Blind
by Ann Fischer



My husband Christopher was once a financial planner. Even though he couldn't balance our budget, his clients trusted him implicitly and he made them feel secure. In exchange they paid him very well.

We had a nice life then, except for the occasional blip on the radar screen of our relationship - nothing that couldn't be solved with a few soft words or a trip to the bedroom. Usually little tiffs about money. My yoga studio was just starting to make a profit, and I had recently decorated it in a lovely minimalist way, in neutral tones with simple prints and accents like straw-coloured silk cushions and clay flowerpots. At last, I was in control of my working life and poured my heart and soul into making it succeed.

When we first met, I fell hard for Christopher right away, although I wouldn't call it love. I'd never been with a man who was prettier than I was, but after a while I got used to it, and it didn't bother me so much. I was recovering from a broken heart and needed something to help me move on. If it wasn't love, it was good enough, and when he asked me to marry him I jumped at the chance, knowing that it might be my last.

Things started out so well. I was working steadily and Christopher was patiently climbing up the ladder in his department. Then, without any warning, one overcast winter afternoon in year five, he just upped and left his desk in the gray cubicle at the bank, handed in his resignation, and came home and told me he wanted to start an interior design business.

He has always loved mixing and matching, and has a real eye for colour, texture, and shape, but the idea of turning a hobby into a business wasn't something we had ever discussed. I thought the stress of his job was becoming too much and perhaps he would take a few months off over the spring and summer to relax, do a project or two, and get the idea out of his system.

I didn't believe he could be serious. But once he had a few clients, (thanks to my sister who has a lot of rich friends), he began to draw up plans, ordering catalogues and scouting vintage furniture shops, turning our empty workshop into a kind of makeshift studio with all of his sketches pinned to the wall. After spending a lot of time and money on all of this preparation, and really doing quite a nice job of it, he called each client in turn and apologized, saying he wasn't well and wouldn't be able to design their living spaces after all. Then he went to bed.

He's been home now for almost a year. In the beginning, he just slept for most of the day, then got up but stayed in his pyjamas, watching Oprah and whatever came on afterwards, didn't even shower or shave most of the time. He didn't and doesn't want to have sex with me anymore either. Our sex life was the best thing about our relationship.

And now he has changed his mind again and has decided to take a course in jewellery design. I'm trying to support the idea, because I'm happy that anything interests him at all, but I have to say this life I have with him at the moment feels a bit odd and sometimes (lots of times) unfair. For one thing, I've had to close my studio location downtown and start running my classes out of the house. Also, with Christopher out of work, and for who knows how long, I have to pay for everything myself. There is just no other cash coming in.

Yoga clients coming to the house isn't so bad. I've got an area for them in the workshop, now that it's heated. And there's quite a lot of space available there. Yes, the new studio is working out, but still, it's not always easy to get Christopher and the trail of mess he leaves wherever he goes out of sight. At least he's getting dressed these days, so it's not as though I have to hide him, the way I did in the beginning.

Most afternoons I give him some money so he can go to the movies. Apparently he's seeing a lot of them. He never used to go by himself, but everything is different now. I try not to think about where he might be if he's not at the movies. My imagination just shuts down. What's the matter with seeing a movie by yourself, really? He's smoking now too and I have to pay for his cigarettes. I try to keep the incense burning when I know people are coming over, and that gets rid of most of it, but it's not something I like.

I wish we could talk about the smoking, and the money problem and why he is suddenly going to movies in the afternoon alone, sometimes two of them, but we can't. I wish I could ask him why he doesn't want to sleep with me. The one time I tried he started to cry, and even though he didn't say anything, I thought it was better to wait for him to come around by himself rather than push. Wouldn't you?

At this very moment, Christopher is sitting at the kitchen table, trying to make a pair of earrings from some bits and pieces of old jewellery I've given him to practice on, and he seems so peaceful.

The important thing is that right now he needs my support. I know that. I can't think about myself. It would be selfish, wouldn't it? Later, when he's feeling better. More himself.

