A Condensed History of North East I - 2nd Part

Part II: Heading East to South East

Heading East once told his shipmates that history is only a thread made up of intertwined decisions and accidents. Everybody agreed, especially the ones who did not give a damn. But nobody agreed with him when he criticized the magnetic compass, claiming that the world’s magnetism would someday shift from the north and be scattered around the world. Of course Heading had no idea about the science behind Earth’s polarity; he just supposed that whatever it was that made the compass work, it would be subject to change. He was aboard the Polos’ ship then, on the waters south of Zaiton, and it was the last quarter of the 13th century CE.

He was an orphan adopted and raised by semi-eremitic monks in the Balkan Peninsula. They named him Heading East because “Heading East” was painted on the intricately patterned cloak that wrapped his toddler frame when the villagers found him. He grew up aware of these facts and that he was not a native of his adoptive country, or any of the nearby lands. When he was old enough to ask questions, it was explained to him that he probably was of Romani ancestry for he did not look like the Balkan people. But that probability was questionable since he did not look like a gypsy either, and the painted words on his cloak were in Greek. Anyhow, he decided he was a nomad.

By the time he was twelve, he had already thrice caused great panic to the monks and their close neighbors, because thrice he had gone away without notice and was missing for weeks. Twice he came back accompanied by traders, and once by Roman Catholic missionaries. During an incident involving religious disagreements between the three Christian church divisions, Heading became interested about Roman Catholicism. He had always been interested in religion, but not due to his faith or anything pertaining to the esoteric, but because of its social implications. Before he reached fifteen, Heading decided to join a group of travelers heading across the sea to Italy in hope of someday meeting the pope.

He asked for his foster fathers’ blessing and explained to them that his goal was all in favor of the Eastern Orthodoxy: To be able to move in and move up and finally have an audience with the Roman Catholic leaders to convince them into an impartial meeting where the said party would 1) apologize for the sacking of Constantinople and 2) open a discussion regarding the reunification of the Eastern and Western churches. The said discussion did push through in the Second Council of Lyon but without much effect in ending the schism. The apology, on the other hand, waited for a thousand years before it happened.

The monks did not give assent but Heading went away anyway, carrying his childhood cloak. He would find later on, on the Silk Road, a textile trader selling fabrics that resemble his intricately patterned cape (but the trader had no clue where the merchandize originally came from, except that they were consigned to him by another trader from Yangzhou City).

In Italy, using his natural aptitude, Heading managed to work his way to be a scribe to clergymen. He became a student of Aquinas after the Dominican priest came back from Rome and before the scholastic theologian lectured in Rome and Bologna.

Heading was in the middle of proofreading the first part of Summa Theologica when he heard news about two brothers’ expedition to the lands of the Far East. From that point, he was fixed on getting to that barely-known land, encouraged that he might somehow find there a clue regarding his origins.

During his stay in the Roman territories, he earned the confidence and friendship of a bishop who was directly under the man who would soon take the place of Pope Urban IV, and a relative of the Polo brothers. With the bishop’s help, Heading expressed to them his predilection to travel, his inclination to chronicle-writing, and his interest in history including events that are yet to happen.

Seeing these points and that Heading looked a bit oriental—plus the fact that even Pope Gregory X advised them to— Niccilo and Maffio assessed that it would be to their benefit to have him along. So Heading became part of the second Polo expedition, taking the place of Niccilo’s son Marco, who was in those days too busy writing journals based on other travelers’ accounts of journeys to the east.

As a deal with the Polos, Heading wrote down details of their voyage, taking care not to make any allusions to his self, and making all his first-person references read as if he was Marco. Unknown to anyone, he kept to himself a separate journal. This journal would be found and used audaciously after seven hundred years by an author with less-than-adequate familiarity with real World History.

They reached their destination mostly by land. Heading East enjoyed the three and a half year long trip, especially when they reached the Silk Road. The journey went on rather smoothly except for the parts that involved: passing a war zone, rerouting because of death-trap ships, Heading getting ill and getting them delayed for a year, passing a land with goiter-causing drinking water and a land of two-sided marital infidelity, crossing an immense lifeless desert, and finally, almost getting into trouble with traders when Heading carelessly calculated that the Silk Road would cease to flourish in less than two hundred years.

Their group was warmly welcomed in Khan land, as Heading called it, and it was there that most of them stayed for the next seventeen years. He liked it there, mainly because of the noodles, and also because of the many fascinating and ingenious things he was to discover, particularly the complex social structure, the express mail delivery system and the use of paper currency. The Polos liked it there too, especially the considerable amount of jewels and gold they acquired.

