Tag: story

Day #12

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Hadder: Heather, heath

Cerberean: Of or pertaining to or resembling Cerberus

Bazaar: In the East an exchange marketplace or assemblage of shops where goods are exposed for sale

—–

‘You there, stop!’

The soldier cantered forward, his stallion blazing a brilliant white matched only by the sheen of his brass chest plate. Plumes of ceremonial feathers sprung from his tightly fitted helmet, blowing like hadder in the early morning breeze. Slipping from the horse’s back, he gave his sword handle a quick half-tug to make sure it wouldn’t stick if he needed it. A deep breath helped muster a vague air of authority; the soldier approached the front of the caravan.

Immediately, he saw the two men leaning into each other, exchanging quick, secret whispers. Both were of swarthy, middle-eastern appearance, their dark hair thick as gorse, both beards immaculately oiled. They seemed nervous, but after all these were treacherous times.

The war had not long ended and it was uncommon to see men of a darker hue so far from home. Rumors of kidnappings were already rife and to make things worse a high-ranking official’s wife – a spoil of war, beautiful and exotic – had gone missing the night before, meaning patrols had been doubled.

‘Where are you going my friends?’ called the soldier, his voice loud and crisp, a deeply sonorous birdsong.

He had been patrolling the border since daybreak, cerberean in his duty yet encountering no one amongst the trickling, sandy hours. Boredom and youth had dulled the soldier’s sense of duty. He’d stopped the Arabs because it was simply something to pass the time with.

The whispering ceased and the two men peered inquisitively at the soldier, his pale skin and tight crop of blond hair a brutal reminder that they were far from home.

‘Salaam, friend,’ called one of the men, older and with thick, heavyset eyebrows. His companion was younger and had greasy, sweaty skin. The older man continued, his tone sharp, ‘why do you stop us?’

The soldier was taken aback by such directness. ‘What brings you this way, so early in the morning?’

The younger Arab looked quickly at his companion, nervous, eager to move on. A light sheen glistened on his face, as though he were a reflection; the tight curls of his beard, dark and foreboding ripples. The older Arab dismissed his apparent concerns with a hard look of annoyance.

‘My friend, we are simple traders seeking to reach the bazaar at Damascus by nightfall. We are spice merchants. Nothing more, nothing less.’

Damascus? The soldier knew the journey well, having made it many times as a child. There was no way in hell these traders would ever reach Damascus by nightfall on this route. If they were even going to Damascus…

‘You have a long…journey ahead of you – I would hate for your goods to spoil… May I take stock of your wares?’

‘Of course,’ replied the Arab, his voice now perfumed and cloying, intoxicatingly sickly and sprinkled with a hint of knowing malice. ‘Please sink your teeth into our forbidden fruits…’

The solider didn’t like the man’s tone. Something was off. He pulled back the caravan’s curtains to reveal a dark skinned woman, beautiful and exotic, teeth bared, eyes fearful and dagger drawn.

She hissed just four words, ‘I’m not going back…’

Day #11

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Panade: A dagger

Pericardium: The double baglike fold of serous membrane that encloses the heart

Cerebrifugal: The nerve fibers that go from the brain to the spinal cord and so transfer cerebral impulses; centrifugal impressions outwards

—–

You are a spasm on the face of the night; silently lithe, an oil slick seeping amongst rocks, ready to smother the wings of any birds you may encounter.

The guard’s cigarette burns brilliantly, a satirical star. You imagine the smoke curling in his lungs like old receipts in the bottom of a paper bag. A slow death. The light recedes, migrating, burning down until his lips are dully illuminated. You make sure the blood that spills from his lips extinguishes the nub. A gurgle of claret, a gushing waterfall, thick, sticky iron-rich plasma oozing like ketchup. You are the vampire bat; you are metal of fang.

Quick feet, a cat’s paws, every step a gracefully uncoiling spring. You ignore the paintings that hang from the walls, faces from history flashing past. You wonder if they approve of your task. They can’t judge you now. You melt into the shadows as two sets of footsteps stomp past. Right on time.

You know the floor plan; you know the number of steps on any given staircase; you know precisely where to stand in his room so that the silvery crescent of moonlight that slips between his curtains won’t fall on so much as a little toe.

Steady breaths, one staircase, then another, twisting, turning. You are Theseus pursuing the Minotaur, unspooling a reel of memorized directions.