The Tale of Princess Laughing Dove
by Tish Farrell

Once there was a man, neither young nor old, and his name was Wainaina.
He lived alone on his farm at the forest edge, in the house he had built himself. The house was small but that did not matter, for whenever Wainaina opened his door, or drew back his curtain he could see the blue peaks of Mount Kenya. Up they rose like church spires and whenever Wainaina saw them, his spirits soared too - high in the blue.

"I'm lucky to be alive," he'd say.
But then he would sigh, "If only I had a wife to share this with."

A wife indeed! So why couldn't Wainaina find himself a good woman when the countryside was alive with good women? And why, when a village girl caught his eye, did she walk straight on by, before he'd said hello? This was what he asked himself, day in day out, as he sowed and hoed and tended his crops.

"Perhaps," said Wainaina. "I haven't the heart for it."

But that wasn't it. The truth was this. Wainaina was not a handsome man, nor even plain. He had grown up downright ugly.
And he did not know - because the little shard of mirror that he used when shaving only showed his chin. Nor did his village fellows say, not wanting to hurt the good man's feelings. Poor Wainaina. And though he tried not to make a tragedy out of being wifeless, sometimes his spirits hardly soared at all when he saw the great mountain.

"Life has its ups and downs," he said.

Then one morning as he was dressing for work, he heard a tap tapping at his window. When he pulled back he curtain there was a laughing dove sitting on the sill, cooing and bobbing at its reflection in the glass.

"Ah," said Wainaina gently. "You think you've found a mate. Poor bird."

At the sound of his voice the bird flew off, but for the rest of the day Wainaina thought of it.

"So," he said. "I am not the only one without a love."

Later, when Wainaina was stretching his back from a day's hard digging, an idea crept into his mind: "You've earned a rest Wainaina. Why not walk down to the stream?"

And why not indeed? It was a bosky place with mossy roots and green arches. Clear mountain water gurgled by smooth rocks where blue dragonflies danced.

"Mmmmm," said Wainaina when he came to the water. "It is so peaceful here."

But not for long. Suddenly from the overhanging branch of a mugumo tree came the oh-cook cook-oo-oo of a laughing dove. Wainaina looked up: was it the one he'd seen earlier. The bird bobbed and cooed and seemed to catch his eye. Then it flew off down the path and perched in a flame tree. Oh-cook cook-oo-oo.

Wainaina followed - which was when he heard the tumble of laughter that out-sang any dove. He pushed through the reeds to the water's edge: who could be making those sweet, sweet sounds?

Wainaina soon saw. Across the stream a young woman was gathering her washing from the bank where it had been drying. She was laughing at the yellow butterflies that had settled on her wrap. And though Wainaina had come silently, she glanced back at once, coyly smiling over her shoulder. Then she arched her neck in the most beguiling way.

His heart missed a beat. And why? She was just a woman like any other, a little plump perhaps. In fact, she rather reminded him of the dove.
He waded into the stream,
"Don't go," he said.

The woman lodged the wash bucket on her hip. "And why shouldn't I?"

"Because I--I want--I want to pay you my respects." Wainaina fumbled. So much conversation and all at once. Perhaps it meant he had a chance...?

"Well begin," said the woman, bowing her head to one side as the dove had done.

And so Wainaina did, and this is how he found his love; and this is where he met his love again and again in the weeks that followed.
She said her name was Njeri, but Wainaina having a fanciful streak, said,
"No. Never! You are Princess Laughing Dove," which only made her laugh the more.

Then one day as Wainaina was weeding his crops he decided to ask Njeri to marry him. For wasn't it the best time for a man to take a wife - his maize store full to bursting, his beans and pumpkins fattening in the field? He dropped his hoe and ran down to the stream,
but then he thought,
"What if she refuses me?" and for a long time he hid in the reeds, screwing up his courage.

But as he crouched beside the stream, he saw his face reflected in a pool.
At first he didn't realise, but then the pain.

He couldn't stop the cry, "Am I really so ugly?"

"Oh much worse," came the laughing voice of Princess Laughing Dove from across the stream.

"Which means you won't marry me!" Wainaina wailed.

"Well not if you don't ask me...."

"But I'm so ugly. That's why no girl would speak with me..."

"Then they were foolish..."

"But..."

