The Torn Episodes Project Video

THE TORN EPISODES ONE-NINE 

Kickstarter Project Video

TOXIC PATRIARCHY and Roe V Wade 2022

 

Toxic Patriarchy

Cultures begin with families as individuals join forces with nuclear families that expand into the larger communities. Bronfenbrenner proposed that we are all affected by the small influences as well as the great, the microcosms of family to the large aggregate ‘community’ we call government. In America, The original Melting Pot of a conglomeration of cultures from around the world, Patriarchal control was part of the settler’s original structure. The Good Father, the Leader of a Family was the Head of the family-the father. The word Patriarch means ‘Father,’ so it makes sense that the family systems inculcated into the first ‘tribes’ established in The New World were patriarchal in nature, from England to the European influences, and all the smaller influxes in between, revered The Father as the Leader, both literally and symbolically.

Patriarchy was welcomed in an untamed new world in which bears had to be fought, and the wild land tamed. Family structures were tight like that of a wolf pack, with everyone staying close together for safety’s sake. Marriages usually lasted for a lifetime and children remained on ‘the farm’ because there was not much else to do-but farm and hunt on the abundant land. Women welcomed the patriarchal presence as a safeguard, and the idea of Women’s Rights was a far fetched as going to the moon at that time. Science was an infant, there were no modern conveniences and life was all about staying home and working the land, because the land supplied everything needed at that time. Patriarchy was not challenged, and women and children had few ‘rights. Women had twelve or more children to work the farm; and neighbors helped each other. It was a different world then.

Fast Forward two hundred plus years and going to the moon had been accomplished, farm life was for professional farmers who were capable of harvesting thousands of acres with a single machine. Women did not stay home, in fact, no one was at home. The children were in school, men and women at work, and grandparents were sometimes a thousand miles away. Farm Life as it once was no longer existed. The metropolitan cities contained the masses and women had become a huge part of the workforce; but that did not happen overnight or come easily.

The patriarchal system was pleasing to males, because they had all the rights and all the power, especially White Males with Privilege. The Patriarchs Ruled like Kings, setting the laws and the limits imposed on everyone else who was not Them: White Privileged Males. The rights of the many was sacrificed through legislation which was controlled by the Privileged Few. The Few controlled the Rights of the Many, which meant the multitude of Americans had few rights; sometimes NO rights, as in the case of Slaves and Natives, The system that was pleasing to the Privileged Few wreaked a savage toll on the many and they did what the oppressed multitude always does-rebelled.

From the original Boston Tea Party to the Equal Rights Movements and the Civil Rights Movement, they rebelled. The rebellion erupted in violence in every case because the Kings of the Mountain did not want to concede one tiny iota of power, so it had to be taken by force; by protests, and even riots which is what people do when they are repeatedly unheard. From the 1900’s to the 2000’s The People fought for Black Rights, Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, ‘Gay’ Rights, and Religious Rights, all held tightly under the control of the established ‘Patriarchy’ otherwise known as governmental Legislators. The Law was the Gate that either allowed or prevented Freedoms for the many, and The Law was controlled by the ‘Patriarchs’ whose appetite for Power had grown as strong as their greed for money.

Regardless of the resistance by Toxic Patriarchy, the Masses won out: in 1920 Women were finally given the right to vote, but not before men beat their own White Women bloody on the public streets for even ‘asking’ for the vote. Black people were not allowed any real freedoms even after they were legally incorporated into Law, during the same period as the Suffragette Movement. Right were being held in lockdown by the ruling few.

 IN the early 1900’s all Black people, both males and females did not even have the right to exist as equals with White People, much less vote without being assaulted, ran out of town or hung, ‘unofficially’ by lawyers and judges hiding behind white sheets. It was as late as 1964 when Fannie Lou Hamer gave her earth-shaking speech about rights and freedom that sill echoes today; but only thirty-five years earlier Black people were being lynched all over the country for demanding Rights. It was the same time White women were defying Patriarchal Rule by demanding the Vote. The spirit of rebellion was strong with Black people who also rose up and began to fight back. The history books had hidden much of the racial and social drama from that era, but the Truth Always rises to the top.

The 1960’s was one of the bloodiest times since the Civil War, and the entire decade was about fighting for freedom for tyranny and suppression by, guess WHO-White Males in Power, Toxic Patriarchy. Eventually the voters decided to vote in leaders whose eyes were less on their pocketbook and more on the scales of justice; but the pendulum swung backwards when the Republican Tea Party Movement took over in favor of two extreme views: Pro Toxic Patriarchy and Pro Right-Wing Extremism; then along came a spider Called Trump and the Rest went downhill from there. Trump, who was the epitome of White Male Privilege and Toxic Patriarchy, emboldened the extremists, polarizing the Toxic Atmosphere in the United States as ‘Us’ against ‘Them,’ which was the perfect smoke screen for the intensive damage he wreaked.

The Supreme Court of the United States hold the power to unravel unjust laws in favor of justice, or to do the opposite. Trump appointed radical judges whose focus was skewed, and now we have a Landmark Law that was ‘established Law’ that each judge vowed not to touch-but they lied.

Roe V Wade was established in 1973 ending the long history of coat hanger deaths and throwaway children, giving women the right to control what happens inside their own bodies. It was a major win for Women’s Rights and a huge know against Toxic Patriarchy.

Toxic Patriarchy came back with a vengeance: Roe V Wade was struck town by the SCOTUS, overturned TODAY June 24, 2022. Toxic Fail.

 

 

What is a NARCISSIST?

 

SARA NILES

COWARDLY Mass Shooter Salvador Ramos: murdered innocent, helpless children and adults

           By SARA NILES

There are ALWAYS Red Flags: Distant, 'Strange', Isolated, History of being Bullied, History of Bullying, Covert Mask hiding Aggressiveness, Poor Family Relationships, Poor School Performance, Few Friends, A Tendency to Hoard Anger, Attraction to Power symbols, Affiliation with Right Wing Violent Entities, Angry Drawings and Communication, Sinister Threats, Social Media Presence focuses on Self-Vindication, and Red Flag Behaviors noticed by School Professionals or Work Mates.

SOCIOPATHIC Salvador Ramos showed Red Flags Before Texas Mass School Shooting:

The news articles are proliferating, and the details are coming out, such as Ramos was bullied at school, and he was also a bully who carried boxing gloves around picking fights. Ramos had a poor relationship with his mother and often screamed disrespectful expletives at her when she pressured him for not attending school, which often resulted in his escaping to his grandparents’ house, where his grandmother also yelled at him for refusing to attend school which was the reason he would not graduate with his class.

Although Ramos seemed 'quiet' to some associates, he was known to have a dark streak according to others, which is usually a sign a person is hiding their true self, the preliminary behavior of ‘wearing a mask' of normalcy on the surface while cultivating hatred internally. It is impossible to read an individual's mind, but through patterns of behavior over time, we can discern intentions, motivations, and beliefs. Ramos, according to reports had disdain for females, as expressed through disrespectful remarks he was known for. 