When he first set foot in that strange but homey land, Heading had no idea that that would be the beginning of his love story with the eastern land. He would be serving the Khan’s court and travel to China, Burma and India. He would be a governor in Yangzhou, where he would fail to trace his cloak’s origins, but would successfully set-up an Italian village.

He would accompany the brothers on their journey back to the west, but only until the ship’s stopover in Hormuz where the real Marco Polo would be waiting.


Six Centuries Later

Middle East had no idea about the life of his forefather Heading, not even about the man’s existence. He had been right there in the country where his great ancestor started his unaccredited-for carving of history, but he had to flee. Little did he know, too, that he himself would make his own mark in the human-recorded timeline, albeit in a shady manner.

Middle and his common law wife Maria were already out of Italy and far beyond the ‘Ndrangheta’s grasp when they confirmed they were expecting an offspring. They reached France before the fourteenth year of its Third Republic. They had barely any money in their pockets, and their pockets were all in the clothes they were wearing because they did not have any luggage. That cross-country journey was an impromptu one.

He took on several blue-collar and sometimes odd jobs, never one at a time, to save enough money to prepare for his would-be family. He worked as a circus guard, a messenger, a plumber, a carpenter, a tin-smith, a hansom driver, a magician’s assistant, a fire-eater, a knife-thrower’s target, a potato-peeler and then a cook in a questionable restaurant, a private cook, a butcher, a milkman, and other jobs that could not be listed because of lack of proper title. Unfortunately, he also had been a gambler, and he never had the skill for that. He sometimes had to resort to dirty jobs as well; like for example, chimney cleaning, drainage de-clogging, and waste collection; and dirtier but well-paying jobs like unconsented possessions-transferring, unendorsed night-banking, and gossip-writing.

When he was young, Middle dreamt of being a doctor. They stayed in India during his youth and his father Far East had told him many times about Ayurvedic people being amazingly advanced in the field of medicine.

Their ancient healing practices date from up to 1500 years before the time of Hippocrates, and this is not about witch-doctors but actually scientific methodical know-how. Far often mentioned that the Indians were experts in various areas of health-protection, curing diseases and treating injuries. They were proficient in dentistry (even tooth-drilling), rhinoplasty, lithotomy, eye surgery, and other forms of surgery and therapy. They would have reached the level of neurosurgery even before the rise of major western civilizations, had it not been for the introduction of an Asian religion that Far did not specify.

Of course, Middle had no means to verify his father’s stories, and he was aware of the likelihood that these were fictitious. But still, he was fascinated and he believed, he took high regard for the Indian people, and most of all, he was inspired.

Sadly, young Middle never had the chance to go to school. Yet, he liked to read: Borrowed books about medicines, biology, botany, mathematics, physics, geography, international histories, philosophies, religions, and arts; picked-up or collected leaflets and manuals about practical mechanics and first-aid. These readings would prepare him as much as necessary for the various jobs, even the odd ones, which he’d have to take when he was old enough to be on his own. But he would never be a doctor.

His father’s occupation of constant transferring from one place to another had cost him having any formal education and, in turn, his one dream profession, thus earning him only frustration.

But being a traveler had its up side. He got to see a lot of places and races, and he had learned much about various cultures. Blending in had never been a problem. Starting from Heading, every East and his son was naturally skilled in absorbing the traits and custom of the people of wherever he sets foot. The Easts were fast learners of languages, traditions, beliefs, accents, and collective psyche. In return, the places and people absorbed them well, not yet counting the fact that every East bears the looks that nobody in the world would think of as foreign. More than twenty generations (from Heading to Middle) and self-preserving heredity have perfected the assimilation ability. This could have been more than enough compensation for Middle’s lack of classroom education, but he never thought of it that way.

Every job he took only reminded him that he was not a doctor. He may not have had any proper schooling, but that did not mean he was an idiot, and certainly not one to fool himself into thinking that he was happy and that what he was doing were enough for fulfillment.

He got depressed eventually, and soon succumbed to unhealthy dependencies. He took to alcohol, nicotine, compulsive gambling and morphine. He even became a morphine dealer, and when they get to Britain, he would be a supplier to the brother of his future friend Mycroft Holmes.

Middle, however, always stayed away from females-for-rent regardless of his penchant for vices. This was due to a couple of reasons. First, he was cautious against the kinds of diseases they might carry. Second, he had learnt to love Maria during those months they had been together, although not as much as he loved the child in her womb.

Despite his down sides, he always made sure their savings never go anywhere near negative. He never laid a finger to hurt her, never raised his voice to her, and never treated her improperly, even in his most unsober moments. He kept her warm. He kept her safe. He kept her from any hunger, and he kept her happy as much as he could. To him, that was the meaning of love.

