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This is going to be a difficult post to read, but it’s words you need to hear. It will be addressed to “you” but readers will substitute themselves in as “you”. It’s like having a 1–1 conversation.Mental heath is VERY important. But so is physical health. We can agree on that. We need the physical strength to get out of bed, stand up, walk, eat, open doors, hold a pen, do a job, and lastly communicate. Those are physical things. Without those strengths, we completely rely on others to do them for us - some people have disabilities and are physically unable to do those motions. It makes for a very tough life.Next, we look at mental health. Can you think your own thoughts? Can you recall memories? Do you see things that aren’t there? Do you have a true, diagnosed and medicated mental illness? Statistically speaking, probably not. You might, but the very largest percentage of the population does not.So we think, “hmmm… I don’t have an physical or mental illness… why don’t my parents care about my mental health?”Now, there is a generation gap associated with the stigma surrounding mental health. When your parents were your age, they had very big problems with finding their own identities, having extistential crisies whole laying awake at 4am, and relationship drama. Not to mention, their generation had many more deaths at our age than ours does. More drugs, too. It’s hard to believe but they had it better than us in lots of ways. But here’s the catch, these problems were just a part of life for them. It was a problem, just like everythig else, and they knew how to deal with it.Now, the one thing we have that they didn’t: social media. It really is a nail in the coffin for GenZ and Millenials. We grew up with technology that dictated everything that interpersonal communication used to. We grew up with a personal “Block you out of my life” button. Our parents didn’t. They grew up with facing problems straight on, and dealing with them. They faced fistfights that resulted in respect, and settled arguments, not suspension and jail time. They were the generation that brought their guns to school simply to learn how they worked and clean them. Yeah, we don’t see that any more. We were brought up in a generation that was taught to be scared. We were told, “just block people you don’t want in your life”. We were told “you’re special”, even if we didn’t have a reason to be.Those things all add up to something new, that almost no generations have seen before: failure to prepare. Millenials and GenZ are much less prepared for their future than other generations. That unpreparedness causes an immense amount of stress. What will my future hold? I don’t even know how to change my car tire. How do I do taxes? How will I ever afford a house?These will be the hard questions of our generation because we weren’t taught basics of living, which used to be learned behaviors. We don’t fix our cars anymore, we don’t balance a checkbook, we rarely use math in our daily lives, and most importantly, we have many fewer laborious jobs. We don’t know how to deal with the little problems our lives throw at us.Sure, we know SOME. But not all, or even most.Can you build something your home needs? Can you fix the lawn mower or your car? Can you replace the wiring in your house if it goes bad? Do you know how to use compass directions to get around your town, or do you use GPS? Do you have a family recipe for dinner, or do you pick up food? Do you have to personal skills to walk up to a bully and tell them to stop bothering you, or do you sit back and take it/tell an adult to deal with it for you? Do you have any volunteer hours or job experience that will qualify you for any better positions? Can you fix a running toilet? Can you change your oil? Do you have your family’s phone numbers memorized, or are they only in your phone?Here’s the bottom line. We aren’t prepared to deal with things our parents consider very basic skills. When we can’t catch up with the rest of the world, it causes stress. Since we don’t know how to deal with that stress, we want to curl up in bed, and let our problems pass. This is what a lot of people call, “taking a mental health day.” I’ve seen it more and more. I took plenty of them myself, and some of them were needed after graduating college, but as I look back, most of them were not. They were just days of me hiding, being sad at myself. Even my wife, only two years younger than me, regularly texts me, “ugh I just really don’t wanna go into work today…”That scares me a little bit. It says that people our age just don’t have the discipline to regularly take their problems head on. We don’t want to work, and the not wanting to justifies a mental health day so we can relax. She did this once, and we talked about it, she just really needed a day off - I can understand. We all do sometimes. But when you have a hard time just getting up to go to work, then we have a problem.You see, for our parents, there was no choice. You have work today at noon? You’ll be there at noon. No other options. You make a commitment? It will be done. Now, we can flake out last second, and it’s almost always okay.Here’s where this story draws to a close.Your parents don’t care about your mental health because to them, mental health days are a total joke. Why would someone need a day off just because they want it? Why are you so stressed over seemingly nothing? Why can’t you work harder and earn more? Why don’t you have better grades? Can’t you just work harder in school?To them, the answers are black and white. To us, it’s all grey. It shouldn’t be grey. You are holding yourself back because you can’t adapt to the world around you. If you could, you wouldn’t be so worried about mental health. You’d pick yourself up by your bootstraps, look your problems head on, learn the skills you really need to know, and do better. Instead of asking, “But how?” We need to figure it out in our own. That’s how we truly learn. In the future, our Mental health days need to be replaced with, “I saved up my vacation hours by working hard to get this week of vacation” days.Also, your grades are VERY important. There is a huge class/caste system problem in the word right now. The only way to get out of a lower tier is to eitherget good grades, get a good degree, get a good job that pays over the median wage, pay off loans, build net worth (typically in that order)Know your skills so well that you start your own business out of high school and profit over the median income wage yearly right away, build wealthTypically, people opt for option 1 because option 2 happens to less than half of 1% of people out of high school - most people don’t invest into their future at such a young age, and they want to go to college.Back to the original argument:Get sick? Sure. Day off.Important appointment for family? Sure. Day off.Wedding? Sure. Vacation time.You don’t want to