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Death’s a Real Mother

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One night Death came to take a woman’s only son to the Underworld. Just as he was drawing back the boy’s blankets, Death spied a light from the corner of his empty eye. He turned his creaking neck to see the boy’s mother clutching a candle to her chest. She recoiled from his skeletal gaze, tears flowing from her puffy eyes.

“Woman,” Death said, “there is no need for tears. The disease in the boy’s bones is done. I have come to take him from this place of pain.” The woman, still trembling in fear of the horror before her, drew a long breath and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I know,” she said, “but I will do anything for just one more minute with him.” “Is that so?” replied the Reaper. “Yes,” said the woman. Death asked, “Even if it means giving up all that is good in the thing you love most?” “I love my son more than life itself, and you’re taking him from me either way. Name your price, fiend, and I will gladly pay it,” said the woman.

“Very well,” said Death with a hollow sigh. “The currents of the river Styx are turbulent, and my boat must be carefully balanced or it will surely tip,” he continued. “Find another soul to balance my boat, and you will have your moment with the child.”

The woman nodded and turned away. She walked briskly down the hall, rounded the corner to the kitchen, and drew the longest knife from the block. The woman then spun on her heel to retrace her steps. At the end of the hallway, the woman stopped to think.

She peered into her son’s room at the robed figure hovering at her son’s bedside. Death slowly nodded at the woman. Clutching the knife in one hand, her candle in the other, she crossed the hall to her own chamber.

The light from the candle danced across the blade of the knife, casting terrible beams upon the drooling, snoring face of her husband. The woman gripped the knife handle so hard her knuckles cracked. “Please forgive me what I am about to do, dear husband, but I love my son more than anything,” the woman whispered as she approached the bed.

The first slash was deep and true, perforating the windpipe and opening the carotid. The second and third strikes decimated the remaining vascular tissues. The husband awoke in a font of his own blood just as the fourth, and final, blow caught his spinal cord. The now-paralyzed husband could do little more than stare in disbelief at his wife as his lips moved to suck in air like some beached fish.

The woman climbed into bed next to her dying husband. His lifeblood flowed freely, and a low whistle played in his mangled throat. The woman repeated a mantra in her husband’s ear: “For our son… for our son.” She stroked his hair and face until the whistling stopped.

Once her husband was dead, the woman returned to her son’s bedroom. Death let out a bony chuckle as the woman handed him the murderous weapon. Tears again wet the corners of her eyes. “There. You have your soul,” she said. “Now give me my son.” “My boat will certainly float well tonight,” Death said, “but there is another task I require of you.” “But I just killed my husband,” the woman exclaimed, “I thought…” Death interrupted the widow. “And I thought you said you’d pay any price.”

The woman cast her eyes down at the floor. “Yes,” she said. “Anything for my boy.” “Hmm, I suspected you’d say that,” said Death. “My task is lonely and thankless. For centuries I have searched for someone to share in my suffering,” he continued. As Death spoke, the horror of what was to be asked of her slowly dawned on the woman. In a whisper at first, then rising to a near scream, the woman voiced her objection: “No… no… no… no!”

“No?” the Reaper questioned. “I offer you that which you have asked for – a chance to share one final moment with your son – and eternal existence beyond that, and all you can say is ‘No?’” Death probed further. The woman, desperate now, fell to her knees before the robed specter. “Please,” she pleaded, “I know you will carry on as you always have after tonight, but my world has been destroyed. Give me my moment with my son, but do not ask me to betray my husband a second time tonight. It is more than I can bear.”

Death roared with hollow laughter. “More than you can bear? Imagine how he must feel,” he said. At this, the woman, crushed by her guilt and grief, wept silent tears.

After what seemed like hours, Death held his hand out to the woman. She took it and rose to her feet. “You have a choice to make, woman; become my bride and see your son live for a few more moments, or walk away and begin to rebuild the tatters of your life,” Death said. The woman looked up into the empty pits where Death’s eyes should be. “I love my son,” she said. With that, she reached down and pried her wedding ring from her finger. She placed it in Death’s open hand, where it melted away.

Death pulled the third finger from his left hand off, and twisted it into a gruesome ring of bone and sinew. “With this ring I thee wed,” he said, “Take it, and you will know my touch only once.” The woman nodded, and held out her hand to accept the token. Death slid the ring on to her finger. The woman clenched her left hand, the weight of this new ring foreign to her.