But that love would never be reciprocated. Much worse, it would be inverted and would lead to one of the most horrific series of morbidity in the history of crimes. This would happen in the east of London, right after his son North’s third birth anniversary.


Three Decades After

North East I had two sons: North II and South. Like all the Easts before him, he brought forth no daughter. All the Easts were male, from Heading East to South East.

As in the case of all his forerunners, only one of his sons would survive childhood, but that had been enough for propagation so far. Conversely, unlike all the Easts that came before North and South, it would be with the two of them that their bloodline would stop.

North East II died in a car accident. South East, the younger of the siblings, was four years old when the tragedy took his brother’s life away. Before he turned five, he disappeared.

These were the bitterest taste of fate that North East I ever experienced in his life. The consecutive blows struck hard through his heart and mind. They were too much even for someone like him, who masterminded the death of his own father.

Losing two sons in a span of a few months was unbearable, especially since he was rendered helpless by a strange human phenomenon. This deteriorating evolution that North East I went through will be called the Eli Syndrome. It would be the Split named Evan Timor who would call it that, for the sake of giving it a name to refer to, and because of the man who would experience the same peculiarity. But that man known as Eli would not be a part of their story until the years nearing the next millennium.




Continued on Part 3: North's Revolution
Previous: Far East, Middle East, and Italy

Copyright 2008 Klaro de Asis

A Condensed History of North East I

From the words of recently collected journals, reports, hearsays, and correspondences


Part I: Far East, Middle East, and Italy

This is one of the browse-through side-stories about the history of North East I: Counting back events from several years before his Splitting up to the era of the first East, six centuries and one decade before he became Maiv Norte and Evan Timor. He used to be only one, a lone child of a Victorian era traveler who crossed continents until he (the traveler) found himself broke in the bowels of—as his (the traveler’s) friend Mycroft’s brother would call it—the great cesspool.

London was not the most beautiful city to be in those days despite the picturesque daguerreotype reproductions we see in books, and despite of the amazing progress that the 64-year period brought in. It was also not particularly profitable from our people’s perspective as it was a hundred years before it would be a lucrative place to be an overseas worker, and more than a hundred years before a bigshot third-world Media Empire would have picked it up as location for a big-bucks blockbuster. But nevertheless, North East I worked there as a nurse at a very young age.

North East I was North East I’s real name. He was the son of Middle East and the grandson of Far East. Middle East was the second in a brood of three, but both his brothers have died in two separate battles; both of which were kept secret from the rest of the world and were done in unpopulated sea banks between India and Egypt, and both of which together were the totality of The Secret West Asian War. After the young men’s death, Far East brought himself, his wife, and Middle back to their oriental homeland. They were almost out of funds and the three of them would have traveled home by foot, but Middle’s mother Perlas didn’t have any. Luckily for them but not for a British tourist they came across in Syria, Far was a first-class swindler. The con he pulled was later restaged by North’s friend Victor Lustig, in a much grander scale involving the Eiffel Tower.



About three years later since they got home, Middle decided to go back to the west, but much father west this time. He planned to retrace Marco Polo’s route even though he barely had an idea who Marco Polo was. He only used the idea to convince his father to help finance his trip. The old man agreed and opted that all three of them must go. To lower their traveling expenses and ensure faster journey, Middle killed his mother and framed a nonexistent rogue for the crime. But he was not as cold blooded as anyone would hastily surmise, for he even gave his mother an ample headstart to run. He would later confess to Mycroft that he committed the murder to save the poor old woman from further difficulties.

When father and son reached the shores of Naples, Far figured they should stay in that province for a while until they make more money to continue their journey. The old half-Chinese had no idea they were only a few days away from where Marco Polo’s expedition ended, but then again, neither did Middle. Instead of moving north, they went to look for lodging in Campania.

They felt at home in Italy mainly because of the noodles. For a short time, they made honest living working as cobblers in a small shoemaking shop, where they prognosticated about a future shoemaking industry boom in Asian sweatshops for around one-third the European production cost.

One day, a neighborhood gang who called their group Famiglia abducted and killed the shoe shop owner, because that man reportedly raped the daughter of a barber deeply indebted to him. Far was so amused by the idea of the Famiglia (and with some research, he found out they were composed of enduring cammorristi) that he made up his mind to again go back to his native home and establish an organized society which would be the first Triad. And he will call it that, as it would be patterned after the likes of the Three Harmonies Society. The following week, he joined a caravan to the east.