go to work today? Nope. Do better.You aren’t in “the right mindset” for work? Not allowed. That’s a good way to get fired.Don’t feed in to our generation’s lack or preparation. Be proactive about your future by disciplining yourself NOW, and proactively thingking about your future with every decision you make. Make mental health days a three-times-a-year occurrence, and make mentally strong days a 365 day occurrence. Your future self will be grateful.TL;DR:Your grades are on paper and permanent, your mental health days are typically moods that pass.Tips on feeling better mentally:regularly work out. Don’t just walk around the block. Make your heart pound. Run a mile every day for a week, you’ll see a dramatic mood improvement.Eat healthy foods, limit grease and deep-fried things. Limit fast food to once a week at first, the slowly limit it to once a month.Have a hobby that you’re actively engaged in, let it be your motivation to finish your work. I take photos, but I don’t let myself play until I’ve worked a full day and completed house chores. This is maintainence on my house.Look forward to your future and set SMART goals that work up to what you want in your future. Having a track for your life makes it easy to see if your straying away from what your goalsMost importantly: establish a routine. Be absolutely disciplined on your routine. That’s what breeds success, mental, and physical health. Make a routine that works for you, and actually carry it out. You’ll see changes very soon.These tips are hard to follow, because it’s easier just to sit on problems and let them blow over. Stop doing that. The root cause of your mental health is unpreparedness. Take the time to prepare for tomorrow by getting enough sleep the night before, and enabling yourself to actually be successful. Start your day off RIGHT by preparing for tomorrow, today. If you don’t start your day off right, your starting from the bottom. Think of it as climbing out of a well. Would you rather throw the rope down before or after you jump in? Before. Or else you’ll be stuck.My TIPS: I have a bed time routine. I prepare my coffee, so I’m the morning, I just have to turn the stove on, I have my toothbrush in the shower, and a hot towel waiting in the dryer every morning. I make my lunch the night before, and have a checklist at the door so I don’t forget anything.I wake up, walk to the kitchen, turn on the burner for coffee, walk to the dryer, turn it on, then take a 10 minute shower, timed by a two-song morning pump-up playlist that I change frequently. I get out of my shower, dry myself with a warm towel and get my coffee off the burner. I go back to my room, wake up my wife, get dressed, and then walk to the kitchen, grab my lunch, and pour my coffee into a travel mug. I say goodbye to my cats, look at my checklist to make sure I have my lunch, coffee, badge, wallet, keys, computer, charger, phone and smile on my face before I walk out the door. Sounds dumb right? Sounds like a kindergarten teacher asking her kids to check their permission slips before a field trip- but it was made so I don’t make mistakes again, like forgetting my badge, or lunch, or even leaving the house upset. Smiling even just once at myself in the mirror makes for a better workday.It takes me 20 minutes from wake-up to leave. I plan my sleep accordingly. Without my preparedness of coffee, towel, lunch, toothbrush, backpack, and clothes, it takes me 45 minutes. I save 25 minutes every morning by taking an extra 15 minutes before bed to prepare for tomorrow. That’s time spent sleeping in more, and time that makes my day more enjoyable.It’s the little things that we can change that make the biggest difference in our lives.Find what changes you can make to your behavior, and change them for the better. You’ll need many fewer mental health days, and you’ll make your future self very proud.With the exception of very few, your parents are strong, and don’t need as many mental health days. You shouldn’t either. Make yourself stronger.

Maria Comnena, Queen of JerusalemAbove a medieval depiction of Maria with her husband King AmalricMaria Comnena, a Byzantine Princess, was the second wife of King Amalric of Jerusalem, and the mother of Queen Isabella I. She was called “godless,” “steeped in Greek filth” and “fraudulent” by the anonymous and polemical (but contemporary and very detailed) Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi and — despite a more sympathetic portrayal in the equally contemporary and detailed Lyon Continuation of Archbishop William of Tyre’s history — it is the image of a villainous intriguer that dominates modern literature.Even one of the most respected modern historians of the Latin East, Bernard Hamilton, describes her as “ruthless and scheming,” — without citing a single action to justify his label. In literature, Maria fares even worse. She is invariably cast as ― at best ― an unpleasant intriguer (e.g. Sharon Kay Penman in Lionheart) and ― at worst ― an evil witch (e.g. Hana Norton in The Serpent’s Crown). Indeed, in the later book, Maria is made to poison her own daughter, the author apparently thinking that a “godless,” “fraudulent,” “scheming intriguer” would have no moral scruples murdering her own child, despite the fact that in doing so she was also killing a ruling queen and her own source of status and power. The logic escapes me.In contrast to this reputation, let me present the facts of the case as best we can reconstruct them from the historical record.Maria Comnena was born in approximately 1155, the daughter of John Comnenos, of the Byzantine Imperial family. At the time of her birth, Comnenos Dynasty had been in power in the Eastern Roman Empire for roughly 70 years. The ruling Emperor, her great uncle Manuel I (1143 - 1180) had increasingly pursued a policy of cooperation with the crusader states. Manuel I’s policies included joint military operations and a series of marriage alliances. Thus, when Amalric I of Jerusalem needed a second wife, he turned to Emperor Manual. His emissaries arrived in Constantinople in 1165, and two years later Maria Comnena landed at Tyre as her great-uncle’s choice for Queen of Jerusalem.We know nothing about Maria’s childhood or why she was selected. We can, however, presume that Maria had enjoyed not only the luxurious life-style of the Greek Imperial family but — more important — the very high level of education typical of her peers. The Comnenas were not only literate in Greek classics, but versed in theology and history. Furthermore, under the Comnenus Byzantine arts and letters experienced a renaissance, including the introduction of new styles in mosaics and frescoes. Thus, Maria came to Jerusalem with a substantial dowry, a large retinue of Byzantine advisors and scholars, and with knowledge and tastes cultivated in the most sophisticated Christian society of the age.Above Empress Irene from Hagia Sophia, Constantinople, Mosiac dates from