The Game: The Stalker

The middle-aged, heavy-set man with dark hair, seldom spoke more than a word. He always watched Serena when he smoked outside in his yard. He smoked across the street facing her front door, while waiting for his bus. He came up behind her in the grocery store, checked her open purse and disappeared, when she saw him.

It soon became apparent that stalking was his game, a game without players. It was fun for him, but it terrified Serena.

“Get out of here!” a man’s low voice commanded one morning, as Serena stood beside her car. She turned to see who was speaking. She saw the man bending down in front of his house. He was trying to stay out of her line of vision, but he was too late. She had spotted him holding his cell phone.

“Get out of here!” that same voice commanded moments later, when she turned on the television in her living room. Suddenly, she realized the voice transmission had come through his cell phone frequency.

Soon, she found other victims including teenage girls.

“Who is this?” a young girl’s voice cried out. “When is this going to end?”

Listening to her words transmitted on incoming airwaves above the sounds of a television program, Serena sensed her fear and desperation.

“How many others is he traumatizing?”  

Over the next few days while listening closely, Serena heard numerous abusive messages above the voices on the television in her living room and bedroom. The living room radio on her cd player conveyed similar messages, as did her bedroom radio. The taped messages came through loud and clear.

Driving past his house one morning, a derogatory message came through her car radio. The second time, it was at almost the same spot.

On her way home a few days later, Serena saw a high communication tower. Looking at the location of the tower in relation to her home, it lined up perfectly with a huge iron cross on the top of a nearby church.  

When consulted about what was happening, the cable company suggested the possibility of radio-television-telephone frequency interference, advising her that adapters operating on different frequencies might help.

Serena had her doubts as this man was obviously a stalker.

The Toy: A Double Tragedy Averted

It was only a toy, or at least that is what Todd’s parents thought when they first bought it for their one year old, at the toy store. It appeared to be a fun toy for everyone including Todd's parents and the small family dog.

Todd played with it for several hours throughout the early evening.

A near tragedy unfolded the next morning, when Todd awakened earlier than normal. He stood up, reached over the side of his crib and picked up the toy that was on his dresser top. He loved its bright colors and the way the parts moved. Soon, the toy was in his mouth. Bit by bit, Todd succeeded in separating the various parts of the toy. He sat in his crib playing with them, quietly. A few of the parts fell on the floor.

Their dog was the first to sense that something was wrong with Todd. In fact, he was the only one that heard him choking.

“Woof, woof!”

Persistent barking and scratching at their bedroom door awakened Todd’s parents. They knew something was wrong and quickly ran into his bedroom.

Todd’s color was already dusky, as he lay unconscious in his crib, surrounded by the various parts of his new toy.

“Call 911!” his mother ordered. Seeing the toy was in pieces, she knew that Todd had probably swallowed one of its parts. It appeared likely that it lodged in his airway and was blocking his breathing. She knew he would suffocate, unless she was able to remove it.

Todd’s mother picked him up and quickly began to do the Heimlich maneuver for children. Fortunately, she managed to dislodge the part of the toy immediately. With Todd’s airway cleared, his mother and father started CPR on him. Moments later, he began to cough, cry and breathe normally. Relieved and tearful, his mother held him close.

A little while later, much to their dismay, the parents wound up doing the Heimlich maneuver on their dog, too. He had swallowed a part of the new toy, too.  

Supermoon: Supermoon Questions

Dean, a grade six student struggling with his homework, stood near the window gazing at the moon. “Is there such a thing as a supermoon?” he asked his sister, Denise, a high-school student. "Isn’t every moon a super moon?”

“Do you know what the earth-moon-sun system is?” she asked.

Dean shook his head.

“On March nineteenth, 2011, there was a supermoon. It was too cloudy to see it, but I wrote an essay on it.”

“You did?”

“The name supermoon was coined by astrologer Richard Nolle, in 1979.” 

Denise had his full attention now.

“A supermoon is…a new or full moon which occurs with the moon at or near (within 90% of) its closest approach to earth in a given orbit (perigee). In short, earth, moon and sun are all in a line, with moon in its nearest approach to earth." 