“Now, of course, the marriage must be consummated,” Death said. The woman nodded silently and unbuttoned her bloodied nightgown. She slid it off her shoulders, and it fell to her feet. Her nude body looked almost as gaunt as her new groom’s in the pale moonlight. As she gazed, unfeeling, at the pile of clothes on the floor, Death slid his finger down the front of his robes, undoing them as if zippered. His skeletal body nearly glowed.

The woman finally looked up from her nightgown to see the horrid figure before her. She began to ponder how he could take her without flesh and blood to fill his form, but before she could finish the thought, he was upon her and inside her. She expected him to be cold, but found his touch to be as a furnace. Pinned against the wall by her son’s closet, the fiend’s breath singed her hair. She opened her eyes for but a second, and nearly shrieked. The sockets of Death’s skull, formerly empty, now blazed like magma.

The woman turned her face from him, and his moans of pleasure burned her neck. Bony hand prints scarred her breasts, and her thighs blistered. Within minutes, it was done. The woman fell into a heap on the floor.

“Dress,” said Death as he callously tossed the nightgown at the woman. His robes had re-formed, and his eye sockets had returned to the empty pools of darkness they were before. “You have done all I asked as payment for a minute with your son before he is taken from this world,” the Reaper continued, “but he should not see you like this.”

The woman pulled the gown over her shoulders, and began to button it. Each movement now took tremendous effort from her abused body. The cloth’s soft, cotton touch felt as though wool on sunburn. She winced as she finished dressing.

The woman took her place at Death’s side as he reached down to open the boy’s eyes with his bony fingers. “Awaken,” he said. A fog rolled out of his mouth, and encircled the boy. The room grew noticeably colder. The boy’s eyes fluttered for a moment, and then he began to scream.

“Momma, it hurts! Help me, momma, please!”

The boy writhed in agony, thrashing in his sheets, and clenching his teeth until they cracked. Though she tried, the woman could not comfort her son; she could not hold him. She wanted to cry, but there were no tears left in her body. She wanted him to know she loved him, but her words were drowned in the child’s screams. Finally, after a minute had passed, the boy’s body fell limp, and his anguish was again extinguished.

With fire in her own eyes now, the woman turned to Death. “You monster!” she screamed. “I’m the monster?” Death asked, incredulous. “I, who came to take your son from pain; I, who gave you the chance to deny your selfishness and remain faithful to your family; I am the monster?” Death further probed. “I think not,” he said.

“And now you shall pay the eternal price for your selfishness and faithlessness,” Death said. “You will accompany your son, your husband, and me on the river Styx, and you shall explain your misdeeds to them. They will hate you forever, and you have earned their animosity. Further, whenever a child dies in pain henceforth, it will not be I who reaps their souls; it will be you. You will hear their screams, and in them, your son’s. And you will weep evermore.”

As Death chided the woman, her skin changed and became like gauze. The places where Death touched her darkened to pitch. Her hair grew thin and white. She turned from her son’s bed, and her nightgown dropped to the floor through her body.

Her transformation complete, she could now see the spirits of her son and husband, their eyes filled with tears and fury. She reached out to caress and comfort them, but her hands had become claws, and the glint from her bony wedding ring shamed her. She clasped one hand over the other. She opened her mouth to speak: to explain she was tricked, that she didn’t know – couldn’t know – what Death intended, but only the sound of wailing anguish could escape her.

Death ushered the woman’s former family to his boat. He did not speak to them, but caressed the boy’s hair as he climbed aboard the raft with his father. The woman took her place at Death’s side after a few moments, and he cast off. Silent they floated to Hades.

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Creating a Renaissance for Authors in the Digital Age

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Categories: Essays, Writing, Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Authors are in crisis. The Digital Age, with the rise of eBooks, has expanded potential readership by a degree not seen since the mid-1800s (Collins). However, as readers shift from print to electronic books, piracy looms as an economic threat to authors as it has for musicians. This danger, combined with falling print book sales, exposes the precarious financial position of writers in the 21st century. Each eBook downloaded from the Pirate Bay illegally, each chain bookstore that liquidates its inventory for pennies on the dollar, damages the economic incentives for authors to keep writing (Petit). Some writers may choose to pursue careers other than “author” if they’re unlikely to achieve even modest financial success. The idea of “author” as an occupation, with writers having ownership of their work and entitled to compensation therefore, is a new one, but has become deep-rooted in our culture (Childers and Hentzi 23). Authors expect to be paid for their work just as carpenters do. As Booker Prize winner Graham Smith intimates in his interview with The Guardian newspaper’s Nick Collins, without a change in the business model of authorship, the future of literature is in serious jeopardy.
 