ca. 1120At the time Maria married Amalric and was crowned queen in August 1167, she was at most 13 years old; Amalric was already 30. Unsurprisingly, we hear little of her during her first years at the court of Jerusalem. However, four years after his marriage to Maria, Amalric undertook a state visit to Constantinople, the first Latin king to do so as a reigning monarch. According to Byzantine sources he acknowledged Manuel I as his overlord during this trip. It was also in this period that the Church of the Nativity was renovated with mosaics heavily influenced by Byzantine art. Maria’s influence in both these developments is plausible but not recorded.In 1172, that Maria gave birth to a daughter, Isabella. Two years later, King Amalric was dead. As his widow, Maria took part in the meeting of the High Court of Jerusalem that elected the next king. Amalric’s only son, Baldwin, born of Amalric’s his first marriage to Agnes de Courtenay, was rapidly recognized as King, and crowned as Baldwin IV. Because King Baldwin was only 11 years old, Count Raymond of Tripoli was appointed regent.Maria, at the age of 20, was now a very wealthy widow with complete independence. King Amalric had settled on her the large and wealthy barony of Nablus as her dower-portion. This lordship, directly north of the royal domain of Jerusalem owed 85 knights to the feudal levee and included the ancient city of Nablus famous for its perfumes and soaps. It was one of the more diverse baronies, inhabited by a sizable population of Samaritans, Jews and Muslims. She had enough wealth and enough men (85 knights is only the tip of the iceberg of the men at her command) to protect herself, her property and her independence. She was a Dowager Queen and mother of the second-in-line to the throne. Furthermore, in accordance with the laws of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, she could not be forced into a second marriage by her step-son, although she needed his permission to re-marry. Maria, however, was in no hurry to remarry. She retired to Nablus, and made no attempt to interfere in the government of the realm.It is notable, however, that in mid-1177, the Count of Flanders, who had come to the Holy Land with a small army of crusaders, sought her out in Nablus. Flanders was at loggerheads with Baldwin IV and the High Court of Jerusalem about a husband for Baldwin’s full-sister and heir, Princess Sibylla. Flanders also disagreed with King Baldwin about a proposed campaign against Egypt that was supported by Manuel I. The Byzantine Emperor had sent a fleet of seventy warships to support this invasion. Flanders wanted assurances that he would be made king of Egypt if he helped conquer it. Baldwin IV, on the other hand, felt that any territory won by the expedition should belong to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. That Philip sought out Maria in Nablus suggests that he saw her as a woman who could advise him on the likely reaction of the Byzantine Emperor to his demands. Even more noteworthy, however, is that as a result of his meetings with Maria he had a change of heart. From Nablus he sent messengers to Jerusalem declaring his acceptance of the High Court’s decisions. Maria Comnena at just 23 was evidently a woman who could talk politics with the savviest of Western noblemen and be persuasive without the least personal interest in the outcome.Uta von “Naumburg” – a 13th century sculpture from the Cathedral of Naumburg, Saxony-Anhalt.In late 1177 Maria Comnena, the Dowager Queen of Jerusalem, made a surprise second marriage to Balian d’Ibelin, the younger brother of the Baron of Ramla and Mirabel. We can assume that Maria’s marriage to Balian was a love-match — at least on her part. Ibelin was too far beneath her in rank for it to have been selected for political or financial gain. Furthermore, had the marriage not been to her liking, she could have rejected it out of hand with the full support of the Byzantine Emperor. We also know that King Baldwin explicitly gave his consent.From the Codex ManesseShortly afterward, Maria faced the first serious crisis of her life. In 1180, her daughter by Amalric, 8-year-old Isabella was taken from her. The King had betrothed her to Humphrey de Toron and sent her to live with her future husband. Young Humphrey lived with his mother and her third husband, the infamous Reynald de Chatillon. The marriage was allegedly the brainchild of the Queen Mother, Agnes de Courtenay, who had been set aside by Amalric when he took the throne. Maria had not only taken Agnes’ place in Amalric’s bed but she had worn the crown denied to Agnes. Historians presume that Agnes had no kind feelings toward Maria.The timing of the marriage is also significant. Agnes had just engineered the marriage of her daughter Sibylla to Guy de Lusignan — thereby earning the bitter enmity of Baldwin d’Ibelin, Baron of Ramla and Mirabel. The latter had harbored hopes of marrying Sibylla himself. From 1180 onward, Ramla and his younger brother Ibelin were staunch opponents of Guy de Lusignan. King Baldwin apparently felt compelled — or heeded the poisonous advice of his mother — to remove his half-sister Isabella from Ibelin’s control out of fear that, if he did not, Ramla and Ibelin would use her to challenge Sibylla and Guy’s claim to the throne.The historical record demonstrates that King Baldwin was unjustified in imputing treasonous intentions to the brothers; both men were staunchly loyal to both him and his nephew Baldwin V. Indeed, although Ramla refused to do homage to Guy after the latter usurped the crown, preferring to leave the kingdom, Ibelin honorably served Guy de Lusignan right up until the death of Sibylla in 1190. Furthermore, there is no objective way to portray this removal of a small child from her mother’s care to place her in an endangered border fortress under the control of a notoriously brutal and unscrupulous man as benign. It was a cruel, vindictive act that undoubtedly acerbated the hostility between Maria and Agnes — and between the Ibelins and Lusignan — in both cases to the detriment of the kingdom.For three years, Isabella was denied the right to see her mother. When she was still only 11 years old, she was married to Humphrey at Kerak. Maria was presumably among the wedding guests. However, no sooner had the wedding guests arrived at the bleak mountain castle beyond the Dead Sea than Saladin laid seize to the castle. Maria was trapped inside with her daughter, her new son-in-law and hundreds of other wedding guests.The Castle of Kerak, now in Jordan, as it appears today.Meanwhile, the bulk of the barons of Jerusalem, including Ibelin were still in Jerusalem at a meeting of the High Court. In a stormy session, the barons unanimously refused to accept Guy de Lusignan as regent — not even to go to the relief of Kerak. Baldwin IV responded by crowning his nephew (Sibylla’s son from her first marriage) co-king as Baldwin