Left To Die

Originally titled 'The Hole' and published on Yahoo Voices

The blazing sun tortured the partially dehydrated man laying in the sand. A trail of blood drops revealed the path Jim had crawled. Jim grimaced and placed his hand on his side. Under his hand, his shirt was soaked with blood. He was breathing heavily and used his other hand to wipe the sand off his sunburned face. There was nothing but sand for as far as he could see. No water. No shade. No sign of civilization. 50 yards behind him was the convertible he could no longer drive. The driver's door had several bullet holes in it. The car could provide no shade for him. The sand was almost unbearably hot.

The people who took revenge for a crime Jim did not commit had disappeared 24 hours ago. They left him without water and without food. They left him to die, but he was determined to live. He remembered exactly how it happened...

Three days ago, he was at his girl friend's house to gather his belongings. Their relationship had ended with loud arguments, punched holes in walls and warnings from her brothers to stay away from her. He knocked on the front door. Judy did not respond. He did not have a key. He walked around the house tapping on every window and calling for her. He figured that she was not answering the door because she was angry at him. He stood outside the bedroom window for a few moments before walking back to his car. Perhaps it would be better if he came back another day. A neighbor peered out her window as he drove away. She went to the phone and called the police.

Inside the second floor bedroom, Judy's beaten body laid on the floor. The room had been ransacked and the box of expensive jewelry was missing. The closet had been ransacked and the clothes Jim wanted to retrieve were missing.

He had known her brothers to be hot tempered. He had been in more than one scuffle with them. So he chose a time when they were not there to get his stuff. It normally to an hour to drive across the small desert to her house.

After Jim had left, the police and her brother's appeared at ther house. Her brothers also knew that Jim drove the same road across the desert to go to work. They waited for him,chased him and shot him.

The sand blowing in his face interrupted his memories. The hot breeze was welcome. Ten yards ahead of him, something was in the sand. He could not see it but he could hear it. The sound of a piano. Jim thought he was hearing things. He pulled his body forward to the spot where the sound orignated. There he found a hole big enough to lay in. The wind was increasing and the blowing sand was stinging his face. He crawled into the hole and laid there. He fell asleep and woke up an hour later.

He sat up and looked around. He was feeling good. He remembered his wound and wondered why it did not hurt. He put his hand on his side. His shirt was dry. No blood. The air was cool and the breeze was refreshing. He was not thirsty. He was not hungry. He crawled out of the hole and immediately felt excruciating pain in his side. He felt his side and looked at the blood dripping off his hand. He crawled back into the hole and looked at his hand and shirt. The blood had disappeared and the pain was gone. He laid there and drifted into unconciousness.

Jim looked down at a truck that came down the road and stopped by Jim's car. The man in the truck saw the body in the sand and used his cell phone to call the police. Everything was okay. Jim was feeling wonderful as he watched the ambulance come and carry his body away.

Book Review: Lord of the Flies

Originally published on Yahoo Voices

The first time I heard about William Golding's Lord of the Flies, I was a junior in High School. My cousin gave me the book to read. He said it was a real good story. I agree. One day, I took a walk to the local park and sat on the bench. I read the whole book in one sitting. I liked it. I did several book reports on this book in school and in college.

Lord Of The Flies is a story of a group of children being taken to safety during a world war. The plane never reaches it's destination. It crashes near an island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Unfortunately, all adults on the plane die and the children are left to fend for themselves on the Island.

Two kids, Ralph and Piggy find a conch which they use to call a meeting . The conch is the symbolic representation of a civilized society. At the meeting, Ralph is elected chief and Ralph appoints Jack, the head of a choir, as head of the hunters. The group decides to build a signal fire using Piggy's spectacles. This first fire, that spread to trees on a small plateau, was the scene of the first death.

Jack and his hunters have seen pigs on the Island. They decide to hunt and kill the pigs for food. When they encounter the first pig, Jack hesitates to stab it because he is not use to the site of blood. But Jack and his hunters soon overcomes this obstacle. At some point, Jack and his hunters paint their faces because they think the pigs see them

Piggy suggests starting a signal fire so they might be rescued. Piggy also states that maybe their moms and dads know where they (the kids) were going, but nobody knows where they are because they never got there! Perhaps that is why when Jack was on his first hunt, he borrowed some boys who were on the top of the "mountain" (on the island) and left the signal fire unattended.