"You have a good heart, Wainaina. It's all that counts."

So Njeri, Princess Laughing Dove, married Wainaina and went to live in his house on the edge of the forest. Each morning they woke to the blue spires of Mount Kenya. Each night they went to bed happy with their day's work. And when one day Njeri told Wainaina there would soon be a child, he thought he would burst with joy.

He told everyone he met, the mountain too,
"A child coming! Just think. I must work harder."

But as it turned out, the day the baby came saw an end to Wainaina's joy. The birth was hard and by the time he brought the doctor to the house, Njeri was dead, and the newborn howling like the wind off mountain snows. Wainaina's own howls soon brought the villagers to his door, and when he saw their silent staring faces he thought his heart would break.

"Now what will I do? Who but Princess Laughing Dove would love an ugly man like me?"

The village wives hung their heads, for secretly they had envied Njeri her good hearted, industrious man. And when they had helped to bury her down near the flame tree, they picked up the baby and told Wainaina,
"We will care for the child between us, until you come for it."

The grieving man barely nodded: what did he know of babies when he had lost his only love?

So Wainaina's black times began. He went back to his house and there he stayed. The blackness in his heart seeped into every bone - as an ink blot spreads its stain across a page. He could do nothing. He could think of nothing, except the pain of losing Njeri. Days turned to weeks, one month, two...

Then one night as he sat sleepless in his chair he heard her laughter. Somewhere near. Out into the moonlight he ran,
"Princess Laughing Dove, you've come back!"

But there was no-one there; only the dead leaves of his neglected maize rustling in the breeze. Wainaina fell in the dirt and wept.

"I am going mad," he cried. "And it's because I have nothing to remember her by."

For grief had shut all thought of the child from his mind.
Now Wainaina tore at the maize stems till they were nothing but straw.
The pale shreds flew up in the wind, and good riddance to them: what use were crops?

But no sooner said than an idea flitted through his mind. Quickly he gathered up the straw and ran back to the house - where he lit the lamp and unsheathed his knife. He wasn't a craftsman, not by any means, but with some loving care this was a thing he might do.

So all through the night Wainaina worked: tying, trimming, plaiting, moulding. And when the first streaks of day showed through the curtain, he blew out the lamp, hung the fruit of his labours in the window and slept as he had not slept for many nights.

And he didn't wake - until the sun was pouring through his window, lighting up the straw dove that hung there.

"Why you're beautiful!" said Wainaina to his creation, and while he stirred his porridge on the stove he chatted to the bird just as he had once chatted with Njeri.

"Must clear the maize field today. The rains will soon be here." And

"That dead tree by the stream. It's time I chopped it for the fire."

All the same, Wainaina did not eat the porridge he had made, nor go to work. He just sat in his chair and talked to the straw bird. Somehow the talking eased the ache in his heart for Njeri. Dear dove!

Then some days later, as dawn broke on Mount Kenya, turning the ice peaks pink, there was a tap tapping at Wainaina's window. Out on the sill was a real laughing dove - oh-cook cook-oo-oo. It bobbed and bowed and puffed out its breast before the straw dove. At first Wainaina was flattered that a living bird should woo his dove. But as he persisted, Wainaina grew angry.

He ran outside and waved his arms like a windmill,
"Off with you. Can't you see she's all I have?"

But the next morning the dove was back. He flew at the window again and again as if to break the glass and free the straw one; and only when he fell exhausted to the ground was Wainaina sorry.

"What would Princess Laughing Dove think of my good heart now?" he said sadly.

So he took down his dove and put it near the fallen one.

"See my friend. She isn't real." The laughing dove only blinked his black bead eyes. Oh-cook cook-oo-oo.

Just then a gust of wind caught up the straw bird, tossing it high in the sky where, to Wainaina's astonishment it began to flap its maize leaf wings, began to soar through the blue, a real laughing dove with her suitor flying after. Wainaina could only stare, for who would believe such a thing? And yet his dove was gone, there was no doubting it.

Grief filled his heart once more, and it was then he heard Njeri's voice ringing in his head, "Life goes on Wainaina. Remember!"

Wainaina gasped - a bolt of lightning through his heart.