V. Then, although completely lamed by leprosy, he personally led the feudal army out to face the Saracens. Saladin retreated before the Franks led by the “Leper King,” and Maria — and Isabella — were reunited with Balian.A medieval depiction of Balian d’Ibelin carrying the newly crowned Baldwin V.While the siege was lifted, the family crisis continued. According to the Lyon Continuation of William of Tyre:…when Humphrey married Isabella, he began to hate his mother-in-law and wanted to prevent her from seeing her daughter. He was acting on the advice of his own mother, Stephany, the lady of Kerak. [The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade: Crusades Texts in Translation, translator Peter Edbury, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998) 96]One year later, Maria’s own city of Nablus came under siege. Returning from a second unsuccessful attempt to capture Kerak, Saladin withdrew plundering and burning his way north to Damascus. Nablus, an unwalled town, was in his path. It is recorded that, in contrast to surrounding towns, not a single Christian was killed although the town was burned and sacked. The inhabits had found refuge in the citadel. Historians conjecture that Maria was responsible for this exemplary defense of her citizens, because King Baldwin had mustered the army of Jerusalem to relieve Kerak, which meant her husband with the knights, sergeants and archers of Nablus was with the field army rather than in Nablus.In 1186 Baldwin V died. The next in line to the throne was Princess Sibylla, but the majority of the barons opposed her because of their mistrust of her husband Guy. (Note: Jerusalem did not have a strictly hereditary monarchy, but one in which the High Court, composed of the barons, had to select/approve the ruler.) Sibylla and Guy staged a coup d’etat while the bulk of the barons were meeting outside of Jerusalem. Since even Sibylla’s supporters did not trust Guy, Sibylla promised to set him aside provided she was allowed to choose her next husband. Once she was crowned, she announced she “chose” Guy as her next husband and proceeded to crown him herself.The majority of barons were not present at this illegal coronation because they were meeting — significantly — in Nablus. When news of Sibylla’s coup reached them, they proposed crowning Maria’s daughter Isabella and her husband Humphrey as legitimate rulers. Unfortunately, Humphrey slipped out in the dark of night to do homage to the usurpers. The baronial opposition to Guy collapsed. It is hard to imagine that Maria did not play an important role in this episode which took place in her city and involved her daughter, but we do not know the details.One year later, King Guy led the army of Jerusalem to a completely unnecessary defeat at the Battle of Hattin. On July 4, 1187 Saladin destroyed almost the entire Christian army, killing or enslaving roughly 17,000 men, and taking the King of Jerusalem, most of his barons, and the Grand Masters of both the Templars and Hospitallers captive. Nablus, like every other city and castle in the crusader kingdom, lay completely vulnerable to the victorious Saracen army. Maria abandoned the defenseless city and fled to Jerusalem with her four children, all under the age of ten.Jerusalem was already flooded with refugees. As many as 30,000 to 60,000 Franks are believed to have sought refuge in Jerusalem after Hattin. Most of those refuges were women, children, churchmen and old people. The unexpected arrival of the Baron of Ibelin, a respected and experienced battle-commander, sparked jubilation in the militarily leaderless city — until the people learned of Ibelin’s intention to rescue his family and withdraw. He had received a safe-conduct from the Sultan to come unarmed to Jerusalem and had sworn to stay only a single night. While this was a tribute to Ibelin’s love for Maria and their children, the rest of the population felt betrayed. They begged Ibelin to remain and take command of the city’s defenses and resistance. The Patriarch graciously absolved Ibelin of his oath to Saladin. Ibelin – with Maria’s support? — recognized it was his duty to remain.The medieval walls of Jerusalem todaySaladin’s response was unexpected. He sent fifty of his personal guard to Jerusalem to escort Maria Comnena and her children to safety. Why? The romantic answer is that he was chivalrous. The more realistic answer is that Maria Comnena was first cousin of the new Byzantine Emperor and Saladin had signed a truce with the Byzantines. He had no desire to have a Byzantine Princess caught in a city he had vowed to take by storm. Perhaps his decision was a combination of both chivalry and the desire to avoid a diplomatic incident….After the fall of Jerusalem, Maria and Balian were reunited, but they now had no income and were nobody in a kingdom that no longer existed. It is unclear how they survived, but it is notable that at this moment when the Kingdom of Jerusalem had been reduced to a single city, Tyre, Maria did not choose to return “home.” That she remained in the pitiable remnants of the crusader states was a tribute to her loyalty to her second husband.In 1190, Sibylla of Jerusalem and both her daughters died of fever in the Christian siege camp outside of Acre. With her death, Guy de Lusignan’s right to the throne of Jerusalem was extinguished — and Isabella became the next in line to the throne. Isabella was 18 years old and still married to the man imposed on her by her half-brother Baldwin IV, Humphrey of Toron — the very man who had betrayed the barons at Nablus by refusing to accept the crown they offered him.Contemporaries describe Humphrey as weak (some say effeminate). Fighting men did not believe he had the character and ability to regain the lost territories of the Kingdom. In contrast, Conrad de Montferrat, who had dramatically saved the city Tyre from surrender, was widely viewed as a savior of the kingdom. Ibelin and other barons decided that Isabella must marry Conrad de Montferrat before being crowned Queen of Jerusalem. There was no question that Isabella had been too young to consent at the time of her marriage to Toron (she had been 11), so there were legal grounds for the annulment of her marriage. The problem was that Isabella had grown attached to Humphrey.At this critical moment, Maria for the first time publicly exercised her power as a Dowager Queen. She threw the full force of her personality and relationship with Isabella behind her husband Balian and the barons of Jerusalem. While the chronicles claim that she browbeat Isabella into agreeing to the divorce. This is usually portrayed as an unscrupulous and ambitious woman heartlessly pressuring a sweet young girl into betraying the man she loved. Yet the sources we have are all hostile to Conrad de Montferrat and should therefore be treated with caution. Furthermore, the divorce was undoubtedly in the best interests of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Maria