POWER: Every healthy individual required personal power to be happy and stable; however, power is like pie, each person is allotted a fair share of power. The boundary of respect for the rights of others, defines the limits of personal power. In the case of bullied children, and those who feel slighted in life, either because they have toxic entitlement, or because they were unjustly treated, power becomes an allure. It is 'The Thing' they need to feel whole, or it is what they are greedy for to feel better than others, superior to others. Narcissistic people long for power because they are empty inside, so there is never a level of power satiation for them-never enough-because they are attempting to fix a wound by covering it up.

RAGE: Every mass murderer has rage, but not the loud obvious type that screams they have a problem-it is the hidden rage that is the most dangerous, the Sneaky, Cold, Calculating, COWARDLY RAGE that devours them to the point they act it out on innocent children. The epitome of Cowardice personified. The entitled child, harbors resentment below the surface, and if it continues to grow, it becomes a Dark Fantasy of Revenge that erupts in a violent assault upon the innocent-JUST LIKE the horrific Columbine School Shooting, The Sandy Hook Shooting, the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas Shooting, and Once Again we see the ugliness of societal apathy-and Republican Greed-

The Robb School Shooting in Uvalde, TEXAS, on May 24, 2022. Twenty-two people dead.

The Legislative Irony: Salvador Ramos BOUGHT two guns this month, although he is not old enough to buy Liquor or Cigarettes.

I Saved My Own Life: TORN From the Inside Out

 

The Beginning

The room was small, the walls created a slight echo, or perhaps it was just my imagination. I had to go so far back into my mind that the present environment closed in on me. Of the five people in the room, Kathryn Shipp was the most imposing: she was 6 feet tall, stood military straight with sharply cropped blue-black hair, and blue eyes that were intense. She needed everything from me, she had to have the ‘feel’ of the whole story, not just the facts, so she demanded more than just a story, and she wanted a recreation of my life. Kathy Shipp was one of the best attorneys in the state and her client was a domestic abuse victim who had snapped and killed her abuser, so Kathy Shipp needed me to show her why a good little girl could empty a gun on a man with his back turned. I knew why she did it, I knew what she felt, and if it took revealing my soul to help, I would.

Torn From the Inside Out-A Memoir

Excerpted from Chapter One

Living on the Flower Bed of Eden

“You are living on the Flower Bed of Eden!”

Andrew Howard to Little Sara, age five

Arkansas, 1962

Thunder rattled the windowpanes two stories high, and lightning split the sky; it was as if the whole world was in turmoil that night. My nerves were keyed up as tight as piano strings, and in a sudden moment of stillness and silence it felt as though my heartbeat was amplified ten times over. He was over a hundred pounds greater than I, nearly a foot taller, and I knew he could move his muscled body into unbelievable sprints.  Rain started falling in torrents, while the storm raged outside. I was not afraid of the storms of nature; it was the storm inside this night that I knew I might not survive.

Anticipation was so great that I wanted to scream at him to get it over with, and true to my expectation he lunged for me, and my body did not disappoint me, I flew down the stairs two at a time in my bare feet. He stalled for mere seconds to enjoy his pronouncement of a death sentence upon me:

 “I AM GOING TO KILL YOU-YOU GOOD FOR NOTHING BITCH-STONE DEAD!”  He screamed.

It was February 13, of the year 1987, the night that I disappeared into a February rainstorm with five children and no place to go. I was twenty-nine years old. 

Torn From the Inside Out by Sara Niles

My name is Sara Niles, the author of Torn From the Inside Out, my personal memoir, and testament to the power of the unconquerable human spirit we are all imbued with. Torn From the Inside Out is the story of my life, first as a neglected child, given away to an elderly couple at the age of 3 1/2, and as a victim of domestic violence by the age of 16:

Torn From the Inside Out (Amazon)

 “In the process of my evolution, I became a victim of domestic war, an emotional casualty for a major portion of my life, entwined, entrapped and emotionally involved, until I learned how to become free. Freedom has never been easily gained and has often come at high cost throughout history, but one thing I will always know is freedom is worth every fight, and all pain.” 

From the Prologue

This book is for me and my children, as well as the millions of veterans of domestic war: those who live in homes predominated by domestic violence. Some survive the violence, stronger in some ways, and broken in others, and some do not survive at all.

In memory of the dead victims of domestic violence, I have retold stories of those who became casualties. The stories below are all true; I retold them from the perspective of my own visualizations in an effort to give some validation to lives wasted, and mostly forgotten. Some things are too precious to forget, such as the lessons of history, and the deeds of unsung heroes, for if we stumble into the habit of forgetting, we lose both the value of life and the opportunity to become a wiser and stronger generation. If we forget, we lessen our children’s heritage and cheat them of the legacy of their pasts, therefore we can never forget.

I lived a life that was far from ordinary, and even far from normal. I was given away when I was barely over three years old to two aged, octogenarian relatives who had been childless until their early eighties, when they received me, much like a human gift. I was cherished and protected by them, that is, as long as they could offer such protection I lived in 'The Garden of Eden'.

Time passed and I found myself far removed from such valued protection when I was on the brink of losing my life to a violent abuser, one I had married and pledged to spend a lifetime with. My life would take me far from my life's oasis, my childhood Garden of Eden.

Chapter One

The Garden of Eden

Thunder rattled the window- panes two stories high and lightning split the sky; it was as if the whole world was in turmoil that night. My nerves were keyed up as tight as piano strings, and in a sudden moment of stillness and silence it felt as though my heartbeat was amplified ten times over. He was over a hundred pounds greater than I, nearly a foot taller, and I knew he could move his muscled body into unbelievable sprints. Rain started falling in torrents, while the storm raged outside. I was not afraid of the storms of nature; it was the storm inside this night that I knew I might not survive.

Anticipation was so great that I wanted to scream at him to get it over with, and true to my expectation he lunged for me, and my body did not disappoint me, I flew down the stairs two at a time in my bare-feet. He stalled for mere seconds to enjoy his pronouncement of a death sentence upon me:
“I AM GOING TO KILL YOU—YOU GOOD FOR NOTHING BITCH—STONE DEAD!”He screamed like a crazed animal.

The date was February 13, of the year 1987, the night that I disappeared into a February rainstorm with five children and no place to go. I was twenty-nine years old.
Torn From the Inside Out as a Kindle E-book is available at promotional prices for six days on Amazon, beginning 03/23/2016-03/28/2016.

#MyStory by Sara Niles: Torn From the Inside Out

Memoirs about everything from minor subjects as trivial as how to tie your shoes to major works detailing trauma and tragedy that expands far outside the normal range of human experiences, such as   Surviving Auschwitz scatter the marketplace. A memoir is an account written from personal knowledge that professes historical accuracy, and personal honesty when the narrative is based on a true story of some significance. A meaningful memoir should leave a message behind, much like the duly acclaimed memoir  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.  In Caged Bird,  the personal struggle of young Maya to reclaim her self-esteem and identity after being raped, emerged into a powerful and poetic story of resilience. The inspirational message is you can survive and become stronger after earthshaking trauma; in Maya Angelou's case, she became her own earthshaking force as world renown poet, writer, philosopher and mentor to Oprah Winfrey.