Beneath the thin woolen mask that covers your face, beads of sweat start to form. You’re getting hot. You’re getting closer. You run over the plan once again…

Slip past the guards, removing their lives if necessary (you wonder whether any life is necessary, you chalk it up to collateral damage, you chalk it up to fun). Infiltrate his room, approach his bed then unsheathe your metal fang; the thin sliver of the panade, beautiful and deadly, a lone truth amongst the encroaching dark. You will slip the blade quickly into his pericardium – splitting the muscle in two. Then you will hold your hand over his mouth until the very last cerebrifugal pulse has faded from the spinal cord…

You’re standing outside his door, thick and wooden, a gloriously textured oak. The varnish stings your nostrils and your eyes spill a sudden film of tears that you quickly blink away.

You slip inside, an undetectable insect. Heavy breaths roll in like fog. You imagine the heady thud of your heartbeat acts like a bat’s squeals, your target caught amongst a net of sounds bouncing in the night.

Sleeping flags hang limply, the verdant reds, whites and blacks now a muted slurry of burgundy and grey, their iconography familiar, repellant.

You stand over his bed, his lumpy form already silent as a corpse, stiller than you expected. You unsheathe the panade and stab, stab, stab, stab, stab – all decorum consumed by a sudden intoxicating miasma. He doesn’t bleed at all…

And then, it is done.

Panting, you wipe a fleck of spittle from your lips, ‘Auf Wiedersehen Mein Fuhrer…’

You feel the cold, hard cigarette butt of a gun press into your back. You realize that, of course, he would have bled. Everyone bleeds. Even you. The gun dully illuminates and you melt into the shadows.

Day #10

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Dotard: One whose mind is impaired by age

Overprize: To prize excessively to overvalue

Dugway: A way or road dug through a hill or sunk below the surface of the land

—

Let me tell you about my strangest memory.

I keep it hidden away under lock and key somewhere in the back of my mind. Sometimes I close my eyes and watch it play on the curtain of my eyelids, hazy and noir, flickering like an old fashioned movie. I’ve only ever shared it with a handful of people…and now you.

***

The playground of my childhood school was a tarmac savannah, wrinkly like skin that’s been in the bath for too long and scribbled with the sun-bleached Nazca lines that denoted symbolic football pitches. Down the far end, under a large tree whose awning provided respite from the sun, were the badlands – a small scrubby patch of grass and dirt bordered by a wooden fence. Etched into this boundary was a permanently locked gate that led to our sports fields, but as we were a small, poor school, these fields were just public parks that we invaded once a year for sports day, tiny legs pumping whilst carrying eggs on spoons. A humpty-dumpy dystopia.

Anyway, somewhere between the ages of seven and ten my friends and I became fascinated with digging. Not just digging for the sake of slinging dirt, but real open cast excavations – our hands carving out deep holes and dugways amongst the tiny patch of dirt tacked onto our playground. Myself, Will, Tom and probably others who I can’t quite remember now, presided over our feats of engineering like Pharaohs watching the assembly of pyramids.

Looking back, perhaps we overprized our accomplishments. One time the council came and filled in a crater we had carved under some public stairs, as though it were a crème egg with a concrete center. We wore this like a badge of honor. But I digress…

Eventually, we decided to move on and excavate a new area, somewhere different in the myriad of playgrounds we had at our disposal. To test ourselves we chose a hedgerow in the middle playground. The thick, tangled roots seemed a suitable challenge for experienced diggers such as ourselves, finger nails crusty with dirt, rocks scraping as though we had discovered the very first tools.

One afternoon however something strange happened. Among the roots we unearthed a small black box. Then another. And another. And so on, until we had a stack of these small black boxes, each the shape and size of something a necklace may be displayed in. We couldn’t open them. Then our teacher appeared and she was angry with us. Then the men dressed in black came and took all our boxes away.

***

The memory fades toward the end, tapering off like a stuttering candle. I’ve managed to cling to the key points, to treasure them, as I know what happened to us was very significant, but I don’t know why. All I know is, we never dug another hole again.

Like I said, I’ve only ever told this to a handful of people…and I’m too scared to ask whether those involved remember or not, for fear of what it means for me if they don’t. I’m scared that I will begin to question my memories, fearing that I’m just another adult dotard, imagining things just to seem more interesting.