Everything goes fairly smooth until the little kids start talking about a beast on the island. At first, Jack, Ralph and Piggy dismiss this as the little kids having nightmares. But the stories of a beast persist.

The fear of this beast becomes the turning point of the story. Fear drives people to do many things they later regret; especially those who become use to the shedding of blood. Everything comes in steps. First, hesitating to spill blood, then killing the pigs for food, then ...

Piggy claims that there could not be a beast because if there was a beast, nothing in the world would make sense. When Simon, a member of Jacks choir, is ask what he thinks the beast is, his answer is that maybe it is just the kids: All the kids including Simon.

One evening, Ralph says a prayer that there be a sign from the adult world before he goes to sleep. His prayer is answered. There was a sign that night, but the sign was misinterpreted. A dead parachutist lands on top of the mountain. The twins, Sam and Eric are one level below the top maintaining the signal fire. They hear a noise and peek at the next level to see the dead man in a parachute. But what they think they see is a beast that bulges: The bulge caused by the parachute being blown by the wind. They become petrified, panic and run down the mountain to tell the other kids what they saw.

This marks the beginning of the end. The conch is used to call a meeting and the frightened twins tell their story. Jack, Ralph and the hunters go up the moutain to find the beast, but run away in a panic when they see it. At a second meeting, Ralph insults Jack. Jack and his hunters leave to set up their own place to live. Piggy tells Ralph to blow the conch and call them back and try to unite the kids. Piggy said that if Ralph doesn't try to keep everybody together, they will all become savages. But Ralph doesn't blow the conch. He says that if he blows the conch and the others don't come back, they will all become savages anyway.

As Jack an his hunters walk along the beach, they start to chant "Kill the beast, cut his throat, spill his blood!" Soon it will become much more than a chant. Soon more blood will be spilled and not all of it will be the beast's or a pig's.

The meaning of the title of the story Lord Of The Flies comes out in one scene in the story. Simon decides to go up the mountain. Ralph, Piggy and the twins do not follow. Simon finds a nice thick bush and crawls under it. He watches Jack and his hunters carry a pig to a spot not far from him, cut off the pigs head, stick a stick sharpened at both ends into the ground and place the pig's head on the stick. They offer this gift to the beast so that it might not bother the kids. The Jack and his hunters leave the scene, but Simon remains where he is.

What follows is an exchange of words between Simon and the pig's head on the stick. The pig's head on the stick is referred to as the Lord of the Flies. The Lord of the Flies asks Simon who he thinks the Lord of the Flies is. Simon replies that the Lord of the Flies is a pigs head. The Lord of the Flies states that Simon is all alone with only the Lord of the Flies to protect him and claims it is the beast! The Lord of the Flies is amused by the fact that the kids think they can kill the beast. Then the Lord of the Flies states that it is the reason why things are falling apart on the island. It gives Simon credit for having known that the Lord of the Flies is part of everyone on the island. This scene confirms that the beast is a part of every kid on the island and warns Simon not to tell the others or the kids will "do" Simon. But Simon ignors the warning.

This scene reveals that the Lord of the Flies is much more than just a pig's head on the stick: The Lord of the Flies is evil. To figure out who the Lord of the Flies is, we turn to mythology. In mythology, there is an evil god named Beelzebub. Beelzebub represents decay, destruction, and demoralization: Exactly what took place on the island. The English translation of the word Beelzebub is "Lord of Flies."

I skipped many details in the above description of the story and I'll not tell the remainder of the story so the reader can read the book.　

Christ of the World

This is Joyce's graphite sketch on non-textured paper. Christ looms suspended in front of a geometric cross; no longer by the nails that once held him fastened but by compassion for our world. The tear that runs down His cheek and the blood droplets that emanate from His hands testify to His love for us as individuals as wells as communally as a planet. The scroll above his head that once proclaimed Him 'King of the Jews' is now empty for it cannot contain the His true title 'Son Of God, King of All.'

This was originally published on Yahoo Contributor Network by my wife Joyce Gentile and is published here with her explicit permission.  We also published it on our websites www.mtgent101.com