My Story is a Memoir that recounts a childhood that was far from normal in which octogenarians relatives saved me just long enough for me to recover from the damage of early childhood neglect and abuse before my life catapulted me into the heart of a violent and abusive marriage to a mentally ill Vietnam Veteran, when I was only sixteen years old. My Story is a Memoir, Torn From the Inside Out and its message is clear: Domestic Violence bends, breaks, and kills. Too many victims never escape except through death, far too many who escape the actual abuse as damaged children, grow up to become broken adults who perpetuate the damage done to them: Broken People, Break People, and Hurt People,  Hurt People. The cycle of abuse has  be stopped; although domestic violence survivors champion resiliency and strength, the children bear the scars.

My Story is designed to increase understanding and raise awareness of domestic violence and its effect upon human lives, not just the lives of women, but all lives, the lives of  men, women, and children.


Torn From the Inside Out by Sara Niles

From the Prologue:

This book is for me and my children, as well as the millions of veterans of domestic war: those who live in homes predominated by domestic violence. Some survive the violence, stronger in some ways, and broken in others, and some do not survive at all.

In memory of the dead victims of domestic violence, I have retold stories of those who became casualties. The stories below are all true; I retold them from the perspective of my own visualizations in an effort to give some validation to lives wasted, and mostly forgotten. Some things are too precious to forget, such as the lessons of history, and the deeds of unsung heroes, for if we stumble into the habit of forgetting, we lose both the value of life and the opportunity to become a wiser and stronger generation. If we forget, we lessen our children’s heritage and cheat them of the legacy of their pasts, therefore we can never forget. 

I lived a life that was far from ordinary, and even far from normal. I was given away when I was barely over three years old to two aged, octogenarian relatives who had been childless until their early eighties, when they received me, much like a human gift. I was cherished and protected by them, that is, as long as they could offer such protection I lived in 'The Garden of Eden'. 

Time passed and I found myself far removed from such valued protection when I was on the brink of losing my life to a violent abuser, one I had married and pledged to spend a lifetime with. My life would take me far from my life's oasis, my childhood Garden of Eden.

Chapter 1

The Garden of Eden

Chapter 1

The Garden of Eden

Thunder rattled the window- panes two stories high and lightning split the sky; it was as if the whole world was in turmoil that night. My nerves were keyed up as tight as piano strings, and in a sudden moment of stillness and silence it felt as though my heartbeat was amplified ten times over. He was over a hundred pounds greater than I, nearly a foot taller, and I knew he could move his muscled body into unbelievable sprints. Rain started falling in torrents while the storm raged outside. I was not afraid of the storms of nature; it was the storm inside this night that I knew I might not survive.

Anticipation was so great that I wanted to scream at him to get it over with... and true to my expectation he lunged for me and my body did not disappoint me as I flew down the stairs two at a time in my bare feet. He stalled for mere seconds to enjoy his pronouncement of a death sentence upon me:
“I AM GOING TO KILL YOU—YOU GOOD FOR NOTHING BITCH—STONE DEAD!”He screamed like a crazed animal.

The date was February 13, of the year 1987, the night that I disappeared into a February rainstorm with five children and no place to go. I was twenty-nine years old.

 Please Read and Pass it on, Like it, Google Plus It,  and Share freely, if you are so moved.

The Ghost at the Shelter by Sara Niles

I am the author of Torn From the Inside Out, The Journey and Out of the Maelstrom, three very serious nonfiction memoirs;however, Out of the Maelstrom is laced with humor throughout, placed strategically among stories of trauma and survival to lighten the mood.

In Ghost in the Shelter, my former work colleagues and I had many laughs at my expense over this story, that can be found in Out of the Maelstrom

Note: Sandy was the long time shelter manager and Veronica was the night manager of a small, nonprofit domestic violence shelter located in an impoverished and crime ridden small town. Sara Niles narrates the story.

Chapter 11 Out of the Maelstrom

 The Ghost in the Shelter

Both Veronica and Sandy were superstitious, at least enough so that they believed Casper the Friendly Ghost lived at the shelter and only came out when the house was empty of clients. I sat with them early mornings listening to their ‘ghost’ stories, and had to resist laughing out loud while they compared notes.

According to Sandy, the ‘ghost’ would get mad and knock books off the shelves in the front office. I was thinking to myself that the hundred year old wood flooring was warped and slightly lopsided, and that if I was the floor and a six foot tall woman was stomping around on me, I might tilt a book or two off the wobbly bookshelves too. According to Veronica, the ghost lived upstairs and rattled the outside top door (the fire escape door) on windy nights. Once again I was giggling inside myself while I smiled at them both. The real reason for the noise was likely a simple one such as the door was probably unlatched and banging against the wall because Veronica was too scared to go up and latch it on those cold windy nights.

The first time I experienced  both of my co-workers talking seriously about ghosts, I thought it was a prank on me to see if I would fall for it, but I was even more dumbfounded to discover they were irritated at me for not believing them.  Both Sand and Veronica truly believed the shelter had a ‘ghost’ and  the ‘ghost’ was running rampant. Both Veronica and Sandy were telling the same tale as realistically as witnesses to a crime scene recounting the hard core facts.I was so tickled that I could barely contain myself, but dared not laugh; especially since my two amazonian co-workers were six feet tall and I was a mere pittance of that height, at five foot two, I could outrun the both of them, I was sure, just in case a giggle escaped me.

“He’s really ticked off at something!” Veronica stated. The report this time was a little different from usual, because the ‘ghost’ was rattling the floor boards with this new installment of the ghost tale. It was hilarious, I was cracking up inside and had to walk out of hearing in order to relieve myself of the giggles as I thought to myself: my god, both these ladies are going loony on me-not one- by a couple flew over the coo-coos nest. What I did not know is that I was about to join them.

It happened that we had a few days with no clients, a rare thing indeed and one that should be taken advantage of to catch up and rest because breaks like this came infrequently. Someone called in to inform Sandy that she could not cover her work shift and Sandy was not prepared to cover it, so I volunteered to cover it. I could catch up on work and watch television in peace.

I was lying on the couch in the back room because it housed the largest television, when the curtains trembled. I continued to watch television (it was probably the central unit kicking on). About twenty minutes passed and the floor started to shake as though there was a physical tremor, then the  the curtains visibly shook, this time, and the tremor was sustained. I was imagining things. The washer kicked on. Whatever it was, I knew it was not a ghost because there was no such thing. Logic would prevail, logic and science and I would walk calmly into the washroom to confirm my suspicions. The washer was not in use and had not been in use that day; nor was the dryer. Not the dishwasher. Perhaps a big truck on the street caused the vibration. Whatever the cause, it had to have a scientific explanation, I thought to myself, while still feeling a bit uneasy.

I resumed watching television in my comfortable, cotton sweat suit set, with a glass of iced tea. There. Reason won out- the vibrations stopped. Just as I had dismissed the fear as irrational and unreasonable, another tremor shook the floor, and I hesitantly allowed  my arm to drop from the couch as I placed my hand flat on the floor—the vibrations were strong-it was like a small earthquake. That was it! It must be a small earthquake-of course I had never known a quake to strike in our area before, but that meant nothing. I was sure the local newspaper would confirm it tomorrow. Not to worry, but at least I knew Veronica had not lost her mind because it she had, there were two of us on the loony bus.

