction to his rude entrance into my world, but I didn’t speak as he had expected, rather I took another bite of my salmon marinade with asparagus, and as I slowly chewed, I met his eyes again and waited.

He was a handsome fellow who was used to intimidating women. What he didn’t know was he had briefly stunned me, and that I had learned from experience how to play that poker game. While he sat stupidly trying to figure out what to do next, my mind took me to a different place. I asked myself what would happen if I had slipped into a booth on the opposite side of this man while he was quietly eating his meal? What if I sat there looking all beautiful waiting for him to respond to my uninvited gorgeous presence? That made me instantly want to save him from his self-made conceited grave site, considering that was what I had done for others most of my life. But I didn’t. I restrained my deep-rooted compulsion to be the savior of any and every one in need of saving. He was the one that slithered into my space and hadn’t slithered back out yet, so I just kept eating and watching him squirm uneasily.

Finally considering his looks hadn’t saved him, nor did I, he spoke, “May I join you; my name is Adam.”

I finished chewing before releasing him from his mental confinement, by responding, “Why, of course, Adam, and did you bring your evil apple for me to partake of as well?”

It was then I realized I might have gone too far and had become the intimidating one. I then broke the ice with casual laughter, and the words, “It is nice to meet you, Adam, at least I think so.”

His neck jolted in a slightly backward motion and his eyes changed their intention to a more query state, as he responded, “I guess I deserved that. Please, forgive my intrusion, but it was the only way I could think of to meet you.”

I smiled and exchanged a more reasonable chatter.

We had so many good years to have them end like this in murder?

Max seven days and I would be dead. I never had a reason to google what a person would go through while dying without food or water. I had seen children from other countries with their bones sticking out dehydrated with flies all over their bodies. The one good thing was there are no flies down here. What was I thinking? My mind had gone into mass confusion, unable to bring forth one solid thought, and then it happened out of the darkness of the situation, I saw ‘it.’

I remembered years ago when we were viewing ‘it’ before purchasing. Adam and I had walked around to the backyard area, and noticed the neighbor kitty-corner to the left bulldozing a large area from the mid-center of our view toward their property. At the end of the dozing was a double garage door. They had decided since the previous owner had passed away, and no one seemed to care for the property, they would on their own create a new entrance to their garage, a much nicer entrance that held a place for their boat. I was amazed at the gall of some people, but the pieces were coming together right inside my hungry scared mind. I had left town to visit a friend in North Carolina a while back. I noticed some dark lines in our backyard, and asked Adam what caused them. He blew me off with some story about how he spilled weedkiller, and had to buy some new carpet grass to repair what he had ruined. Of course, I bought his explanation. Why wouldn’t I?

Adam had been planning this for a long time. My manipulative husband had planned my murder for months or maybe years.


 


Sunday, June 12, 2022

A Routine Tuesday........by Julianna Rowe

 


As I stood on the top step to the entrance door of my twelve-story unit building I peered above the city streets taking in the smells of traffic and coal in the air. The sky seemed to surround itself in a blue like I never noticed being so spectacularly bright before. Its clouds used it as a canvas while they passed before it designing characters out of their moving vaporous existence. Heck, I almost fell off my astral sightseeing staircase I had become so enthralled in its beauty.  Why it had even removed the smell of gas and coal from my nostrils by the takeover of which I was pleased even though only momentarily.  So much so that it entered my body and mind offering me new energy to my steps.  The ones I was standing on as well as the ones attached and taking me everywhere I needed or wanted to go. And where I needed to go this day would change the course of my life forever.