So, I think I’ll just keep it under lock and key for now.

Day #9

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Platting: Plaited strips of bark, cane, straw etc. used for making hats or the like

Water soldier: A submerged aquatic plant with serrated, brittle leaves that break easily when handled.

Geophagist: One who eats earth as dirt clay chalk, etc.

—-

Her slight, nimble fingers danced over the wicker canes, threading the silvery strips of birch bark under and over, under and over. The action reminded Ahn-weh of the way she used to braid her daughter’s hair, under and over, under and over, then tied in a knot – perfection. It would not be long until she saw her again, at least this was what Ahn-weh hoped.

But could you really trust the words that slithered from the lips of man who had killed untold thousands and forced a young girl into marriage against her will?

Genghis. The word pounded like a metronome as Ahn-weh wove the pale grey platting, under and over, under and over, circling round in loop after loop. She was slowly nearing the end of her task now. Genghis. Under and over. Genghis. Under and over.

The warlord, the self-proclaimed God-King, had offered this token task to Ahn-weh at the behest of her daughter; a vain attempt by the young girl to have her mother spared.

He had grinned, stringing words to his tongue like arrows to a bow, ‘they say you are an artist Mother, then let us see how great you are. Craft me a crown fit for a God-King and I shall let you and your daughter live.’

Ahn-weh could still smell his fetid breath, sticky and thick with spilt blood, musky like oxen that spent all day chewing rotting cud.

So Ahn-weh worked. Genghis. She stripped the bark from birch trees until her nails were bloody and raw. Genghis. She tempered the thin bands of silver in the midday heat. Genghis. She wove the circlets under and over until the crown began to gain form. Genghis. A shimmering star fallen from Heaven to Earth. Genghis. The crown of a God-King.

But Ahn-weh knew it was a futile task. She knew that her daily rations were poisoned; of course He wouldn’t play fair. He had no intention of letting her live, or of finishing the crown, which would result in the death of her daughter too. A cruel God-King.

This was why, at the break of every dawn, Ahn-weh slipped past her snoring guard, slumped awkwardly in a drunken stupor. She crept down to the river, alert like a deer and aware of every single glinting red reflection rippling and flashing as fish plucked early morning insects from the water’s surface.

Pushing aside the water soldiers, their brittle leaves flaking away at the slightest touch, Ahn-weh dug deep amongst their roots, burying her hands in the dirt, under and over. The thick, wet clay that she cupped in her palms tasted peaty when she drank it.

It was unpleasant and thick, clogging her throat and making her gag, but it would slow the poison in her body, she knew this; Ahn-weh the geophagist knew this. And she clung to this as she wove the silver birch bark into a crown for a God-King, fingers nimbly working under and over, over and over.

Day #8

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Federalize: To unite in compact as different States, to confederate for political purposes, to unite by or under the Federal Constitution

Granitical: Granitic, of granite like qualities

Sitology: the branch of medicine dealing with nutrition and dietetics

—

The worn tread of the bike tossed dirt into the air with reckless abandon as Ned came sliding to a halt. Throwing his bike down, he patted the russet from his clothes as he half-walked, half-jogged over to where Julius was kneeling, consumed with whatever it was he’d found.

‘Whatcha got?’ asked Ned, hovering like fly over a piece of rancid meat.

‘Hmm?’ came the reply.

‘Come on Jules! Lemme see!’ wheedled Ned, his impatience betraying his young age. He crossed his arms and tried to itch away the dust that had gotten down the back of his t-shirt.

Julius delicately dusted away a thin patina to reveal the dark, granitical form of a bone embedded in the ground. He leant back, as if letting it breathe, and turned to his young companion, a grin spread across his face. It was a smoker’s smile; yellow as the sandstone he spent his days digging up. Julius often joked that his teeth were probably in worse condition than some of the critters he dug up.

‘Nuh-uh,’ was Ned’s usual response.

Julius didn’t care about Ned’s age. He liked the boy’s enthusiasm and besides, when you were working with 60-million-year-old bones, age really was just a number. Hell, Julius had uncovered some of the most ferocious predators to have ever walked the Earth – what was there to worry about with a kid?

‘Well?’ asked the Archaeologist expectantly. ‘What d’you reckon, Ned?’