Morning came without event and I made coffee, Sandy would be in soon. I had not decided whether to even mention the ‘tremors’ considering how worked up over ‘ghosts’ she would get. Nope–I would just let it go.

Meanwhile, Veronica was covering the early evening shift due to a family crisis with the same staff person. I came to work the next day only to discover the ‘tremor’ that I had felt and failed to mention, had not been the work of a ‘ghost’, but was a real and present danger. The old gas lines underneath the house had sprung a leak and the friction from the escaping gas rattled the pipes, the pipes rattled the floor, and by the time Veronica arrived, the vibration could be felt on the ground. Veronica did not believe in taking risks, she was the type who would call 9-1-1 first and figure out the problem later. The Police arrived first and seemed to think Veronica had lost her mind when she told them the ‘ground was shaking’ at which the two officers looked at each other and began to do their pre-departure apology and it was at that precise moment that the biggest tremor of all hit and the ground vibrated underneath their feet. Veronica said the two officers switched into crisis mode and immediately called the situation in. The city was called and notified of the emergency so that a bulldozer was promptly dispatched and the gas lines were shut down, thus barely averting catastrophe. I was so glad Veronica was at the shelter instead of me, I would have been quietly sipping my tea while I blew sky high along with the shelter, a sobering and mildly humorous image popped into mind. Would the insurance have covered me?

I had learned my lesson in practical survival versus the ghost story. Next time there was a suspicion of a ‘ghost’ I would follow Veronica’s example and simply call 9-1-1, or maybe even Ghostbusters.

Sara Nile's Story: from 1957 from the Garden of Eden into the fire

Chapter 1

The Garden of Eden

Thunder rattled the window- panes two stories high and lightning split the sky; it was as if the whole world was in turmoil that night. My nerves were keyed up as tight as piano strings, and in a sudden moment of stillness and silence it felt as though my heartbeat was amplified ten times over. He was over a hundred pounds greater than I, nearly a foot taller, and I knew he could move his muscled body into unbelievable sprints.  Rain started falling in torrents, while the storm raged outside. I was not afraid of the storms of nature; it was the storm inside this night that I knew I might not survive.

Anticipation was so great that I wanted to scream at him to get it over with, and true to my expectation he lunged for me, and my body did not disappoint me, I flew down the stairs two at a time in my bare-feet. He stalled for mere seconds to enjoy his pronouncement of a death sentence upon me:

 “I AM GOING TO KILL YOU—YOU GOOD FOR NOTHING BITCH—STONE DEAD!”He screamed like a crazed animal.

The date was February 13, of the year 1987, the night that I disappeared into a February rainstorm with five children and no place to go. I was twenty-nine years old.

Many people asked of me since that day, many ‘whys’ and I gave many answers. It takes a lot of ‘why’s’ to make a life, mine being no exception. Maya Angelou said ‘you can’t know who I am until you know where I have been’; until you know the circumstances and people who contributed to the making of me, you cannot know me. We all are complicated mixes of many other people and life events. We are all of everything that has ever happened to us. If we suddenly got amnesia, we would cease to exist as who we were, except in the memory of others. My pain is me, and thus my life that once was, is what made me now. I am the hungry little girl who sat in the sand over forty years ago waiting to be rescued by an ancient old man, I am Sara Niles and this is my story.

The Deep South, 1957

I was born in the bowels of the South where willow trees hang low over ponds and creeks surrounded by the lush growth of woody fern. My beginnings were in a place where knotted old oaks twisted their knurled boughs upwards, their majestic leafage allowing slithers of light to penetrate the shadowy forest floors to lend peeks upon the backs of huge Diamondback rattlesnakes; their gargantuan size owing to seldom meeting the sight of the eyes of man, if ever at all.  I was born where the bottom land hoarded teems of wild boars known to rip hunting dogs open from end to end, and where the narrow little graveled roads twisted and wound their way past humble mail boxes, usually the only evidence of the habitations miles into the forest. These humble country homes were usually only accessible by traveling down dirt, tire-rutted roads with strips of ragged grass running down the middle, like frazzled, green ribbon. This was oil country, so oil wells were scattered every few miles, their slow prehistoric movements signaling that the owners were receiving money.  Neighbors lived far apart on beautiful little farms or in ragged shacks, with a Cadillac and a television, or neither plumbing nor electric power lines.  Depending upon which neighbor you were, you had plenty or nothing at all.

 My mother had nothing at all, except seven hungry mouths to feed.  She was by everyone’s opinion an exceptionally beautiful woman.  Her mother before her was a French White woman from New York, and her father was a Black and Indian man; born, bred and still living in the same area.  I never met my maternal grandmother, I strongly suspected that she mated with my grandfather on a purely business level. A business that is considered to be one the oldest vices, the one I have to thank for my very existence.  My mother was a prostitute.  I was an accident she had with a client, a rich White oilman who found her little shack a convenient stop on his trips from town, and she found in him food for her children.  Things may have been different for my mother, if a White man, living in a racist time, had not shot her first husband in the back for the unforgivable crime of stealing gas- gas that he swore to pay for that evening when he left the billet woods.   It was a time when racism ruled, a ‘cold war’ between Blacks and Whites established the climate, and therefore no trial ever took place.

 It was the year 1957, a date that became a famous marker in the racial history of conflict between Blacks and Whites; when The Little Rock Nine were escorted to school by Federal troops under the order of President Eisenhower to counteract the attempt of Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus to prevent it. Southern racial tensions produced a supreme irony: Federal troops against the National Guard.  This visible strife between state and nation was one of the evidences of the racial turmoil of the times. The line of demarcation between Blacks and Whites was decided by color, and I was born on the center line.  My bright light skin marked me as a product of the enemy, the White man in the Black community.  Black women drawled sweetly to my mother that my long wavy brown hair was so pretty in tones meant to be a reproof to her.  I was unacceptable, too White to be Black… too Black to be White.

We lived in what our relatives fondly called ‘the old homestead’.  It was the home built by my great- grandparents, a newly freed slave by the name of Henry Howell and his wife, a full-blooded Crow Indian bearing the European name Charlotte.  Henry and Charlotte had twelve children, each born in the front room of this now dilapidated old house.  Great old cottonwoods rattled their leaves noisily in the wind in front of the house and massive oaks guarded the back, dwarfing the little outhouse with its pitiful ‘croker-sack’ door, made of rough burlap. The exterior of the house bore the aged gray look of hardwood that had never been painted in its century of withstanding the pelting rains and the great extremes of heat and cold.  It was a tough, neglected old house, abandoned to my mother to house us in rent-free.  She could ill afford to care for the ancient structure that needed attention so badly, or us.  The job of watching and caring for us fell to my oldest sister, Francine.  She was thirteen years old at my earliest remembrance of her, my brother was twelve, and the rest of our ages ran closely behind.  I was four years old.