Before his old man left him to travel alone, Middle had been starting to get disturbed of Far's crazy ideas about the future that they wouldn’t even live long enough to see. That future can be witnessed by his soon to be born son, though, if the then unborn North lives to be more than a hundred years old. Middle’s pregnant girlfriend Maria mentioned about a traveling band of sellers selling miracle- medicines that promise to keep their consumers forever young. The two of them laughed, because that was something to laugh at. Then, Middle’s mind backtracked to where his family got its strange-for-Asian surname.

Their first names, he understood, were only a product of his grandfather and father’s uncanny sense of humor. It was being an East that bothered him. He realized he wasn’t even sure they were Asian. They looked Asian, yes, but only as much as they looked a little of every other race. The real reason he wanted to go places was because he was looking for somewhere to rightfully fit in, because he never felt at home in any one of the dozens of towns and cities his family had lived in: not in Nanjing, Hangzou, Wuhen, Changsha, Hanoi, Chiang Mai or Kolkata; and not anywhere in the other countries they've been: not in Nepal, Jordan, Syria, Greece, Bulgaria, or Romania. Not that he could not fit in anywhere, it was exactly the opposite of that. He could fit in perfectly with any group of people, but he never felt contented. He would later be convinced that his search was futile and they have no real need to find any answer. He would die happy, in the hands of a corrupt French deputy named Daubreq.



Middle met Maria, daughter and solo child of a deceased couple, in Reggio Calabria. She inherited their small house and set it up as a traveler’s inn when they died, a year before their northward journey. Middle was her first customer ever since the inn was first opened. On the first night, Middle complained of bedbugs. So on the second night, they shared Maria’s bed.

Middle found out the morning after that Maria was affianced to a young influential farmer with connections in the local ‘Ndrangheta. He found this out because he woke up to a house reluctantly noisy with half a dozen mobster mob. The small army was made up of men with knives and quaint handguns and pre-Winchester shotguns. None of them attacked. Middle gathered they must be waiting for someone, but he had no idea what in the world was really happening and where Maria was, and why that lady did not make him breakfast. He got up, pulled on his chinos and shirt and snapped his suspenders as he listened to the loud whispering of the rural gangsters. All he was sure of was it was trouble. He pushed a stool against the door just to give them an impression later that he meant to keep them out somehow while he was trapped in, and thus he bought himself some time, which he suddenly realized he did not need anyway.

Maria was at that time outside the house, flat on the grassless ground a few tens of feet away, and crying the dusty earth off her eyes. Vincenzo, her betrothed, left her there like a hostage with three lads each armed with either a cudgel or a crop. When the fiancée went into the inn and kicked the bedroom door open, he found nobody there.

This was because Middle went out through a window, yes, as simple as that, and then went around the back of the house. Upon realizing that the five or six fools plus Vincenzo were too eager to deal him some damage that they all waited by the bedroom door, Middle nonchalantly walked towards escape. But he saw Maria with the lads and remembered she might be starting to bear him a son, so he walked up to the three of them, aware that these guards had no idea who their enemy was. He gave the three the news that the beating had begun in the inn and said they should not let the older boys have all the fun.

However, Vincenzo was not much of a fool like those uomini who were left clueless. Upon being sure the empty room was really empty and after checking under the bed and in the closets, he blasted out without any word to anyone, except for the call for his horse. Middle had shirked them and now Vincenzo wanted to get him alone.

He saw Middle and Maria riding behind a hay cart, sped up his steed, managed to catch up within a yard from them, and finally fell down to his death when Middle speared him with a pitchfork, which he dodged, but caused him to be dismounted for he was too busy fumbling with his pump-action 24-incher weapon that he forgot to hold on to the twine and the steed. He fell down head first in high velocity on a rock, eighteen feet below beside a cliff. Vincenzo was not much of a fool, but only enough of it to have had himself killed that way.

Middle and Maria escaped the ‘Ndrangheta and traveled northwestward to France. That is where North East will be born and Middle would be killed, but the latter event would happen on another trip several years away.




Continued on Part 2: Heading East to South East

Copyright 2008 Klaro de Asis

Shake Hands

Circa Alamat ng Gubat days. Ergo, another reblog. Masyadong mabagal ang 28kbps para sa youtube kaya naghalungkat na lang ako sa virtual bodega ng mga pwede pang i-garage sale.


I think I do not know how to draw anymore. At least not the way I used to draw in my younger years, when my desk was folded broadsheet and my back was not prone to sculiosis because I drew on the sofa lying on my tummy. Now I'm too big to fit comfortably on the sofa and my tummy forbids me from lying flat.