Ned squinted his eyes against the early afternoon sun, patches of sweat forming under the armpits of his top.

‘I dunno…could be anything. You only got the top out!’

‘True,’ laughed Julius. Pointing to one side he added, ‘but if you look here you can see some coprolite – that’s fossilized poo to me and you – and you see them marks in it? That’s seeds. So sitology tells us, this old boy were a vegetarian, see?’

‘So…like, er… a stegosaurus or something?’ asked Ned

‘That’s right, something like that,’ said Julius, laughing again. He stood up and stretched, cracking the bones in his neck like popping candy.

‘Don’t that hurt?’ asked Ned, capping his eyes with a small, calloused hand.

‘Naw, it’s fine. Now, c’mere, I wanna show you somethin’ else.’

Julius headed down a nearby slope, clouds of dust fleeing like mayflies from his thick-soled boots. Ned skittered behind, sliding recklessly and whooping.

Not so long ago it’d have been more than just me and the kid, thought Julius morosely. But if the government didn’t want to federalize the project, then, well, it was now a matter of weeks before the money dried up and fossilized too.

‘Damn it all to hell!’ cursed Julius suddenly, his voice echoing off the rocks and into the distance. Ned stopped.

‘What’sa matter Jules?’

The Archaeologist surveyed his buried kingdom, the bodies of at least fifteen dinosaurs beneath his feet – a once in a lifetime haul if his micro-CT scans were correct.

Julius said nothing, then after a contemplative pause he began to walk. Ned loped behind, eager to see what his friend had to show him.

Day #7

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Stating: The act of one who states anything; statement as the stating of one’s opinions.

Siver: To simmer

Jackstay: A rail of wood or iron stretching along a yard of a vessel to which the sails are fashioned.

—

The Captain’s voice ripped through a momentary silence.

‘Goddamn it Emile! You wanna get washed overboard? I said: “attach yourself to the god damn jackstay!”

Emile, his head still lingering over the portside railing, nodded mutely, then staggered suddenly to one side as another wave hit the small schooner.

The iron wire of the jackstay stretched tautly from stern to bow, never moving or flexing, simply strung like a fossilised washing line. With a webbing harness in his right hand, Emile fought his way across deck, stopping after every step, legs splayed awkwardly as he tried to keep himself upright. He felt like a penguin waddling on ice. The white cresting spray of successive waves snapped at his heels like a Leopard Seal.

“Emile! Goddamn it, if you don’t hook that god damn harness onto that god damn jackstay, I’ll throw you overboard myself!”

Ignoring the Captain and with hook outstretched, Emile half jumped, half fell into the metallic embrace of the jackstay. The satisfying click of the hook locking was a like a hit of opium.

The next wave swept Emile’s feet away from under him; torrents of icy water trying to suck him from the deck, as though swallowing him like an oyster. Emile was left dangling from the jackstay, helpless as the wave washed through the boat. For a moment he felt as if he were flying, but if that were so then why couldn’t he breathe?

A gargled scream; red hot, burning lungs; desperate gulps of air; a punctured aching pleasure. Salty rivulets ran down his face, scratchy like cactus prickles as they were whipped away by the wind. Soaked through, Emile felt probing, icy fingers wrap around and wring the life from every bone. Each breath ragged and painful, his lungs having shrunk back in fear like a snail’s eye.
Emile lay on the deck alongside the numerous fish that hadn’t been lucky enough to be swept back out to sea. Both still, both just about struggling for breath, both slowly fading into darkness.

A probing toe to the ribs slowly brought Emile around. His eyes flickered open and were greeted by a vivid blue sky, empty of clouds as though some celestial plug had been pulled. A shadow fell over his face accompanied by the fishy smell of the Captain.

‘Thought we’d lost you for a minute there,’ he said brusquely, anger being allowed to siver behind a momentary lapse of sentiment. ‘Excuse me if I’m stating the bleeding obvious though, but just what the hell were you doing on the other side of the god damn boat? In the middle of a god damn storm? Without being clipped to the god damn jackstay? Explain that to me Sailor!’

The Captain’s harsh stress on the word ‘sailor’, implied it to be a condescending insult. Emile took it as a compliment. He’d simply been a deckhand before, nothing more, nothing less. He coughed, wincing with pain. His lungs a pair of crushed Coke cans.