The house had three entrances.  The front and back doors we children were allowed to use freely, but the side door facing the setting sun was off limits to us. It was the ‘business’ door, the door that the strange men used; some used it so often they even knew our names.  On a rare occasion when my mother was absent, I was molested by one of these men while the noon-ish sun shone through the window.  I knew nothing of what he was doing, he sounded friendly.  Something was wrong, I felt some odd shame and my heart pounded with relief when my tigress of a sister burst through the door demanding that the  ‘no good son of a dog’ take his filthy hands off me in a voice strong with authority and rage that was strange to hear in the voice of a child. He unhanded me without a word and fled as all my siblings ran up to flank her in the ranks.  I remembered that incident, though I never once mentioned it again until three decades passed.  I merely held my head self-consciously tilted to one side when I walked.

Nothing stood out in my early childhood worth remembering until the fateful day when the world kindly changed for me.  My great uncle and aunt lived on a farm a mile’s walk through a wooded trail.  Robert Howell was born in eighteen eighty-three to Henry and Charlotte Howell in the very same curtain-less room that my siblings and I slept in, on the pallets and old mattresses.  Although my mother was treated as an outcast in the family - never visited and quietly talked about by the conventional ones who may have feared their heavenly reservations may have been cancelled if they dared come near her- my uncle Robert visited us daily.  He cared little for convention and hated hypocrisy; he would not permit either to stifle his compassion for us.  We looked for uncle’s visits just as faithfully as we expected the sun to rise, and just as faithfully, he always came.  I never remember his coming unheralded by our squeals of delight because we knew he had candy or fruit, if not both.  Our yard’s stingy spattering of trampled grass wore a distinct trail that led to the east corner where a roof covered water well crested the top of a steep red clay hill.  Uncle Robert’s head would always appear first, and  on hot days his hatless bald head would bloom at the top of that hill prettier to us than any flower, because he not only brought us gifts, he luxuriated us in his time by talking with each one of us.  We loved Uncle Robert dearly, and any one of us would have been glad to have been taken home by him.  I was selected.

The monotony of our lives made the mentioning of the names of days unnecessary, so I don’t know what day it was when my uncle took me home, just that it was sunny and warm.  I was sitting in front of the east steps in a pile of cream-colored sand pouring it’s warmness across my legs when Uncle Robert came.

“I’m coming to take you home with me little Sara.  Just let me talk with your mama for a minute.  You’re going to be me and Mollie’s little girl” my uncle soothingly promised.

I felt something that must have been excitement, although I had heard him say he would take me home before, somehow I knew this time was different.  My brother and sisters gathered around the front door trying to overhear the conversation from within.  We could hear the muffled conversation getting louder as my mother and uncle walked down the hall to the front porch.

“I’ll find her birth certificate later Uncle Robert.  You just take her on home now”, and as an afterthought she added “Tell Aunt Mollie hello for me”.

And just like that, as easily as one changes shoes, I was given away unceremoniously without tears or protest from my mother.  She never hugged me good-bye, nor did she come outside to watch me leave. My brother and sisters gathered around me looking sad, their bubbly excitement dying, as they followed us down the steep hill, all the way to the ravine.  They yelled ‘good –byes’ until we were out of sight.  My uncle let me climb upon a stump so I could ride astride his neck, since I had no shoes.  Uncle Robert talked excitedly, gesturing with his hat in his free hand while holding one of my ankles with the other.  I was holding his baldhead with both my thin, dirty arms.  I don’t remember much of what he said, only something about how happy my aunt Mollie would be, and all of the things they would buy me. These golden promises meant nothing to me yet, since I had no prior means of comparison and I was too distracted by apprehension mixed with unformed expectations.

I knew we had almost arrived when we reached the water spring at the bottom of the hill. The spring bubbled up fresh water continually, with the overflow creating a running stream of branch water that was covered over by a long plank bridge. Two thick, smoky black water moccasins raised their ugly heads up from the water and opened their cottony mouths in silent threat. I tightened my grip on Uncle Robert’s head. The roof of the house appeared first as we ascended the long incline. A large grayish brown farmhouse, surrounded by bright flowers, arose into view. My senses became acute, recording every minor detail, while the smells of flowers and fruit trees enchanted me, as my uncle stooped to unlatch a peg lock on the back gate. My heart was beating faster and faster,  and my blood raced through my veins with such force that I became dizzy, my hearing muted and time slowed.

Fear ran through me as two large silky black Labradors ran toward us barking hysterically, the barking giving way to tail wagging and happy howls of joy at seeing my uncle. I could see an immense expanse of ordered property. There were pastures and barns, cows and a big-eared mule, chickens scattering across a fenced yard and New Guinea fowl shrieking in tropical song. There were huge yellow and gray-striped Tabby tomcats sitting calmly upon fence posts. I was bedazzled. While my head whirled in excitement, I was gently stood upon the grounds on legs almost too weak to hold me. It was incomprehensible to my dazed senses that all of the commotion was over me.

My uncle yelled to my aunt to hurry out and see what he had, and in an instant my aunt ran across the back yard with a spatula in one hand wearing a white apron across the front of the prettiest flowered dress I had ever seen. I was being smothered in hugs while my uncle and aunt both talked at once. The animals sensed the excitement and were howling in unison. I tried to see everything at once, such as the number three bathtubs hanging outside against the back porch wall, animals, a smokehouse and old farm buildings. I thought I had entered a new world when I smelled the most wonderful aroma of foods floating upon the breeze; my senses were overwhelmed, as the hunger awakened in me, compelled me to cry.  I was fed while still caked with grime and dirt.

“Robert, I’m afraid she’ll get sick.  Don’t you think we should stop her from eating now?” Aunt Mollie asked uncertainly.

“Nah.  This child probably has never eaten her fill.  Let her eat till she bursts.”  He answered glad-heartedly before they both melted into joyous laughter.  For the first time in my life, I was home.

I was scrubbed in sudsy lather and wrapped in a towel.  My only dress was so dirty that it was discarded.  I stood behind my aunt holding the back of her chair while she sewed dresses and matching bloomers out of floral, cotton flour sacks.  She sang and talked as she wheedled her Singer treadle sewing machine.  I said nothing. I was happier than I had ever been.  On Saturday, I remember because every day I was told to just wait until ‘Saturday’ and we will go to town. On Saturday, we went to town.  My aunt bought shoes, dresses, ‘britches’, baubles, and toys, and everything that a little girl who had nothing, would need.  I remember the things I didn’t need, the candies and soda pops of all varieties and colors.  All of downtown was comprised of one street covering a couple of blocks, so in a town of that size everyone knew Aunt Mollie. My aunt told every listening ear, both White and Black, that she and Uncle Robert were like Sarah and Abraham, blessed with a child in their old age.

Relatives were notified,  and they came by the carloads to see me, and brought and sent gifts.  My Aunt Fannie from California sent two huge packages of clothing and toys from J.C. Penny, a habit she continued for the duration of my early years.  Physically, I went from nothing to everything in one week.  From no attention to being squabbled over; my emotions knew no precedent, therefore I was overwhelmed in joy.   I began to talk incessantly, ‘like a jaybird’ as Uncle Robert said.  There was so much to see and do, to taste and touch. I was experiencing the tastes of new foods almost daily.  I became a whirlwind as I tried to enjoy everything at once in a frenzy of ecstasy.