should be given credit — not blame — for putting the interests of the kingdom ahead of the affections of her teenage daughter.Interestingly, there is no indication that Maria’s stand resulted in any breach much less lasting tensions between mother and daughter. Maria and Ibelin both remained at Isabella’s court long after Conrad de Montferrat was dead. Nor should we forget that when Conrad de Montferrat was murdered, Isabella did not turn back to Humphrey de Toron and marry him again as a consulting adult. Instead, she accepted the King of England’s choice for her third husband. In short, far from being desperately in love with Toron and forced against her will to separate from him by her evil and ambitious mother, Isabella was wise enough to understand that she needed the consent of the High Court in order to be Queen — and she wanted to be queen more than she wanted to be married to Toron.As for Maria. Isabella’s elevation to the throne opened the gates for Maria to play the role of evil intriguer, manipulating her daughter for her own gain — but she did not. Rather, she retired with Ibelin and their children to the much-reduced estates now at their disposal. Yet Ibelin, as step-father of the queen, took precedence over all other lords until he disappears from the historical record after 1193; historians presume he died at about this time.Maria, however, was still alive when Aimery de Lusignan married Isabella and appointed her eldest son John Constable of Jerusalem at the age of 19. She lived to see John enfeoffed with the Lordship of Beirut, and may well have personally enjoyed the palace he built there with its lifelike mosaics, polychrome marble and views to the sea. Indeed, she was still alive when John became Regent of Jerusalem for her grand-daughter Marie in 1205. Maria Comnena died sometime before 1217, the founder of two dynasties: the royal House of Jerusalem and (almost royal) House of Ibelin.Maria Comnena’s life is dramatized in four novels that follow her and Balian d’Ibelin from 1170 – 1197: Knight of Jerusalem, Defender of Jerusalem, Envoy of Jerusalem and The Last Crusader Kingdom.Note: The text of this entry was first published in The Medieval Magazine, Issue 122, March 2019, pp 8–18.

CHÍby Emmanuel ‘Eluminary1’ Elu |King of the short story| Gloria et Divitiae in domo eiusThis short story is a prequel to ‘Chí – The Dominati story’Available for download globally (E-book) on all Amazon sites.All rights reserved. The story ‘Chí may be shared for free without recourse to the right holders via social media or other electronic means except for purposes deemed of a commercial nature. For all such cases, permission will have to be obtained from the copyright holders.All enquires should be forwarded to: [email protected]‘When they march quietly, the feet of death leave behind them loud mourning. ‘The airport was in view, the plane’s descent was proceeding smoothly; everything from this point was supposed to be routine for a pilot of her experience. Those days in flying school, they were always reminded that when it comes to flying a plane, nothing is ‘routine’. Inexplicably to her, her plane suddenly lost power and with that, altitude. The majestic Boeing 787 Dreamliner was forced without warning into a deathly plunge that was certain with the manner the plane was falling, to end in fatal disaster. For Helen Bosch, a commercial pilot with over ten years experience, this was a frightening new scenario for which neither she nor her co-pilot had any solution. She was extremely proud to fly her new 787 Dreamliner and could never have envisioned a portion of the script where the elegant aircraft crashed in such horrific circumstances. Disaster had arrived completely unannounced but certainly not unprepared, as the forces at play for the aircraft’s rapid descent into doom were beyond the scope of anything Helen could have been taught in flying school.Chí, the creative life force of the earth, that has the power to alter reality was at work here and as it is said: ‘only those born of fire respond when fire calls for its children’. There was no way a totally oblivious mind like Helen Bosch’s could fathom the reason behind the terrifying loss of power her plane had suffered, leading to the now imminent death of hundreds of passengers including herself. What she could not claim ignorance of though, was the expertly concealed package of narcotics that had been brought by her onto the plane and was due to be offloaded by a member of the airline’s ground staff upon reaching their destination. The package belonged to a powerful Asian drug cartel and for a country where drug trafficking carried an irrevocable death sentence, it was worth a small fortune if it safely arrived its destination.Helen Bosch’s share of the drug money was intended to pay off huge gambling debts incurred by her husband who had fallen apart when his technology start-up that bore his life savings and hopes, crashed lifelessly after struggling for too long to turn a profit. David Bosch had slipped into alcoholism and gambling addiction, refusing to get any professional help despite his wife’s heartfelt pleas to him because he was secretly sure it would all end with him taking his own life. Somehow though, he underestimated his own resolve to live but by the time he finally started his journey to rehabilitation, he had created a monster in debts that needed paying or...Helen his wife, had always been a fighter. She saw in an illicit offer, what she felt was an opportunity to save her husband’s life. Those who he owed money were people who would readily succeed where depression had not, in ending his life. The female pilot loved her husband dearly and in her world, love required sacrifice. A single high-risk trip ferrying narcotics across continents was not too great a sacrifice in her mind for the one she loved. His business may have died but her affection for him had not although the effect of Chí upon that massive bird she took so much pride in flying meant that she probably would not live to see her husband pay off his debts.In seat A4 of the plane’s Business class section, there was a terror-stricken man who for fear of impending death had defecated all over himself as his bowels freed themselves of their burden, in anticipation of the release that death was sure to bring. His name was Kezena Shapiro but everyone especially those who wished to remain in his good books, called him K-global. K-global was the kind of man whose claim of owning a global conglomerate could only be measured by the number of countries across the world where he had run foul of the law by engaging in dubious business. His entrepreneurial experience was a sum of many crimes successfully committed without incarceration in any clime.In one country he was an arms dealer, in another he was a launderer of dirty money, in yet another he was a fraudster. In this vein, he was a truly global businessman