“With a ruler, I could put the earth, moon and sun in a straight line, right? Could I calculate how close the moon came to the earth with calipers?” asked Dean. “What is ‘perigee’?”

“A perigee-syzygy of the earth-moon-sun system or supermoon is a full or new moon that coincides with a close approach by the moon to the earth.” 

“Perigee-syzygy, those would be great words for a spelling bee, wouldn't they?” asked Dean, laughing as she struggled to pronounce the words.

“Come on, Dean, get serious.”

Suspecting this was beyond his understanding, she cut out three circles, labeled them earth, moon and sun, and placed them in a straight line.

“Great! When the earth, moon and sun are in a straight line and the moon is closer to the earth than usual, it’s a supermoon? I don’t have to do this assignment, do I? I could just use the three circles, right?”

“Dean, do your assignment!”

“Did the supermoon cause the tsunami and earthquake in Japan?”

“You ask too many questions. What do you think?”

The Inquiry: A Criminal Offense

To her, it seemed like a Kafka  kind of inquiry, as the woman’s inaccessible persecutors never revealed their faces much less their whereabouts, throughout the months during which the inquiry transpired.

“What is my crime? Why am I being subjected to continual harassment and torment?”

The accusations continually hurled at her were too vague to pinpoint their origin or source.

“The sins of Eve,” she heard a man's voice state in a distinct voice, transmitted over a communication system that invaded the privacy of her home.

“Ridiculous! Eve’s sins were her own. So were Adam’s.” That was the closest she ever came to identifying her crime. “I claim victory in Jesus’ name.”

Voluntary, solitary confinement in her own home failed to bring about resolution, as did her repeated attempts to respond to the man’s persistent voice.

“I don’t deserve this abuse.”

Soon, other voices spoke in a derogatory manner, too. They always seemed to be the same accusatory voices using a wide range of demeaning, vulgar words. Some were male, others female, but even teenager’s and children’s voices were transmitted.

“I refuse to wear those labels. My accusers should wear them. I never hear those voices when I am not at home. Is this transmission through shortwave radios, or another frequency? Am I the target? Regardless, this is interference.”

With that, she began doing research into different kinds of radio transmissions, soon learning that this had happened repeatedly over the years on different shortwave radios. It was resolved by changing broadband frequencies.

“Radio transmissions which could control or alter human thought patterns,” she read.

It was obvious the crime was on their part.

“Has the nature of man changed? Are these the sins of a new Adam? Isn’t intrusion into one’s home via their communication system, a criminal offense?”

High Tide: Nightfall

Two people stood on the bridge, watching a lone heron perch precariously on one leg while fishing in the shallow water. Their long, dark shadows gradually merged into one. As time passed, the distorted shadow in the water of the little Campbell River, grew longer and finally disappeared. 

A lone woodpecker relentlessly pounding a hole in a tree stump, gave up his task, as night descended. The seagulls standing watch on the crumbling, cement pillars of the old, wooden pedestrian bridge that led to the Semiahmoo Indian Reserve, drifted off to sleep. The nature trail along the river’s edge demarcated by trees, shrubs and long tufts of grass, became deserted. Yellow daisies and white buttercups in full blossom, disappeared in the darkness.

Silence reigned.

It had been a clear evening, but often, a heavy, foreboding mist hid most of the east parkland and the beach. At other times, the bright, warm sun radiated rays of joy and delight that virtually danced on the water.

High tide, when accompanied by angry winds, brought rushing waves of salt water that pounded the beach. The waves, depending upon their size and strength, carried pieces of dark, wet driftwood inland, invariably leaving them stranded in crooked lines, among the stones. Other pieces of driftwood lay partly submerged in the symmetrical waves of silt-like sand from the river. Pieces of driftwood, partially burned during campfires, emerged as huge, chunks of black charcoal.