My uncle took me with him to visit my brother and sisters each day, they were always so happy to see us, only now I knew that they did not have the good things I did.  I used to ask Uncle Robert and Aunt Mollie to bring them home to live with us; I was too young to know what their sad faces revealed.  It was impossible; they could only save one, the child most likely to suffer harm.  My mother moved away when I was five years old without a word.  We went for our daily visit and the house was vacant.  A feeling of loss pervaded my happiness as we stood staring in disbelief.  Years would pass between brief glimpses of any of them.

Nothing good was withheld from me, even moral guidance was provided as my uncle read to me nightly out of a King James red-letter edition Bible. “Them’s the Good Lord’s words in red,” he would say reverently.  These lessons installed in me a sense of moral propriety and spiritual obligation that I would later misconstrue to my own detriment.  The strength of character I gleamed from them would enable me to survive myself and all lesser foes.

For the next half decade, I lived on the ‘flower bed of Eden’ as Cousin Andrew called it.  The days were never long enough; perhaps that is why I hated to sleep.  Seasons came and went in a panorama of delight.  The record ice storm of the early sixties was a great memory to me as I watched through steam fogged windows, warm and snug, as the loud popping of snapping pine trees screamed with the howling winds. Nothing caused me to fear those years, I felt perfectly safe as I expected I always would.

Those days will be forever frozen in my mind. I can still see my uncle and aunt standing among the prized garden vegetables, amid four-foot tall collard greens reaching my aunts shoulders. I can see the tanned sinewy frame of my uncle stretching his short frame proudly towards the sky as he brags on the size of his watermelons.  I can hear their laughter coming from lungs almost a century old, and I can see the twinkle in Uncle Robert’s one good eye. I could never imagine him killing the man who gouged out his eye with a pool stick so many years before, though the relatives said that he did.  I only knew that the blue glass-eye looked odd with his one brown one, set against his tawny gold skin, his head crowned with a semi-circle of silky white hair with a matching heavy white mustache.  I can see the bright flash of his red plaid shirt through the school bus window years later as he walks hurriedly to the highway to escort me home, on the cold November day the house burned to the ground.  Dirt and smut on his sad face.  I can still see them.  I will always be able to see them in the vivid imagery of my mind.

I used to wish with a fervor that I could have held on to the past and preserved all that was good about it, that I could have prevented my aunt the years of suffering as she lay dying, bedridden with cancer.  I used to wish that all the good years would have never ended; time cured the wishing as I realized that the fairy tale had to end.  It was gone; I would never get it back.  The sun would still rise, the seasons would still come, life would continue.  I was thankful to have been a part of it; I would take the memories and savor them for the life ahead.  I had been given the components that would comprise the fate of my destiny; they had aged into my soul, so that part of the past would always remain with me.  They would be there for me to draw strength from, on days in my future when death would seem a triumph and life too hard to live any more.

It is strange how intricately life hangs in the scales, and how unrelated events and single decisions alter the outcomes.  Some remote land ten thousand miles from me, some land unfamiliar to me, held the key to my future.  A foreign land of war, a land besieged by helicopters, machine gunfire, and mortars, held a young man prisoner to its boundaries.  A man I would never have met if my uncle had not become sick.

My uncle became acutely ill when I was fifteen years old and he asked a young family that he was fond of, to adopt me.  Life had changed course for me again, and the changes were becoming less kind as time wore on.  I was about to be thrust into a situation where my lack of experience would affect my judgment and cause a permanent change in the person I would become. My future would become as uncertain and unstable as a howling wind in a wasteland.

Chapter 2

Golden Memories

My memories, both the common and the spectacular, punctuated the stream of time during the brief blur of my formative years.  Somehow, the colors, smells and sounds of childhood are like no other in life and can never be duplicated.  I have seen orchards in bloom against sunsets so glorious as to move one from the realm of sensate appeal into the realm of enchantment, but I saw them only as a child.  The intoxicating smell of gold and silver crayons, the trophies of the Crayola box, had the power to lure me into fanciful trances as I used the colored wax wands to weave magic upon mere paper.  The comforting sounds of adult conversation, as I eavesdropped cocooned away behind cushions long after my bedtime, and the rise and fall of soft laughter on summer nights, mingled with the rhythm of the lonely cry of the Whip ‘O Will made my bedtime lullaby.  These things were the milk and honey of my early history.

However good a life can be, there is never total absence of the dark side of the human experience.  I remember the feeling of a ‘falling’ sensation in the pit of my mind when I heard of the ax murder of my dear cousin Willie, who lived within walking distance of our farm; poor, simple, Cousin Willie, who had raised children and grandchildren. Cousin Willie who had just barely survived a house fire, and who wore the burns that came at the cost of her survival:  Willie, who bothered no one except to bring cheer by her presence.  Her six-foot image graced the top of our hill at least monthly, but I knew I would see her no more.  She had recently married a man new to the area, some said

End of Sample

Torn From the Inside Out by Sara Niles

The Rape of a Nation by Sara Niles

Sara Nile's Personal Narrative: September 11th, 2001, the Attack on The Twin Towers 

"The day passed and by evening, the results of the attack, and the strategies were beginning to unfold, and I smelled war on the horizon, with more deaths and trouble to come" 

From Rape of A Nation
Rape of a Nation

The Ice Storm from Out of the Maelstrom by Sara Niles

Goodreads: The Ice Storm
Sample
Free on Amazon
The Ice Storm

"The The Garden of Eden" from Torn From the Inside Out by Sara Niles

Chapter 1

The Garden of Eden

 Thunder rattled the window- panes two stories high and lightning split the sky; it was as if the whole world was in turmoil that night. My nerves were keyed up as tight as piano strings, and in a sudden moment of stillness and silence it felt as though my heartbeat was amplified ten times over. He was over a hundred pounds greater than I, nearly a foot taller, and I knew he could move his muscled body into unbelievable sprints.  Rain started falling in torrents, while the storm raged outside. I was not afraid of the storms of nature; it was the storm inside this night that I knew I might not survive.

    Anticipation was so great that I wanted to scream at him to get it over with, and true to my expectation he lunged for me, and my body did not disappoint me, I flew down the stairs two at a time in my bare-feet. He stalled for mere seconds to enjoy his pronouncement of a death sentence upon me:

 “I AM GOING TO KILL YOU—YOU GOOD FOR NOTHING BITCH—STONE DEAD!!!!!!!”  He screamed.

  That was the night that I disappeared into a February rainstorm with five children and no place to go. I was twenty-nine years old.

   

 Many people asked of me since that day, many ‘whys’ and I gave many answers. It takes a lot of ‘why’s’ to make a life, mine being no exception. Maya Angelou said ‘you can’t know who I am until you know where I have been’; until you know the circumstances and people who contributed to the making of me, you cannot know me. We all are complicated mixes of many other people and life events. We are all of everything that has ever happened to us. If we suddenly got amnesia, we would cease to exist as who we were, except in the memory of others. My pain is me, and thus my life that once was, is what made me now. I am the hungry little girl who sat in the sand over forty years ago waiting to be rescued by an ancient old man, I am Sara Niles and this is my story.