‘I thought I saw something…someone in the water.’

The Captain scrutinised the young man, splashed on the deck like bird poo. He pursed his lips and made a thoughtful sucking sound.

‘You and your god damn mermaids…’ he said, tutting with disapproval.

Day #6

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Gerenuk: A slender East African antelope with a long slim neck. It often stands erect on its hind legs leaning against the bush to browse on the higher branches.

Photozincograph: A print made by photozincography

Guardianess: A female guardian

—–

 I sit silently, still as the sun amongst splashes of towering yellowing grass. Every breath is measured, calm and collected so as to not disturb the fragile cocoon I have crafted for myself. I am a new-born hatchling, sequestered away from the world; holed up in some explicitly personal bower, observing innumerable lives ebb past the shoreline of my vision.

Even the slightest move and her ear will twitch; her head will spasm up in shock, nostrils flaring. My target is born to pre-empt danger, to have already vanished by the time it unfurls. One last paranoid glance, left to right, then the Gerenuk pushes herself up, hoofs balancing on the bark of a nearby Acacia tree. It is a curious behaviour, unique and slightly jarring with one’s expectations of how a gazelle should act.

No wonder Waller was so taken by the creature. Its appearance is almost alien-like; the proportions all wrong. A tiny head balancing delicately atop a long, slender neck – just like a spinning plate on a stick. Legs clearly built for speed resemble little more than twigs, newly sprouted boughs, both remarkably limber and sprightly. Bat wing ears flicker amidst the upper branches of the tree. No wonder the Germans refer to it as the Giraffe Antelope.

The Gerenuk’s tongue emerges like a snail from its shell, cautiously exploring its surroundings; a thick, winding black slab of muscle, it wraps around the thorny leaves of the Acacia tree. Crushing them like a snake subduing prey, then expertly stripping every last leaf. Her eyes are always alert and moving, tiny nebulas rolling wildly in her head like a child’s marbles.

A twitch on my hand distracts me. A momentary glance betrays a thin trickle of red ants meandering across my skin, as if I am simply part of the environment. This is good. I have been accepted. They explore my shirt cuffs, pale and sandy, as if they are some new and exotic material they can squirrel away for use in their vast underground kingdom. A few curiously probe the wooden leg of my camera’s tripod, but the thick crust of varnish proves too tough a meal even for these voracious beasts.

I steady my hand, the glass plate already loaded in the camera. I made sure to wake at sunrise and soak it fully in the silver nitrate solution. Funny how a precious metal can capture the world in a tableau. This picture will be my crowning photozincograph. I will be the toast and envy of every collector back in London. No-one has captured the Gerenuk’s likeness before. At least, not yet.

A sudden rustle causes the Gerenuk to pause. I freeze. She slides back down onto all four feet. I hold my breath. From behind a tree a tiny copy of my subject stumbles ungainly forward – a perfect copy in miniature. My knuckles tense. Tenderly, I withdraw the dark slide and capture the picture: A child and its guardianess.

Day #5

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Audience: The act of hearing attention to sounds

Prebendship: Completed by a Prebend, an administrative role in the church

Leptocercal: Having a long slender tail

—–

Huddled into a corner, his body quivering, Reski patiently waited for an audience with the Priest. The old man was currently elsewhere, dealing with matters of importance that generally involved the didactic pleasures of God and Gold.

In the old man’s absence, the Prebendary sat with Reski to keep him company. He was a slight, unassuming man with paper-thin skin and a wilting thatch of hair that resembled the foundations of a small bird’s nest. He had been living in the church for nigh on eighteen months and was finally approaching the end of his Prebendship, an arduous administrative role that required scruples as questionable as the Priest’s himself.

Reski sat silently, listening to the man as he muttered fragmentary stories of his life before the church. The words were hard to understand, relayed in piecemeal, and they filled Reski with an ominous feeling. The hairs on the back of his neck twitched, bristling like flickering candles. His ears trembled as a footstep echoed somewhere in the dark. He shrank back further.

‘Come now,’ said the Prebendary, noticing Reski’s sudden reticence. ‘What scares you?’

Reski remained silent, unable to speak.

The Prebendary watched him carefully, as if expecting a response. However, none was forthcoming except the faint horse-hoof clop of rain on the windows.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Suit yourself.’