whose success in evading the law could only be matched by few in the world. Yet here he was, trapped aboard a flight that had been ill-fated to attract the negative attention of a Mega-Natural, the rare selection of human beings who can channel the earth’s creative life force Chí to alter reality, creating a different outcome from what should ordinarily be, into that which their mastery of Chí allows them to create alternatively.K-global was on this flight en route to his home country, a small nation where lavish wealth and shocking poverty stared each other in the face, existing side by side with the same comfort death and life share when holding hands. In K-global’s home country, everything hung on a balance. None was more delicately balanced though than the peace between the country’s two largest ethnic populations. Between them, they accounted for more than eighty-five percent of the country’s citizenry and there was a history of conflict-filled rivalry between them. A history, purveyors of war could always count on.K-global was essentially making this trip home to apply his first-hand knowledge and experience of war to the current state of his country’s affairs, not in hope rather to ensure, the result of his efforts would be the outbreak of civil war in his country. Why would he do this? Because his home country was still regarded as an administrative province of a much more powerful nation who in time past had been their colonialists. An excellently timed outbreak of war in his home nation would thus reflect badly on the present government of the former colonialists, tipping the balance in what were already tightly contested general elections. K-global’s paymasters had sent him to create chaos in his own country for the reason that it would help their cause in the general elections of their own nation.The lives that would be destroyed, innocents that would suffer, none of all these measured up to the necessity of this war in the eyes of its proponents. There was too much at stake for peace to be allowed to reign, so the promotion of war for K-global and his paymasters was the most constructive option available. They had not planned though, on the plane K-global was travelling in being attacked by a powerful expression of Chí that was pulling it out of the skies into a fatal crash, unlikely to leave any survivors. The stench of K-global’s faeces which he had splattered all over his undergarments in his fright was thus his closest companion as he journeyed to certain death.The power of Chí to alter reality is such that the Mega-Natural who was literally pulling the great bird, a 787 Dreamliner, out of the sky, could only have been countered by an even greater application of Chí. No amount of flying skill on the part of the pilots could save the plane. This was similar to the way the passenger in seat E1 of the plane’s Business class was told that no lawyer in the world could save her husband from spending the rest of his life in prison. Her name was registered in the passenger manifest as Mel Rivers because she never used her full first name anywhere and in recent times, she did not desire to be identified by her marital name preferring her much less controversial maiden name.Her parents named her Melancholy, a name she hated so much she counted it among their more stupid acts of parenting besides their constant drinking, fighting and emotional abuse of their daughter. Mel was eventually taken into foster care as a child because her biological parents simply didn’t make the cut for acceptable behaviour as parents. Rivers was actually the surname of her foster parents which she adopted because she wanted to cut off any ties to her biological parents who were nothing but an embarrassment to her.Mel considered herself an extremely unlucky person. To her, if it were not for extreme bad luck, she would never have married the man she did. Her husband Harry Gold, was an investigative journalist who had riled some of the world’s most powerful people by publishing what was one of the modern world’s most fascinating cocktails of truth, lies and outstanding fiction in an exposé everyone called the ‘Golden files’. As author of the infamous Golden files, Harry fulfilled his life’s dream of ‘disrupting world powers’ by any means even notoriety. The stir his Golden files caused worldwide made him very proud as this was all he had ever dreamed of achieving since he was a little boy crying by his journalist father’s side, after his father was shot in the streets by unknown assailants.Those Golden files wreaked havoc in high places as many influential people were affected by its damaging revelations. It made Harry Gold one of the world’s most wanted people and brought great distress to his wife, literally turning her world upside down. Mel did not sign up for the harassment she got from the authorities, death threats from unknown persons, relentless hounding by the media... these things broke her, grinding her into her lowest point ever in life. The only thing that gave her back her sanity was having an affair.While her husband languished in prison for his crimes, Mel enjoyed the most tantalizing extra-marital affair she could have wished for. Her secret lover did not care for any of the baggage she felt she carried, he was a man secure of his place in the world whose rock-like confidence rubbed off on her when she needed it most. The sex they had was not good, it was phenomenal! He made her body feel like a magnificent musical instrument whilst he was her maestro, coaxing sounds out from her that she never even knew she was capable of making. Being on that plane that day was because she was on her way to join him for yet another romantic getaway that promised sheer bliss as always. Death had come to her at the time life was finally at its sweetest, so the tears she shed as the plane fell to its doom were for the good times she would miss with her lover.She was not the only one having an extra-marital affair in that section of the plane, just behind her in seat E2 was a preacher whose ministry owned one of the largest church auditoriums in the world. He was an extremely wealthy man and rarely flew commercial as he owned two state-of-the-art private jets. This trip though had to be made in more discreet fashion as it was for a rendezvous with his concubine who had been complaining of emotional neglect from him. The preacher considered himself a faithful man, faithful in a context only higher minds could appreciate. Despite his numerous trips around the world, despite being besieged daily with loving attention from beautiful women, he had only one wife and only one concubine. There was no other wife he had nor did he keep another concubine. Sadly death, through an impending crash, was about to rid the earth of a rare kind of man; the type of man who can make double standards a masterclass of philosophy.A masterclass was however already in progress in the pulling of