Links In the Chain-Part 2

Dear Cousin,

You can stop translating my husband’s letter. I have decided to leave him. Although he has the ranch back under control, all he does when he’s not working is watch television and search the internet reading off the wall sites like something about an organization of eunuchs He cries every time there is a story about someone getting hurt or killed. Last night we saw a story about a High school boy who killed another boy in a fight. He asked why they didn’t castrate the boy if he was so aggressive. I asked him “What planet are you living on, people aren’t cattle and dogs.” He said something like; “Well they treat each other worse than animals!” He stammers and blushes when I get close to him. I can’t tolerate living with him. He seems like a stranger, when I yell at him he is silent, and makes me feel like a child. I rage, and he smiles this simplistic smile. I can’t take it another day!

Basil-

Pam left. I am alone on the ranch and feeling like the Earth is moving backwards. I have never been so alone before. I had tried to keep my feelings to myself, but it has been difficult. The second day of my body-exchange as I call it, she made us coffee, and sat down in front of a large cube. She took a small cube, pressed it and there were flattened people in the room. Well they were all contained in the box, which I now know is television. At first I thought it really was a miraculous vision, it showed views of heaven, or so I thought. There were exotic places with beautiful people surviving with a few supplies, there were great cities with every type of building, and transport imaginable, there was space colonies, and information like a thousand tomes in one picture, but I realized quickly it was 400 shades of hell.

I saw the people on the Island start to tell how much they hated each other, I watched people die, or families cry after dead children. It is horrible yet I am compelled to watch. There is one station that shows nude women having sex with men. Many of the names here are miss leading. I told Pam I was surprised they didn’t show Men having sex with boys as that was common in my world, especially with eunuchs. She told me I was sick. I said, “Then why do they call this channel Playboy?”

It is hard to be a man here, new rules to learn every minute. I am trying to fit in. I suppose I should observe quietly until I understand why I am here. I expect any minute to find myself back in Byzantine. Everyday I ride out to the spot where I seem to have arrived here. I want to go back. Today I rode out and realized I wasn’t alone. Two boys on horseback were racing each other across the field. One waved to me as he galloped by. They both looked so free, and happy. It is hard to believe they are attached to this world that shows such ugly things on the News. I am glad for their sake that they don’t have to worry about being emasculated and sent to a place of discipline like I was. At their ages I was already a little man. I am increasingly suspicious that it must be a time portal that brought me here, perhaps there are more of us here. It makes me wonder if the people of my own time that we called heretics, or mad, or witches, were actually time displaced.

What is particularly disturbing is that I seem to have two sets of memories now. It is as if my brain was an ameba all along and it fused with this other man and then split in two. I wonder if yearning for a relationship causes people to go outside the realm of their own reality. I have so many questions I need to find answers to

But the most unbelievable thing is the computer. I quickly learned it wasn’t a television, as you have to write messages in it. I searched and found one place that I could relate to, as there were stories from the Byzantine times, and many reminded me of home. The entire site is about eunuchs. I have started to read every story, and every post hoping that I may find someone from my time there.

……………………………………………………………………………………..

Wesley-

I found their booze. For awhile I thought this was a weird De-tox center. They have this stuff that tastes like honey, but it has a powerful bite. They keep it down in the basement, and I was about to take this waxy stuff off the bottle that they use as a cork when I heard voices. I couldn’t believe what they were doing to this poor little boy. He was naked, and they had him tied to a table with leather ropes. He started to yell out, and I saw one of the brothers had a knife in his hand and it really looked like they were going to cut his nuts off, which wasn’t a surprise seeing the lack of them around here to begin with.

For awhile I though I had been abducted by aliens to another planet where men didn’t grow balls, and even mine dissolved in the atmosphere, but this kid had real ones alright, small of course like any ten year old, and they were being threatened!

This poor kid saw me standing there, and his eyes were filled with fear. Well man I never thought my karate would come in so handy. I took those three lunatics out cold! Now I have three unconscious mad monks and a squirrelly little kid to deal with. This nightmare bites big time!

Sil (my new name for my pal Basil) just came running downstairs looking for me. He freaked out! He seems to think I’m in deep shit, but not for saving the kid either! He thinks these barbarians may sentence me to having my eyes poked out, like they did to their Empresses’ son. Shit, what kinds of people have mothers that blind their own kids? These people are crazy! Sil said their ruler was a Queen named Irene. I never heard of her. I told him I knew about Columbus, but he drew a blank. He seems to have heard of Julius Caesar, Alexander, and Nero however.

Well we decided to take the kid and get out of here. I have no idea where we’re going to go. There is a secret exit that Sil knew about that leads to a tunnel to outside the monastery. That’s where we’re heading. Sil gave the boy a cloth to wrap around himself, and the kid seems to have expected to be saved. He told us that his family would pay handsomely for his return. Sil is trying to figure out who he is, and I’m trying not to bump my head and tape this at the same time. I found that I had my recorder with me. Sil seems to think I’m talking into a rock. Well I better stop so I don’t run out of batteries as I obviously can’t run out to the nearest store and replace them. Over for now.