Reski was relived. He had never liked the Prebendary, who he knew deep down was a cruel man simply masquerading behind the thick weave of a cassock. Religious administration was such an indiscriminate term that, as Reski saw it, reduced the Prebendary – or should it be elevated? – to a position tantamount to little more than the Priest’s dog’s body.

Seemingly bored with babysitting, the Prebendary broke off a small hunk of cheese from a slab on the table and took a bite. A snail’s trail of spittle clung to his lips like stalactites with each disgustingly wide bite. He washed it down with a goblet of holy water taken from the font. Reski knew that he shouldn’t have done this.

Aware that he was being watched, the Prebendary winked at Reski and said slyly, ‘our little secret…’

As if to barter for his silence, the man tore off a second chunk of cheese – much smaller than the first, naturally – and tossed it towards Reski. He hung back for moment, hesitant, but hunger overcame his apprehension. He ate it quickly, greedily, savoring the rich, milky taste.

‘Good boy,’ purred the Prebendary smugly.

Beyond the weak glow of the candles, a door suddenly opened then closed again heavily. Footsteps followed, echoing as though they belonged to a giant.

‘Holy Father!’ squeaked the Prebendary, jumping to his feet like a natural born sycophant. ‘He is here, just as you requested!’

The Priest’s owl-like eyes focused on the thin wire cage that sat atop the table. Reski suddenly shivered, the cheese forgotten, and defensively curled his leptocercal tail around his small, hairy body.

Day #4

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Almagest: The celebrated work of Ptolemy of Alexandria which contains nearly all that is known of the astronomical observations and theories of the ancients

Cat: Any animal belonging to the natural family Felidae and in particular to the various species of the genera Felis Panthera and Lynx

Antediluvian: Before the flood or Deluge in Noahs time

—–

Standing in line for my morning Starbucks Mocha – one shot, no cream, thanks – I was suddenly struck by the oddest thought: Had there been an antediluvian equivalent of reality television?

Had scribes followed Noah around in the years preceding the flood, talking to the bearded weirdo and his family, chipping every word and embarrassing mishap into hard baked clay tablets? Had people copied these words onto papyrus? Onto vellum? And if so, how many calves had to perish so that the Nephilim could keep up with the Noahs?

‘Yes Sir, what can I get for you?’

‘Mocha to go, one shot, no cream – ta.’

‘And the name?’

I hated this bit. Why did he need to know my name? It was friendliness that veered into the uncanny valley, a pastiche of sincerity – and all for fucking coffee. I liked to challenge them.

‘Almagest,’ I said.

Ptolemy’s masterwork felt like an appropriate pseudonym – after all it was something that had once been deemed utterly essential to everyday life, only to be revealed as full of bullshit and lies centuries later. I liked to think the same thing might happen to Starbucks one day.

The barista gave me a strange look that quickly diluted into one that said ‘ha ha, very funny, I know what you’re doing, but I’d rather keep the green mermaid happy than play your little game…’

‘Ok Sir, just stand at the counter and your drink will be ready shortly.’

Moving past the endless varieties of smartly bagged coffee beans – Colombian, Ecuadorian, Brazilian, Something elseian – I recalled that somewhere in Asia there was a type of coffee brewed from beans digested and excreted by cats…maybe weasels? I’m not sure. Maybe it would come back to me after a caffeine boost.

I lingered amongst the other zombies by the counter, half awake city types, a real army of the walking dead. Every single one of us trying our best to ignore each other, avoiding eye contact, desperately waiting for our name to be called first.

Without social media this must have been what Noah and his family’s fans were like. Zombies stood around waiting to see which animal would turn up next, clay in hand for an autograph that was only going to get washed away at some point. At least, that was the case if you believed what Noah said. ‘Can you chisel “good luck in the flood,” please?’ Pathetic.

‘Almagest!’ called a thick Spanish accent.

‘Here!’  I replied greedily, taking the hot foam cup like a grail and instantly taking a sip. Mmm, liquid corporation.

Pushing through the crowd, growing like a sleepy coral reef, I felt relieved to feel a cool breeze on my face again, the acrid tang of South American coffee now no more than a footnote.

I looked at the side of the coffee cup, curious to see how they’d managed to misspell my misnomer this morning.

Written in thick, black strokes were four letters: ‘CUNT’.

(image via : https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasfitzgerald/)