Some may question whether the pocketbooks of authors need saving. After all, they will argue, print is a dying medium and television, movies, and Internet media are the modern replacements. Instead of novels, writers should write screenplays; instead of short stories, YouTube shows; instead of poems, song lyrics. Why read American Psycho when Christian Bale was so good in the movie?1 What’s the point of reading anything Stephen King writes if it’ll end up a watered-down miniseries on NBC? Why bother flipping through a “Clifford” book with your kid when there’s an app for that?
 
First, without the work of Ellis, King, Bridwell, and scores of other authors, many of our contemporary movies, television shows, and Internet media would not exist. Hundreds of movies alone have been adapted from works of fiction, according to the Oxford County Library of Ontario, Canada. Entertainment without books to adapt looks like a 24/7 “Jersey Shore” channel: horrifying.
 
Second, authors play a special role in society, a role worthy of protection. As producers of fiction, authors have a responsibility to tell “the lie that tells the truth” (Childers and Hentzi 110). That is to say a book (print or electronic) is like a looking glass. Fiction, from tawdry romances to high-minded literature, is a commentary on society and culture. Without authors to hold up the mirror, we may forget what we look like, however ugly and beautiful we may be.
 
As the work of authors is important to society, and continued production of fiction depends on some degree of economic benefit to authors, what is to be done to keep authors writing? Maintaining the status quo is unlikely to succeed. The naysayers are right: print is dying. Readers are shifting to eBooks en masse, if Amazon’s sales figures can be believed (Collins). With more electronic books available, Digital Age piracy becomes a threat, and authors are already beginning to feel the same effects of piracy that have strangled the incomes of musicians2. Further, major publishers are all too willing to use the shift to eBooks as an excuse to pay lower royalties to authors (Collins). It’s obvious that an answer to the question of how to maintain financial support for writers must be found. While some have advocated for tougher penalties for copyright infringement and more robust digital rights management software to safeguard writer royalties, the best solution to the economic struggles of authors in the Digital Age is a return to the patronage system.
 
Patronage is “[t]he action of a patron in using money or influence to advance the interests of a person, cause, art, etc.” by the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition (“Patronage”). A patronage system, then, requires people (patrons) to advance the (financial) interests of persons (specifically, writers). During the Renaissance, wealthy individuals and families would patronize artists through commission of poetry, painting, and plays. One of the best-known examples of patronage in Renaissance Italy is that of the Medici family. The Medicis became a prominent and prosperous banking family, with strong ties to the Catholic church and politicians in Florence (Horth). They routinely bought and commissioned paintings and sculpture from the artistic luminaries of their time, including Filippo Brunelleschi, discoverer of perspective – the ability to give the illusion of three dimensions on a two-dimensional surface3 (Horth). In fact, Medici patronage even brought a young Michelangelo into their home to live and work, and Leonardo Da Vinci counted the family among his patrons (Horth). With their sponsorship of artists such as Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Brunelleschi, the Medicis and their wealth could be seen as the driving force behind the Renaissance itself.
 
The benefits of patronage to the artist are obvious – financial support allowing them to pursue their art without the fetters of an unrelated day job. Shakespeare didn’t have to punch a clock at Ye Olde Walle-Marte; his full-time job was poet, playwright. In a letter to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, the Bard acknowledges his privilege (and accompanying responsibility): “…if your honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour” (Brown 28). Edgar Allen Poe also wrote to his benefactor, John P. Kennedy of Baltimore, to “express by letter what I have always found it impossible to express orally — my deep sense of gratitude for your frequent and effectual assistance and kindness. Through your influence Mr White has been induced to employ me in assisting him with the Editorial duties of his Magazine [the Southern Literary Messenger ]” (Poe). Poe and Shakespeare wrote correspondence to their backers in appreciation of the support that allowed them to create.
 