 The Deep South, 1957

 I was born in the bowels of the South where willow trees hang low over ponds and creeks surrounded by the lush growth of woody fern. My beginnings were in a place where knotted old oaks twisted their knurled boughs upwards, their majestic leafage allowing slithers of light to penetrate the shadowy forest floors to lend peeks upon the backs of huge Diamondback rattlesnakes; their gargantuan size owing to seldom meeting the sight of the eyes of man, if ever at all.  I was born where the bottomland hoarded teems of wild boars known to rip hunting dogs open from end to end, and where the narrow little graveled roads twisted and wound their way past humble mail boxes, usually the only evidence of the habitations miles into the forest. These humble country homes were usually only accessible by traveling down dirt, tire-rutted roads with strips of grass ribbon-ed down the middle.  This was oil country, so oil wells were scattered every few miles, their slow prehistoric movements signaling that the owners were receiving money.  Neighbors lived far apart on beautiful little farms or in ragged shacks, with a Cadillac and a television, or neither plumbing nor electric power lines.  Depending upon which neighbor you were, you had plenty or nothing at all.

 My mother had nothing at all, except seven hungry mouths to feed.  She was by everyone’s opinion an exceptionally beautiful woman.  Her mother before her was a French white woman from New York, and her father was a black and Indian man; born, bred and still living in the same area.  I never met my maternal grandmother, I strongly suspected that she mated with my grandfather on a purely business level.  A business that is considered to be one the oldest vices, the one I have to thank for my very existence.  My mother was a prostitute.  I was an accident she had with a client, a rich white oilman who found her little shack a convenient stop on his trips from town, and she found in him food for her children.  Things may have been different for my mother, if a white man, living in a racist time, had not shot her first husband in the back for the unforgivable crime of stealing gas- gas that he swore to pay for that evening when he left the billet woods.   It was a time when racism ruled, a ‘cold war’ between blacks and whites established the climate, and therefore no trial ever took place.

 It was nineteen fifty-seven, the Little Rock Nine were escorted to school by Federal troops under the order of President Eisenhower to counteract the attempt of Arkansas Governor Faubus to prevent it. Southern racial tensions produced a supreme irony: Federal troops against the National Guard.  This visible strife between state and nation was one of the evidences of the racial turmoil of the times. The line of demarcation between blacks and whites was decided by color, and I was born on the centerline.  My bright light skin marked me as a product of the enemy, the white man in the black community.  Black women drawled sweetly to my mother that my long wavy brown hair was so pretty in tones meant to be a reproof to her.  I was unacceptable, too white to be black… too black to be white.

    We lived in what our relatives fondly called ‘the old homestead’.  It was the home built by my great- grandparents, a newly freed slave by the name of Henry Howell and his wife, a full-blooded Crow Indian bearing the European name Charlotte.  Henry and Charlotte had twelve children, each born in the front room of this now dilapidated old house.  Great old cottonwoods rattled their leaves noisily in the wind in front of the house and massive oaks guarded the back, dwarfing the little outhouse with its pitiful croker-sack door.  The exterior of the house bore the aged gray look of hardwood that had never been painted in its century of withstanding the pelting rains and the great extremes of heat and cold.  It was a tough, neglected old house, abandoned to my mother to house us in rent-free.  She could ill afford to care for the ancient structure that needed attention so badly, or us.  The job of watching and caring for us fell to my oldest sister, Francine.  She was thirteen years old at my earliest remembrance of her, my brother was twelve, and the rest of our ages ran closely behind.  I was four years old.

   The house had three entrances.  The front and back doors we children were allowed to use freely, but the side door facing the setting sun was off limits to us. It was the ‘business’ door, the door that the strange men used; some used it so often they even knew our names.  On a rare occasion when my mother was absent, I was molested by one of these men while the noon-ish sun shone through the window.  I knew nothing of what he was doing, he sounded friendly.  Something was wrong, I felt some odd shame and my heart pounded with relief when my tigress of a sister burst through the door demanding that the  ‘no good son of a dog’ take his filthy hands off me in a voice strong with authority and rage that was strange to hear in the voice of a child. He unhanded me without a word and fled as all my siblings ran up to flank her in the ranks.  I remembered that incident, though I never once mentioned it again until three decades passed.  I merely held my head self-consciously tilted to one side when I walked.

Nothing stood out in my early childhood worth remembering until the fateful day when the world kindly changed for me.  My great uncle and aunt lived on a farm a mile’s walk through a wooded trail.  Robert Howell was born in eighteen eighty-three to Henry and Charlotte Howell in the very same curtain-less room that my siblings and I slept in, on the pallets and old mattresses.  Although my mother was treated as an outcast in the family - never visited and quietly talked about by the conventional ones who may have feared their heavenly reservations may have been cancelled if they dared come near her- my uncle Robert visited us daily.  He cared little for convention and hated hypocrisy; he would not permit either to stifle his compassion for us.  We looked for uncle’s visits just as faithfully as we expected the sun to rise, and just as faithfully, he always came.  I never remember his coming unheralded by our squeals of delight because we knew he had candy or fruit, if not both.  Our yard’s stingy spattering of trampled grass wore a distinct trail that led to the east corner where a roof covered water well crested the top of a steep red clay hill.  Uncle Robert’s head would always appear first, and  on hot days his hatless bald head would bloom at the top of that hill prettier to us than any flower, because he not only brought us gifts, he luxuriated us in his time by talking with each one of us.  We loved Uncle Robert dearly, and any one of us would have been glad to have been taken home by him.  I was selected.

   The monotony of our lives made the mentioning of the names of days unnecessary, so I don’t know what day it was when my uncle took me home, just that it was sunny and warm.  I was sitting in front of the east steps in a pile of cream-colored sand pouring it’s warmness across my legs when Uncle Robert came.

   “I’m coming to take you home with me little Sara.  Just let me talk with your mama for a minute.  You’re going to be me and Mollie’s little girl” my uncle soothingly promised.

I felt something that must have been excitement, although I had heard him say he would take me home before, somehow I knew this time was different.  My brother and sisters gathered around the front door trying to overhear the conversation from within.  We could hear the muffled conversation getting louder as my mother and uncle walked down the hall to the front porch.

   “I’ll find her birth certificate later Uncle Robert.  You just take her on home now”, and as an afterthought she added “Tell Aunt Mollie hello for me”.

 And just like that, as easily as one changes shoes, I was given away unceremoniously without tears or protest from my mother.  She never hugged me good-bye, nor did she come outside to watch me leave. My brother and sisters gathered around me looking sad, their bubbly excitement dying, as they followed us down the steep hill, all the way to the ravine.  They yelled ‘good –byes’ until we were out of sight.  My uncle let me climb upon a stump so I could ride astride his neck, since I had no shoes.  Uncle Robert talked excitedly, gesturing with his hat in his free hand while holding one of my ankles with the other.  I was holding his baldhead with both my thin, dirty arms.  I don’t remember much of what he said, only something about how happy my aunt Mollie would be, and all of the things they would buy me. These golden promises meant nothing to me yet, since I had no prior means of comparison and I was too distracted by apprehension mixed with unformed expectations.

