NEEDLING

Got a phone line going now, though I don’t actually have a telephone, thus I can’t receive or make phone calls as of yet. What I can do is plug my laptop into the wall and get a Dial-Up connection, which is nice. I don’t have to get dressed, get into my car, and go to the coffee shop anymore. In a few days, my DSL connection will be up and running... and high speed internet will once again be part of my daily-home-routine. YeeHAaaa.

For my morning internet to go along with my coffee, I’ve been reading up on Justin Martyr to get some ideas for a short story I’m working on. My story takes place in a small French lieux-dits where I'm spending a long weekend of doing not much. Great premise for a story, right?

Well, there’s a young shepherdess involved – though unfortunately there are no Lolita-like passages – and she’s telling me about how her and her big brother killed a whole litter of puppies once. She runs off and comes back a couple of times, continuing her story or starting a new one. All this time, I’m laying on the grass in the backyard trying to read The Origin of Satan, by Elaine Pagel, where Mrs. Pagel dedicates a whole passage to Justin Martyr. In my story, I’m trying to make a connection between the death / brutal killing of dogs in modern rural France and the gladiatorial games of Ancient Rome where early Christians, among many others, were often sent to as lunch meat for big hungry lions. Justin Martyr was beheaded along with several of his students. And through all this, I guess I'm trying to talk about the brutality of humans in general, whether a thirteen year old girl or the Roman Emperors. It's a long shot, I know, and well... I've got a ways to go before I get that one written.