But why did the Earl of Southampton and John Kennedy of Baltimore – and other wealthy patrons, like the Medicis – sponsor writers, painters, and sculptors? A common misconception is that the Renaissance patron bought an artist wholesale and dictated themes, colors, imagery, etc. to the hired creator. Writing for Renaissance Quarterly, Gilbert Creighton confirms this type of dictatorial control was sought by some sponsors; more frequently, however, general themes were suggested by a work’s title, and patron influence on tone and content typically came at the artist’s request and was collaborative. Instead of buying an artist to pull on like a marionette, the majority of Renaissance patrons were looking for “enhancement of their honor and splendor,” leaving details of composition to the painter, sculptor, or writer (Gilbert 446). It was enough for the Medicis to say they sponsored Michelangelo’s creativity – they didn’t need to tell him what to create.
 
Patronage thrived in Renaissance Italy, and it lives on in Digital Age America. Numerous grants and endowments are available to authors. These bequests serve much the same function as the direct commissions in the Renaissance era: support of art for art’s sake. There is a significant obstacle to authors looking to earn a comfortable living from grants and endowments, however. In the current depressed economic climate, funds are drying up. The effects of the Great Recession are presented in stark bullet points in a report by the State of Connecticut’s Commission on Culture and Tourism:

  • Corporate contributors are eliminating gifts entirely
  • Foundations are cutting 50% – 100% from previous levels…
  • Sponsorships have been delayed or decreased
  • Secured funders are delaying payments…
  • Value of endowments reduced 30% or more (Connecticut)

While the facts presented by Connecticut’s Commission are obviously specific only to that state, there is little doubt similar effects are being felt across the country. So, at a time when patronage is of vital importance to struggling American authors, less money is available to support them. Writers cannot hope to earn enough money from grants and endowments alone to continue creating in the current economic climate.
 
Literary prizes present another form of contemporary patronage to authors. Like grants and endowments, prize money presents a difficulty to authors looking to earn a living from their work. Most literary prizes require a reading fee for an author’s work to be considered, presenting a catch-224 to struggling writers; they need the prize money to keep creating, but they need money to apply for the prize. Even the prestigious Pulitzer Prize requires a fee from applicants, according to the Prize’s official website. Obviously, literary prizes cannot be the primary source of income for new writers without a pool of funds to draw upon first.
 
If the patronage of grants, endowments, and prizes are failing to adequately support authors, how is the patronage system the best solution to the economic woes authors face? Just as the Digital Age has exacerbated the financial struggles of authors, it has also presented a novel method of patronage: crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing is “a new form of commerce and patronage” as written by the popular website Kickstarter, one of the main crowdsourcing portals. Under the crowdsourcing model, the public-at-large is asked to support a project directly. A project might be anything from a new iPod dock to a feature-length film – or a book. Projects are presented through portals like Kickstarter, and typically feature videos and other “teasers” to educate potential backers and entice the pubic to support the proposed project. Project creators can set rewards for certain contribution levels which act as incentives to patronize the project5, though these are not required. Additionally, use of crowdsourcing tools like Kickstarter provides free publicity for a project (Kurutz). The success of a given project is decided democratically; good ideas (as defined by funding contributors – patrons) are funded, while bad ones are not.
 
The democratic nature of crowdsourcing overcomes one of the traditional arguments against patronage systems: that they favor the well-connected over the talented. Because which projects are ultimately provided funding is decided by the global online community, the success of a project is based on the strength of the idea behind it and how well it is presented, not on whom the project creator knows and how well they manipulate the bureaucracy of the endowing institution. Connections and influence may help an author gain exposure for their project, but exposure is not the same as money. If one is not interested in the premise of a novel, they’re not likely to give someone money to write it.
 
Of course, there is a legitimate complaint regarding patronage in that many talented writers may yet go undiscovered, unpublished. With a high degree of competition in a global online marketplace, there is no doubt some gifted and innovative authors will still see their manuscripts languishing in the bottom of a desk drawer (or, more likely, in their Google Docs account). Many authors find themselves in a similar position today. With a large volume of manuscripts incoming every day, many editors and literary agents6 cannot give each a thorough reading, and even when they can, publishing houses may be unwilling to risk financial losses on a book without significant market potential (Petit). A book that is well-written and interesting may not be published because the potential return on investment is too low for the publisher to make a healthy profit. Money, not talent, drives the book publishing world today. The possibility of undiscovered talent is no different than the status quo, and is no reason not to pursue a course likely to find more great fiction produced for readers around the world.
 