"The child! How could I forget?" And he ran, fleet as a reedbuck to the village.

"Where is my child? I want my child."

The women who had taken the baby months before greeted him.
"It's time you came, Wainaina. Your daughter grows bigger every day. Eating us out of house and home, and us with children of our own to feed." They scolded Wainaina roundly, though secretly they were glad to seem him back amongst the living.

And what were a few cross words to Wainaina - with a brand new spark in his heart? A daughter indeed!

"She won't mind my ugly mug. Not if I love her well."

So he thanked the women and took the child at once. There was something he must do.

Back at his house, Wainaina held up the baby to the mountain.
"See, here's the child I told you of."

And to his girl he said, "Now aren't we lucky to be alive." The baby cooed obligingly.
The father stared and stared.
"So. I have a little Miss Laughing Dove on my hands! And with her mother's lovely looks. That's good," said Wainaina. "Very good."

It was not long after this that a pair of laughing doves came to nest in the flame tree by the stream. Whether they were his doves Wainaina could not say. But what he did say was this, "Life goes on - oh-cook cook-oo-oo."

Aussie croc hunter Steve Irwin killed in 'freak' stingray attack

Photo: AFP Click to enlarge

SYDNEY (AFP) - World-famous Australian "crocodile hunter" and television environmentalist Steve Irwin has been killed by a stingray blow to the chest while filming a documentary on the Great Barrier Reef.

The larger-than-life Irwin, 44, known for his fearlessly enthusiastic handling of even the deadliest of wildlife, was killed when a stingray barb punctured his heart during underwater filming off northeastern Australia.

"He came over the top of a stingray and the stingray's barb went up and went into his chest and put a hole into his heart," said the ebullient Irwin's longtime producer John Stainton, who was with him at the time on Monday.

"It's likely that he possibly died instantly when the barb hit him, and I don't think that he ... felt any pain," a tearful Stainton told reporters in the city of Cairns. "He died doing what he loved best."

Police and officials at Irwin's zoo confirmed his death in the freak incident that took place at about 11:00 am (0100 GMT) off the coast of Port Douglas in the northeastern Australian state of Queensland.

Irwin brought to the surface unconscious and underwent cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, Stainton said.

He was evacuated from his research vessel by helicopter but ambulance service officials said he had suffered a puncture wound to the left side of his chest and was pronounced dead on the scene.

Stingrays have several sharp and venomous barbs on their tails that they use to defend themselves when they feel threatened, but Stainton insisted that Irwin had not provoked the creature while filming.

"I have never met a more professional person in my whole life nor a more passionate person in my whole life on wildlife issues," Stainton said of the iconic Irwin, who was making a show about deadly sea dwellers.

But experts stressed that stingrays were not usually vicious and rarely attacked and killed humans, unlike the range of deadly creatures Irwin had confronted in the past.

"You think about all the documentaries we've made and all the dangerous situations that we have been in, you always think 'is this it, is this a day that maybe his demise?'," he said, adding that nothing scared Irwin.

Australian wildlife filmmaker David Ireland said that the stingray's tail was "like a bayonet on a rifle".

"If it hits any vital organs it's as deadly as a bayonet," he said.

Police said Irwin's US-born wife Terri had been informed of his death while hiking in Tasmania. The couple had two children aged eight and three.

The garrulous animal-lover's rallying cry of "crikey" when faced with a crocodile, snake or ferocious-looking spider made him an Australian icon across the world.

His "Crocodile Hunter" show, in which the tousle-haired adventurer appeared in his trademark khaki shorts and shirt, was first broadcast in 1992 and has been shown around the world on the Discovery cable network ever since.

His outspoken persona became so popular that he won a cameo role in a Hollywood movie, "Dr Dolittle 2," starring US comic Eddie Murphy.

Australians mourned the loss of one of their most famous countrymen, with Prime Minister John Howard leading the public outpouring of grief over the death of a man whom he knew well.

"I really do feel Australia has lost a wonderful and colourful son," Howard said. "He took risks, he enjoyed life.

"He brought immense joy to millions of people, particularly to children, and it's just such a terrible loss. He was one of those great quintessential Australian faces that people recognised everywhere," added the grim-looking prime minister after parliament was told of his death.