that plane out of the sky. Chí permeates the entire earth and is available everywhere. However different Mega-Naturals are able to access Chí through different mediums. Some can only access Chí when connected to land, these breed are known as the Magnarchs. Those can access Chí only through air and water are called the Fluidars. Now the wonder of the Dreamliner’s fall out of the sky was that the Mega-Natural who did this did not access Chí from the air to alter events in the sky, in fact he could not because he was a Magnarch. The expression of Chí that was pulling Captain Helen Bosch’s Boeing 787 from the sky was from land, thousands of feet below.One passenger on that plane had come across the Mega-Naturals before, she had even robbed them. Holding on to seat B3 in Premium Economy with an iron-cast grip, her face contorted with intensity as she summoned all her bravery to meet death without fear, a remarkable woman was in the final minutes of a truly remarkable life. Amirah Chargoury was born in a small nomad settlement without basic amenities like pipe-borne water and electricity but she was never going to be limited by the circumstances of her birth or anything else the world could muster for that matter. It was her destiny to break limits as far as she was concerned and it was a mindset as powerful as this that led her to become the kind of person who could rob a Mega-Natural of a prized possession.Amirah was known in circles of power across the world, amongst those with eyes who could see, by her operational name, a name that had superseded that of any of her forebears (she came from a bloodline of warriors) for the weight of its glory. She was the unstoppable thief known as Eclipse. When Eclipse stole from a Mega-Natural, a Magnarch, she stole an item she had been told was an ancient relic. An antique which had value for its age alone. This story was greatly untrue as the item, a supernatural tablet though ancient in appearance had powers that made its value inestimable.She was contracted as Eclipse by a representative of a dark society whose membership is open only to Mega-Naturals: the super-secret society known by the name ‘Dominati’. To steal this item called the tablet of Jabez, Eclipse had to perform a human miracle. The tablet of Jabez was located in a secure penthouse of a high rise building whose owner, a wealthy Magnarch, spent a fortune for its twenty-four hour security. Faced with the problem of motion sensors that would be triggered by anything larger than a big bird, Eclipse folded herself into a cube with one side of the cube open before she harnessed the cube to a stealth glider. When the glider was released from a light aircraft, it took Eclipse in her cube in stealth mode to a point about a hundred feet above the penthouse where she released the harness and let the cube drop in freefall.As the cube dropped, Eclipse had a ten second window to fire an arrow through a single open window of the penthouse. The arrow would carry ultra-thin steel wire that Eclipse would use to hoist herself through the open window. She had only one shot and if she missed her shot within this ten second window, she would fall to her death. Eclipse fired the arrow with frightening accuracy hitting her target effortlessly while in freefall and folded in a cube! She completed the mission by successfully stealing the tablet of Jabez and was paid a king’s ransom by her client for her death-defying efforts. She would not be defying death on this flight though, as the end to her legendary career drew near.Eclipse was on that flight to scout her next target, a frugal billionaire seated an aisle apart from her whose only son had contracted her to rob his father’s impenetrable vault where he stored a truckload of money in cash and gold bullion against the day of trouble. That day of trouble had come early for all aboard Captain Helen Bosch’s plane, as Chí forced the Boeing 787 Dreamliner to come hurtling down from the sky. There was only one passenger whose presence or absence on that flight could have made a difference. His presence on-board the plane was the reason why the Mega-Natural, a Magnarch, responsible for the plane’s loss of power, was about to kill hundreds of innocent people.Crown Prince Oritsemagbagbemi Enomashishioritse was the passenger in seat F16 of the Economy section of the plane. He was flying alone that day en route to his home country where he was expected to confront his destiny in the parlance of his people. In all of his sojourn abroad, the day he dreaded the most came when he received the phone call that his father the king of an oil rich kingdom was dying. This again was wordplay from his native tradition as it was impossible by tradition for the king to die, he merely transformed into a different body as a new king ascended the throne. What the message the Crown Prince received really meant was that his father the King had passed on and it was time for him to take his place as the new king of the kingdom.He had been heir to a kingdom of atrocities and now a deluge of evil deeds was his to inherit. The monarchy of the oil rich kingdom had for decades been at the forefront of oppressing its exploited people as the royals and their cohorts lived in stinking opulence while the commoners of the kingdom endured crushing neglect. It had been like this a long time but the Crown Prince was one of the few privileged people who did not think this was right. He was in support of sweeping reforms that would even include an end to the monarchy, something that many influential people were not happy to hear. Most powerful of the unhappy ones were certain Dominati, Mega-Naturals who had benefited immensely from the corruption that reigned for years in the Crown Prince’s kingdom.Prince Oritsemagbagbemi was the reason why that majestic bird was being pulled out of the sky by Chí released from ground up. There is a third class of Mega-Naturals, these are the rarest who by numbers are the least of the awesome beings. However these ones have no limitation to how they access their Chí, in air, water, land, wherever they find themselves upon the earth, they can use Chí to drastically alter reality. They are called Luminaries, the light-givers, who for the most part of their history, have been benevolent towards the rest of humankind.As the Boeing 787 Dreamliner fell to about five hundred feet above ground with a massive crash and earth-shaking impact about to occur, the plane struck a gigantic force field of Chí, so strong... it rebounded the plane another five hundred feet in vertical height before the plane was stabilised and brought into a smooth glide. The passengers and flight crew all knocked out by the trauma of their experience could barely comprehend what had just happened but if they could only see under the belly of their aircraft, they would have for the first time in their lives seen a Luminary, with his wings fully spread... a truly magnificent sight