That the continuation of the status quo is not an acceptable response to the economic dilemma before writers has already been demonstrated, but some have called for continuation of the current publishing model with additional copy-protection and anti-piracy measures as a bulwark against the emerging digital threat to authors. Unfortunately, the promise of uncrackable eBooks is a lie. Cory Doctorow, a prominent technology blogger and science fiction author, points out this fundamental premise of computer science in a 2007 article for the U.K.’s The Guardian newspaper titled “DRM [Digital Rights Management] Vendors Are Pushing The Impossible.” In his article, Doctorow explains how emails and text messages can be securely transmitted with common encryption programs, but media are more difficult to protect because the consumer is the person the encryption is supposed to defeat. We, as consumers, must be entrusted with the decryption keys embedded in our DVD players and eReaders. Doctorow cites the example of “Muslix64,” a hacker who broke the Blu-Ray encryption system – without even being in the same room as a Blu-Ray player. Further, copy protection only has to be cracked once; as soon as the material is available on the Internet, anyone can get the unprotected version without having to do any cracking of their own. Doctorow concludes his article by asking “how long will paying customers stay when the companies they’re buying from treat them like attackers?”
 
Instead of treating readers like potential pirates as publishing houses have, Digital Age authors could instead turn to them as crowdsourcing patrons. Contributors to an author’s book project could, perhaps, be rewarded with special thanks in the front matter of the book at lower contribution levels, and with print copies of the book (signed, even) at higher levels. Piracy of the electronic version of a completed novel could be avoided by making the book free to download. Through another Digital Age marvel – self-publishing – authors maintain complete creative and financial control over their projects, so rewards for contribution, price points for finished products, and marketing budgets are entirely theirs to decide.
 
Decisions about how to combat the ills of the Digital Age are ultimately up to authors. These decisions are of grave import for society, as authors hold a special role as commentators on culture. Authors can decide to continue working within the existing publishing system, hoping for crackdowns on eBook pirates and the largess of major publishing houses. By choosing the status quo, authors are setting themselves up for failure. Publishers are using the eBook revolution as an excuse to pay smaller royalties. There will be no uncrackable encryption system to stop illegal copying of eBooks.
 
Authors can instead choose to pursue patronage. In a patronage system, authors ask their fans to support their work directly. Writers maintain creative control of their projects in such a system, and can work collaboratively – instead of confrontationally – with readers. No patronage will be forthcoming for authors lacking in sound ideas and writing ability, however, so talent and ability will still trump connections and influence in a crowdsourced patronage system.
 
Crowdsourced patronage has been adopted by other creative professionals, such as filmmakers, musicians, and designers. The lessons learned by these vanguards of crowdsourcing should be noted by authors looking to fund their book projects. While crowdsourcing sites like Kickstarter allow an author to raise money to cover production costs of their books and provide instant exposure for the project, they do not provide technical or legal advice (Kurutz). Authors must carefully consider all the costs of their projects, from their time spent writing to shipping fees on incentive rewards. Also, authors will still need to educate themselves on copyright issues, production sourcing, taxes, etc. They must act more as entrepreneurs than entertainers, doing what they can themselves and hiring others to handle work they cannot.
 
Other professions could benefit from author crowdsourcing and self-publishing. By acting as creative entrepreneurs, authors will likely employ others throughout the process of bringing a book to market. No matter how talented the writer, for example, a book’s manuscript ought to be proofread by a professional copyeditor7. The fees for copyediting should be part of an author’s project funding total. Likewise, most authors will need the services of a competent graphic designer to create the book’s cover image. Children’s books may need an artist to illustrate the author’s vision. Additionally, prudent authors will find the services of a competent lawyer and tax advisor indispensable. Should an author find him- or herself unable or unwilling to navigate the crowdsourcing and social media jungles, marketing and public relations professionals could be employed to craft a campaign to increase a book’s or author’s exposure. All of the outsiders an author may need to employ will be paid by the crowd. The positive financial effects of patronage will radiate like mirrored sunbeams from the patron, to the author, then to other professionals – and on to society as a whole.
 
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