    

Low tide usually ushered forth a half-mile of sandy ocean beach occupied by treasure seekers. Wet, dark-green seaweed lay in shallow pools of warm water along with brightly colored, smooth stones and vacated clam shells that caught the treasure seeker’s eye. The occasional crab meandered through the sand heading towards the water.

Was this particular nightfall with its foreboding, disappearing shadow, indicative of their future in White Rock? How many more high tides and low tides were there destined to be for them, or would there just be a relentless changing of the tides after the two merged into one shadow, never to return.

The Telephone: Fear of the Telephone:

“Don’t answer the telephone!” Rachelle commanded her psychology student, who was also her boarder.

Amanda nodded. “Aren’t you going to answer your telephone? It might be important!”

Rachelle just let the call go to her answering machine.

Over time, Rachelle appeared increasingly fearful of telephone calls. No one knew why she cringed every time the telephone rang. 

“Let it ring. The answering machine will pick it up.”

Sometimes, after identifying the caller, Rachelle would pick up the telephone and speak to the party on the telephone.

“Don’t answer the telephone when we are not here!”

“What if the call is for me?” Amanda wondered. 

"Telemarketers can be overbearing, frightening and frustrating, because they are so aggressive with their telemarketing. So are creditors,” said Amanda.

Rachelle remained silent.

“Is this real fear, or something imaginary?” she wondered. As a friend and student counselor, Amanda decided to look for a way to resolve this dilemma. No one should be afraid to answer a telephone and yet Rachelle seemed to be.

“Is there such a thing as a telephone phobia?” she asked herself, as she went online to research the topic.  

“Telephone phobia (telephonophobia, telephobia) is reluctance or fear of making or taking phone calls, literally, “fear of telephone.”

“What is she afraid of? Maybe she has been receiving heavy breather calls from a stalker?”

Amanda found numerous possible answers, including fear of embarrassment, related to inappropriate responses like stuttering and stammering.

“Shyness or the fear of having nothing to say should not be her problem. Is this avoidance behavior, or fear of receiving bad, or upsetting news from callers? Is it work related?”

She decided to confront Rachelle, openly.

“There’s the possibility of social phobias, social anxiety or a bipolar disorder related to fear of answering the telephone, but there are organizations like Social Anxiety Anonymous, that help people who have fear of the telephone, Rachelle.”

“Aren’t you going overboard on this?” responded Rachelle, with a smile. “I might as well tell you, as you are going to find out, sooner or later. My husband has another woman and I have a new boyfriend.”    

The Riot: An Election

“Oh no, this looks like a dissident, political student movement. It could turn into a riot!”

Roman, a tall, dark-haired, political science major, stood in the arched entrance way of the huge, concrete building, in the political science arena of the university campus. He listened to the students arguing about the recent election announcement.

Tension grew rapidly, as the growing group of students became even more vociferous.  

“We don’t want an election!"

“Is there some way we can stop this election?”

“God help us all!” 

Roman realized this was becoming increasingly aggressive in nature.  

“This election announcement should not have happened!”

“The politicians in this country might need another election, but do we, the people?”

“Will an election change anything?”

The crowd of stunned young men and women was not about to be pacified. Many appeared upset and pale, as if in a state of shock. Almost everyone seemed to be in panic mode.

Roman knew an election might mean major, long-term, financial implications for university students and their families. One wrong word could trigger a student riot.

“With all of the current, tragic events taking place in the world, what are our politicians thinking by calling an election?”

“A coalition government is not an option!”

Roman knew there had been recent controversy about numerous government issues. There appeared to be no resolution, as the new budget proposal had met with immediate rejection.  

“Would it not be better overall time and energy management, to help other countries?”

“We have to set a good example for others!”

A political science student, a young girl who he barely knew, suddenly stood on the podium in the center of the arena. She picked up the microphone and began to speak above the noise of the crowd.   

“Fellow students,” she stated emphatically. “Settle down! This is a democracy. We settle our political difference s in a peaceful manner, unlike some other countries. Currently, government upheaval is running rampant, all around the world. There have been many recent natural disasters, too. Is this discord, unrest and political chaos, an indirect result of the super moon, too?”   

She had their attention.