 I knew we had almost arrived when we reached the water spring at the bottom of the hill. The spring bubbled up fresh water continually, with the overflow creating a running stream of branch water that was covered over by a long plank bridge. Two thick, smoky black water moccasins raised their ugly heads up from the water and opened their cottony mouths in silent threat. I tightened my grip on Uncle Robert’s head. The roof of the house appeared first as we ascended the long incline. A large grayish brown farmhouse, surrounded by bright flowers, arose into view. My senses became acute, recording every minor detail, while the smells of flowers and fruit trees enchanted me, as my uncle stooped to unlatch a peg lock on the back gate. My heart was beating faster and faster,  and my blood raced through my veins with such force that I became dizzy, my hearing muted and time slowed.

 Fear ran through me as two large silky black Labradors ran toward us barking hysterically, the barking giving way to tail wagging and happy howls of joy at seeing my uncle. I could see an immense expanse of ordered property. There were pastures and barns, cows and a big-eared mule, chickens scattering across a fenced yard and New Guinea fowl shrieking in tropical song. There were huge yellow and gray-striped Tabby tomcats sitting calmly upon fence posts. I was bedazzled. While my head whirled in excitement, I was gently stood upon the grounds on legs almost too weak to hold me. It was incomprehensible to my dazed senses that all of the commotion was over me.

    My uncle yelled to my aunt to hurry out and see what he had, and in an instant my aunt ran across the back yard with a spatula in one hand wearing a white apron across the front of the prettiest flowered dress I had ever seen. I was being smothered in hugs while my uncle and aunt both talked at once. The animals sensed the excitement and were howling in unison. I tried to see everything at once, such as the number three bathtubs hanging outside against the back porch wall, animals, a smokehouse and old farm buildings. I thought I had entered a new world when I smelled the most wonderful aroma of foods floating upon the breeze; my senses were overwhelmed, as the hunger awakened in me, compelled me to cry.  I was fed while still caked with grime and dirt. 

“Robert, I’m afraid she’ll get sick.  Don’t you think we should stop her from eating now?” Aunt Mollie asked uncertainly.

 “Nah.  This child probably has never eaten her fill.  Let her eat till she bursts.”  He answered glad heartedly before they both melted into joyous laughter.  For the first time in my life, I was home.

   I was scrubbed in sudsy lather and wrapped in a towel.  My only dress was so dirty that it was discarded.  I stood behind my aunt holding the back of her chair while she sewed dresses and matching bloomers out of floral, cotton flour sacks.  She sang and talked as she wheedled her Singer treadle sewing machine.  I said nothing. I was happier than I had ever been.  On Saturday, I remember because every day I was told to just wait until ‘Saturday’ and we will go to town. On Saturday, we went to town.  My aunt bought shoes, dresses, ‘britches’, baubles, and toys, and everything that a little girl who had nothing, would need.  I remember the things I didn’t need, the candies and soda pops of all varieties and colors.  All of downtown was comprised of one street covering a couple of blocks, so in a town of that size everyone knew Aunt Mollie. My aunt told every listening ear, both White and Black, that she and Uncle Robert were like Sarah and Abraham, blessed with a child in their old age.

   Relatives were notified, they came by the carloads to see me, and brought and sent gifts.  My Aunt Fannie from California sent two huge packages of clothing and toys from J.C. Penny, a habit she continued for the duration of my early years.  Physically, I went from nothing to everything in one week.  From no attention to being squabbled over; my emotions knew no precedent, therefore I was overwhelmed in joy.   I began to talk incessantly, ‘like a jaybird’ as Uncle Robert said.  There was so much to see and do, to taste and touch. I was experiencing the tastes of new foods almost daily.  I became a whirlwind as I tried to enjoy everything at once in a frenzy of ecstasy.

    My uncle took me with him to visit my brother and sisters each day, they were always so happy to see us, only now I knew that they did not have the good things I did.  I used to ask Uncle Robert and Aunt Mollie to bring them home to live with us; I was too young to know what their sad faces revealed.  It was impossible; they could only save one, the child most likely to suffer harm.  My mother moved away when I was five years old without a word.  We went for our daily visit and the house was vacant.  A feeling of loss pervaded my happiness as we stood staring in disbelief.  Years would pass between brief glimpses of any of them.

    Nothing good was withheld from me, even moral guidance was provided as my uncle read to me nightly out of a King James red-letter edition Bible. “Them’s the Good Lord’s words in red,” he would say reverently.  These lessons installed in me a sense of moral propriety and spiritual obligation that I would later misconstrue to my own detriment.  The strength of character I gleamed from them would enable me to survive myself and all lesser foes.

   For the next half decade, I lived on the ‘flower bed of Eden’ as Cousin Andrew called it.  The days were never long enough; perhaps that is why I hated to sleep.  Seasons came and went in a panorama of delight.  The record ice storm of the early sixties was a great memory to me as I watched through steam fogged windows, warm and snug, as the loud popping of snapping pine trees screamed with the howling winds. Nothing caused me to fear those years, I felt perfectly safe as I expected I always would.

   Those days will be forever frozen in my mind. I can still see my uncle and aunt standing among the prized garden vegetables, amid four-foot tall collard greens reaching my aunts shoulders. I can see the tanned sinewy frame of my uncle stretching his short frame proudly towards the sky as he brags on the size of his watermelons.  I can hear their laughter coming from lungs almost a century old, and I can see the twinkle in Uncle Robert’s one good eye. I could never imagine him killing the man who gouged out his eye with a pool stick so many years before, though the relatives said that he did.  I only knew that the blue glass-eye looked odd with his one brown one, set against his tawny gold skin, his head crowned with a semi-circle of silky white hair with a matching heavy white mustache.  I can see the bright flash of his red plaid shirt through the school bus window years later as he walks hurriedly to the highway to escort me home, on the cold November day the house burned to the ground.  Dirt and smut on his sad face.  I can still see them.  I will always be able to see them in the vivid imagery of my mind.

   I used to wish with a fervor that I could have held on to the past and preserved all that was good about it, that I could have prevented my aunt the years of suffering as she lay dying, bedridden with cancer.  I used to wish that all the good years would have never ended; time cured the wishing as I realized that the fairy tale had to end.  It was gone; I would never get it back.  The sun would still rise, the seasons would still come, life would continue.  I was thankful to have been a part of it; I would take the memories and savor them for the life ahead.  I had been given the components that would comprise the fate of my destiny; they had aged into my soul, so that part of the past would always remain with me.  They would be there for me to draw strength from, on days in my future when death would seem a triumph and life too hard to live any more.

   It is strange how intricately life hangs in the scales, and how unrelated events and single decisions alter the outcomes.  Some remote land ten thousand miles from me, some land unfamiliar to me, held the key to my future.  A foreign land of war, a land besieged by helicopters, machine gunfire, and mortars, held a young man prisoner to its boundaries.  A man I would never have met if my uncle had not become sick.

   My uncle became acutely ill when I was fifteen years old and he asked a young family that he was fond of, to adopt me.  Life had changed course for me again, and the changes were becoming less kind as time wore on.  I was about to be thrust into a situation where my lack of experience would affect my judgment and cause a permanent change in the person I would become. My future would become as uncertain and unstable as a howling wind in a wasteland.

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