to behold. The Luminary flew under the plane using his Chí to hold up the plane in the air as he took it in a gentle glide down to the earth in an open field not very far from a portion of the airport’s runway. For the passengers of this Dreamliner, death would have to try another day.Miles away from where he dropped the plane, the Luminary that saved the day whose name was ‘A thousand deeds’ (Luminary naming convention differ greatly from most human communities) retracted his wings so that they became invisible as he walked towards a White lion the size of a huge truck. By his countenance, the White Lion was deeply displeased to see the Luminary. Mega-Naturals of different breeds have the power to manifest an Animalism inherent in them. All Mega-Naturals except the Luminaries do this. The Magnarchs generally transform into huge lions while Fluidars depending on their sub-class can become monstrous Leviathans, giant snakes and great dragons. In this Animal form, the powers of most Mega-Naturals are magnified as they can channel Chí in greater measure. Luminaries however have no need for this, as their mastery of Chí already places them a league ahead of all other Mega-Naturals.The White Lion sitting before the Luminary named ‘A thousand deeds’ had performed an incredible feat earlier by roaring from the ground at Captain Helen Bosch’s plane, striking it with Chí and causing it to lose power even with the plane still more than fifteen thousand feet above ground. He was indeed a very powerful Magnarch and an immense confrontation with the Luminary hung in the air between them.“Why have you done this terrible thing? Why did you attempt to kill so many innocent people” A thousand deeds asked the White Lion with a look of incredulity on his face?“Sometimes it is necessary to organise calamity” was the calm response the White Lion proffered almost as if he were condescending to answer the Luminary’s questions.“I know you are Dominati, A thousand deeds accusingly declared. Your society is poison to this world.”“So what if I am... countered the White Lion? With great power comes great temptation. Not all of us carry the burden of false righteousness.” The Lion spoke obviously in mocking reference to the Luminaries creed as Guardians of the Earth.Somewhat stung by the White Lion’s derisive response, A thousand deeds thought to remind the White Lion of the obvious; “at least we do not carry the burden of innocent blood. That burden is for your kind to bear… for your society of rogues and mass murderers.” The White Lion sneered even further in disgust, “' We have a purpose and with that value, whereas your kind, the light-givers… you are useless ultimately in the scheme of things.”“I understand you Magnarch, A thousand deeds addressed the White Lion with a tone of finality. I understand that light is useless to the blind. You are going to die for this. You do understand me don’t you? I’m going to kill you for being a part of Dominati, for trading your gift for an abomination” A thousand deeds broke the news of the Magnarch’s death to him ahead of time.“I understand nothing! Death is my drinking pool, all who oppose Dominati, will drink of my pool’s waters!” The White lion retorted as he sprang into a crouching position to attack the Luminary.A thousand deeds using Chí, created seemingly from thin air a nunchaku, the weapon consisting a chain with two sticks used by martial artists. Only that this one was supercharged with Chí, so that a single blow from it, could easily turn a large building to rubble as such was the power of Chí infused by the Luminary in the nunchaku he wielded.The aim for the Luminary was to give the huge lion a sound beating before permanently putting him to sleep. As A thousand deeds leapt in the air, the White Lion roared at him with formidable Chí, strong enough to grind the hardest rock to powder but he underestimated the skill of the Luminary in battle as A thousand deeds was teleporting in split seconds appearing at various points in close proximity to the White Lion and striking the great beast with thunderous blows from his nunchaku charged with Chí at every instance.It meant the White Lion was soon swooning in a daze from the terrible beating the Luminary was dishing out. Still the White Lion would not yield nor was he even going to be given the chance to do so by a now enraged Luminary. The White Lion roared at the earth below him as it gave way to swallow him, instantly covering itself up so that he could escape from A thousand deeds. This ploy too failed as A thousand deeds punched the Earth repeatedly with flashes of Chí at high intensity until the earth opened its jaws and threw up the White Lion into the air. The Luminary did not allow the White Lion land as he caught him in the air with a ferocious blast of Chí that kept the White Lion suspended in the air, separated from its natural medium and thus unable to access Chí anymore.“Dominati are coming, when its time, all of your kind will be consumed. There is no room for imbeciles like you in the new world.” The White Lion haughtily declared whilst remorseless and full of glaring contempt for his conqueror.”“Greater fools than you have lived I’m sure... but I am lucky never to have met them” A thousand deeds replied, as he was by this time brandishing a large battle axe, gleaming in the night with Chí. As he made to decapitate the arrogant White Lion, a hail of Chí infused flames rained down on him from an elevated position, forcing him with their intensity to the ground, away from the White Lion.The flames were from a Dragon, the Animalism of the Mega-Naturals called Dragoneers. Those flames could not burn A thousand deeds even if they did disrupt his rhythm for a short time because they carried Chí. Suddenly out of the earth sprung two more lions, one Red and one Blue, with the Blue one almost twice the size of the Red lion. These two lions roared at the White Lion and released it from the Luminary’s trap, bringing the White Lion down to the earth. A thousand deeds, recognising danger, threw his battle axe at the Dragon breathing fire with such vicious power it knocked the mighty beast out of the air as it came crashing to the ground with huge bang.The three lions, Red, Blue and White all combined and roared with one mighty roar at the Luminary knocking him off his feet and throwing him by the power of their Chí into a river miles away from where the battle raged. When A thousand deeds came out of that river, he knew it was pointless returning to the scene of the fight. The rogue Mega-Naturals were long gone. All that remained was the mocking voice of the White Lion in his head repeatedly saying:“Dominati are coming.”Read the full story in: Chí – The Dominati story by Emmanuel Elu.Available for download as an e-book from all Amazon stores online.(C) Emmanuel Elu 2019Twitter: @eluminary1Fiction10 clapsFollowEmmanuel 'Eluminary One' EluKing of the short story |Website: Emmanuel Elu