Ordinary Australians called into their local radio and television stations expressing their shock and sadness at Irwin's passing, while others flocked to the television star's Australia Zoo in Beerwah, on the Sunshine coast of Queensland state, to lay flowers in his memory.

"We just thought he was a good guy for what he did for Australia. He put us on the map, I reckon," said Rod Cameron at the zoo.

Another mourner was more sanguine. "He died doing what he loved, didn't he?" said tourist Glenn Batson.

The son of a plumber who launched his own reptile park, the young Irwin became a crocodile trapper, ridding residential areas of their reptilian threats before eventually taking over his parents' park.

His fearless approach to the animal kingdom however provoked international outrage when he involved his infant son in one of his death-defying antics.

In early 2004, he fed a four-metre (13-foot) crocodile with one hand while clutching his baby son Bob in the other during a show at his Australia Zoo reptile park.

But Irwin was unrepentant when confronted about the incident in an interview. "I will continue to educate my children and the children of the world so they don't go into the water with crocs," he said.

Irwin's voice remained on the answering machine of his zoo on Monday, reminding callers with a whoop: "Remember, they rule," referring to his dangerous documentary subjects.

Louise
by Saki

"The tea will be quite cold, you'd better ring for some more," said the Dowager Lady Beanford.

Susan Lady Beanford was a vigorous old woman who had coquetted with imaginary ill-health for the greater part of a lifetime; Clovis Sangrail irreverently declared that she had caught a chill at the Coronation of Queen Victoria and had never let it go again. Her sister, Jane Thropplestance, who was some years her junior, was chiefly remarkable for being the most absent-minded woman in Middlesex.

"I've really been unusually clever this afternoon," she remarked gaily, as she rang for the tea. "I've called on all the people I meant to call on; and I've done all the shopping that I set out to do. I even remembered to try and match that silk for you at Harrod's, but I'd forgotten to bring the pattern with me, so it was no use. I really think that was the only important thing I forgot during the whole afternoon. Quite wonderful for me, isn't it?"

"What have you done with Louise?" asked her sister. "Didn't you take her out with you? You said you were going to."

"Good gracious," exclaimed Jane, "what have I done with Louise? I must have left her somewhere."

"But where?"

"That's just it. Where have I left her? I can't remember if the Carrywoods were at home or if I just left cards. If there were at home I may have left Louise there to play bridge. I'll go and telephone to Lord Carrywood and find out."

"Is that you, Lord Carrywood?" she queried over the telephone; "it's me, Jane Thropplestance. I want to know, have you seen Louise?"

"'Louise'," came the answer, "it's been my fate to see it three times. At first, I must admit, I wasn't impressed by it, but the music grows on one after a bit. Still, I don't think I want to see it again just at present. Were you going to offer me a seat in your box?"

"Not the opera 'Louise' -- my niece, Louise Thropplestance. I thought I might have left her at your house."

"You left cards on us this afternoon, I understand, but I don't think you left a niece. The footman would have been sure to have mentioned it if you had. Is it going to be a fashion to leave nieces on people as well as cards? I hope not; some of these houses in Berkeley-square have practically no accommodation for that sort of thing."

"She's not at the Carrywoods'," announced Jane, returning to her tea; "now I come to think of it, perhaps I left her at the silk counter at Selfridge's. I may have told her to wait there a moment while I went to look at the silks in a better light, and I may easily have forgotten about her when I found I hadn't your pattern with me. In that case she's still sitting there. She wouldn't move unless she was told to; Louise has no initiative."

"You said you tried to match the silk at Harrod's," interjected the dowager.

"Did I? Perhaps it was Harrod's. I really don't remember. It was one of those places where every one is so kind and sympathetic and devoted that one almost hates to take even a reel of cotton away from such pleasant surroundings."

"I think you might have taken Louise away. I don't like the idea of her being there among a lot of strangers. Supposing some unprincipled person was to get into conversation with her."