Not that my drawings are virtually deteriorating. It's all in my head, maybe. Or my hands. I used to be very confident when holding a pencil. Even before I was trained to draw straight lines without a foot rule, I could make continuous strokes. Clean strokes that make clear figures. When inking, even with a Pilot 0.5 sign pen used to be able to make fine curves. Hands flowing smoothly.

Now I cannot even execute simple arcs without at least doubling the drawing path. The pencilled drawings look furry, and the inks tend to thicken. My 0.1 pen leaves 0.5 marks. I feel disturbed, I can not draw as I want to anymore. I can't make my works appear as I want to. On less giving occassions, my hand slips from the supposedly predetermined path and creates a "scratch", as I want to call it. When this happens, compulsively try to fix it by making the crossed lines even thicker. Now the 0.5 becomes 1.0, then I try to make all the other lines thicker, unless I want to emphasize my blunder. After I'm done with the lousy cover-up, I realize that I just made it even worse. I stare at it for five minutes convincing myself it looks alright. I spend another five minutes staring blankly hearing voices inside my head shouting "you could've just erased the small scratch in photoshop, dimwit!"

Then I spend two hours in remorse because I have to do the whole drawing all over again. Sometimes, while pencilling, I stop to look at my drawing hand and see if I am "pasmado". Turns out I'm not. My hands are steady. The right one just shakes when I need to make fine and smooth strokes. So the problem is not physical but psychological. This began only when I accepted an illustration job. Must be the pressure, it may be affecting my confidence in some ways. Or it must be the lack of practice. Must be the decrease of practice.

I used to draw in my every free time when I was in gradeschool. I draw anything I want to; from cute cartoon characters to superheroes; from still life to comic books; from landscapes to imaginary objects; plain pencils to paintings. I became limited to comic book characters and editorial cartoons in high school. When I got into Fine Arts, I almost lost interest in drawing.

*****

My first year in college made drawing lose it's magic of escapism and fantasy; it became a requirement, a chore, a classcard marker. It made my favorite hobby a burden. 25 hours a day would not be enough to finish all the plates, beating deadlines for other subjects not counted. My IQ fell five points. My creativity took an indefinite leave to make way for MacGyver-type time-and-money-saving teqhniques. Left brain interchanged with the right.

Then I realize that I hated drawing. I hated art.

I found something I can put my mind to, to get away from the succubus cycle. Thank heavens for HTML.

Summer vacation came and I discovered photoshop. I discovered a new hobby. Which became useful for the sophomore and junior subjects.I went back to making freehand artworks because I was no longer forced to by academics. I became less grade conscious and I learned to dare to draw in front of lecturing professors.

But these drawings were merely scribbles. I did not regain my "every drawing good drawing" mindset. I no longer spend my free time drawing. It felt better to read comics or sleep, which I also did in front of lecturing profs.

*****

So much for a summary of my drawing history. Now my mind wanders back to the shaky hand situation. Tsk. Oh well, probably after this illustration job I'll be able to create those clean, smooth, fine lines again.

Killing the Drama

This is a rerun post. I took an oath half a decade ago to re-enter blog entries whenever a blogsite of mine dies and I start a new one. As for "Four Kittens and a Funeral", the kittens have turned to cats now and ideally, funerals are supposed to be forgotten after 40 days.



Killing the Drama Dahan-dahan ang hakbang. Sumisirko ang diwa at halos napasuray siya sa paglalakad. Sa pag-alalay ng isang pamilyar na poste ay napansin niyang binabati na siya ng kanyang tahanan. Bumukas ang pintuan at sumalubong ang kanyang pinakamamahal na asawa, mayroong gumuguhit na ngiting pilit itinatago mula sa mga labi nito. Batid niya ang pag-asa nito lalo na nang hawakan nito ang kanyang braso papasok... Ngunit tumigil siya, at tumindig, pumirmi sa tapat ng pintuan. Ayaw niyang sirain ang kasiyahang iyon ng kanyang pinakamamahal, kahit na hindi nya alam kung ano ang dahilan ng ligayang iyon. Paano niya sasabihin dito ang katotohanang ibinalita ng kanyang doktor? Bahala na, wika niya sa sarili. Aaminin na niya... basta sasabihin niya; "Hon, sorry, imposible talaga tayong magkaanak...baog ako mula pagkabata..." Ngunit bago pa man maibuka ang kanyang bibig, tinabingan ito ng kanyang asawa ng isang mapagmahal na daliri. Kasabay ang isang matamis na ngiti, malambing at marahan nitong sinabi sa kanya: "Hon! Buntis ako!"