I was six blocks from Times Square on my way to a job interview. It was August 14, 1945. A routine Tuesday that tuned out to be most extraordinary.  The heavens had sent me a message earlier from the clouds as I left the threshold of my home. They looked like a ball of expensive wool, puffy like a perfect sweater from Switzerland. Of course, my mind always flowed to the extravagant yet maintained a frugal caring manner.  My heavenly sent attitude had remained as I gathered momentum towards the high rise in Times Square for my appointment at Dopler and Hayes Legal Firm. I had answered an ad for a receptionist position.  Many of my friends were working in the factories while their men were serving at war.  I couldn’t handle the factory positions due to a medical condition…… continued later



Friday, June 10, 2022

Mother's Dirty Crystals by Julianna Rowe


 

There really is no story today except that I have had COVID for 11 days.  Even though I had the Pfizer shot and two boosters.  I eat well, I exercise, and I have a positive attitude that is at present in the outhouse! Actually, I am pissed!  I enjoy working and have missed two weeks.  It has been hard to do the one thing we humans need to do to live.  BREATHE!  

Eleven days of little sleep, anti-viral meds, an antibiotic, twice in the E.R., nebulizer breathing treatments, salt water inhalation, and knock-out prednisone, second round.  Oh, and my face is numb and I am itching, and the chest is still tight.  Could be the partial lobectomy three years ago.  Just add it to the list of seven decades. 

That all said, I have resorted to taking photos of things in my apartment.  It's called boredom. I pulled out my old Canon camera, took a few shots, and realized my new Samsung S21 Ultra takes better ones.  So I you tubed tutorials's considering the camera portion is very intense. I took pics of my jewelry and other odd things.  What I did learn is the amount of dust I have accumulated and that would include before COVID struck me down.  

This is a pic I took of fake leaves.  I attached my mother's OLD crystal clip earrings onto it some time ago.  Must have been another boring day but at least no COVID back then.  Anyway, when I saved the pic to my PC I obviously saw how the dust blanketed the leaves and enhanced my photo.  Not!  But then I could tell you I did it on purpose to show the comparison of Mother's seventy-year-old crystal clip-on earrings and age.  But that would be a lie.  Guess I need one of those feather dusters.  I do think clipping the earrings onto the leaves as though they were glass flowers was a creative way to display them versus stashing them in a drawer.  

I display old glassware with string lites on top of my bookshelves.  Mother's crystal necklace is adorning the bottle to the left.








Thursday, June 9, 2022

The Edge of Infinity by Julianna Rowe


 

A silent path led me upward into a dense grey fog. Each step I left behind appeared to call out to old enemies as though I was climbing away from them but, what into?   I had no fear even though at times my mind felt something pulling me back down.  But the voice inside my head continued moving me forward almost like I had no choice.  The steps were a continuation of my life, but they did not impede my questioning heart as it moved up farther and farther.  Suddenly a larger-than-life living vine appeared at the side of each step promising better to come. After time filled its space and gathered its proper timetable it released me to a red majestic rock plateau. I was moved gently off the steps onto a hard surface above the mind of the world. I was at the edge of infinity. My pure energy spaces.  I asked the mind if I were alone?  It showed me through its eye of mine that only a select few were allowed inside my energy.  There were several there with me, oddly not the ones I thought would be.  And there was one outside my energy field wanting to join but being held back by an invisible veil. It was someone who thought they could enter in but their love was not pure causing them pain like when you were a child and the other kids were at a birthday party. The party door was open.  Candy, cake, games, amazing food, presents, and fun. But you could not get in because you were not pure.  You sat down and stared at what you could not have whilst you shed a tear for what you wanted so badly to fulfill your life. I was told that was an example of the many in life who for whatever reason do not attain their hopes and dreams.

 I as well shed a tear for the many who have not the gift of wisdom, faith, or maybe just luck, to have found your way to what you wanted.   

I spread my arms at the top of the plateau as though I were the eagle. I peered down through the clouds into the enemies I had left behind.  My people of pure energy surrounded me as we filled our minds with one another’s goodness and waited for instructions from the main source on what was next. It was hard to leave my friends outside and below the veil.  We each choose when to move to a higher plateau and leave behind those unable to find their way.  If not, "the" trail of their tears would keep us from our own destiny.

Climb the living vine while you still have time.



My Executive Order $$$$$$$$$$.......... by Julianna Rowe

  My Executive Order J$$$$$$$$$$ .......by Julianna Rowe Somewhere along the way, politics changed my signature. I realize that sounds like ...