"Impossible. Louise has no conversation. I've never discovered a single topic on which she'd anything to say beyond 'Do you think so? I dare say you're right.' I really thought her reticence about the fall of the Ribot Ministry was ridiculous, considering how much her dear mother used to visit Paris. This bread and butter is cut far too thin; it crumbles away long before you can get it to your mouth. One feels so absurd, snapping at one's food in mid-air, like a trout leaping at may-fly."

"I am rather surprised," said the dowager, "that you can sit there making a hearty tea when you've just lost a favourite niece."

"You talk as if I'd lost her in a churchyard sense, instead of having temporarily mislaid her. I'm sure to remember presently where I left her."

"You didn't visit any place of devotion, did you? If you've left her mooning about Westminster Abbey or St. Peter's, Eaton Square, without being able to give any satisfactory reason why she's there, she'll be seized under the Cat and Mouse Act and sent to Reginald McKenna."

"That would be extremely awkward," said Jane, meeting an irresolute piece of bread and butter halfway; "we hardly know the McKennas, and it would be very tiresome having to telephone to some unsympathetic private secretary, describing Louise to him and asking to have her sent back in time for dinner. Fortunately, I didn't go to any place of devotion, though I did get mixed up with a Salvation Army procession. It was quite interesting to be at close quarters with them, they're so absolutely different to what they used to be when I first remember them in the 'eighties. They used to go about then unkempt and dishevelled, in a sort of smiling rage with the world, and now they're spruce and jaunty and flamboyantly decorative, like a geranium bed with religious convictions. Laura Kettleway was going on about them in the lift of the Dover Street Tube the other day, saying what a lot of good work they did, and what a loss it would have been if they'd never existed. 'If they had never existed,' I said, 'Granville Barker would have been certain to have invented something that looked exactly like them.' If you say things like that, quite loud, in a Tube lift, they always sound like epigrams."

"I think you ought to do something about Louise," said the dowager.

"I'm trying to think whether she was with me when I called on Ada Spelvexit. I rather enjoyed myself there. Ada was trying, as usual, to ram that odious Koriatoffski woman down my throat, knowing perfectly well that I detest her, and in an unguarded moment she said: 'She's leaving her present house and going to Lower Seymour Street.' 'I dare say she will, if she stays there long enough,' I said. Ada didn't see it for about three minutes, and then she was positively uncivil. No, I am certain I didn't leave Louise there."

"If you could manage to remember where you did leave her, it would be more to the point than these negative assurances," said Lady Beanford; "so far, all we know is that she is not at the Carrywoods', or Ada Spelvexit's, or Westminster Abbey."

"That narrows the search down a bit," said Jane hopefully; "I rather fancy she must have been with me when I went to Mornay's. I know I went to Mornay's, because I remember meeting that delightful Malcolm What's-his-name there -- you know whom I mean. That's the great advantage of people having unusual first names, you needn't try and remember what their other name is. Of course I know one or two other Malcolms, but none that could possibly be described as delightful. He gave me two tickets for the Happy Sunday Evenings in Sloane Square. I've probably left them at Mornay's, but still it was awfully kind of him to give them to me." "Do you think you left Louise there?"

"I might telephone and ask. Oh, Robert, before you clear the teathings away I wish you'd ring up Mornay's, in Regent Street, and ask if I left two theatre tickets and one niece in their shop this afternoon."

"A niece, ma'am?" asked the footman.

"Yes, Miss Louise didn't come home with me, and I'm not sure where I left her."

"Miss Louise has been upstairs all the afternoon, ma'am, reading to the second kitchenmaid, who has the neuralgia. I took up tea to Miss Louise at a quarter to five o'clock, ma'am."

"Of course, how silly of me. I remember now, I asked her to read the Faerie Queene to poor Emma, to try to send her to sleep. I always get some one to read the Faerie Queene to me when I have neuralgia, and it usually sends me to sleep. Louise doesn't seem to have been successful, but one can't say she hasn't tried. I expect after the first hour or so the kitchenmaid would rather have been left alone with her neuralgia, but of course Louise wouldn't leave off till some one told her to. Anyhow, you can ring up Mornay's, Robert, and ask whether I left two theatre tickets there. Except for your silk, Susan, those seem to be the only things I've forgotten this afternoon. Quite wonderful for me."