Demuth on Audible
Posted: July 7, 2015 Filed under: Good and Evil | Tags: dogs, heroine, historical fiction, medieval Leave a commentFinally, my medieval adventure has arrived on Audible and on print
The sequel is ready: Adventures of a Gem Trader Book Two
Posted: January 7, 2015 Filed under: Africa, Good and Evil, World | Tags: adventure, adventures of a gem trader, Africa, gemstone, gemtrade, jewelery, kenya 4 Comments
Here is a link to download the full story in MP3 for your car or on the go:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/eb8e5dsyik36zcd/Monkey%20Business%20Full%20Story.mp3?dl=1
Here is the first hour of my new novel DEMUTH.
Posted: November 28, 2014 Filed under: Europe, Good and Evil, World Leave a commentWarning:
This novel does NOT deal with gemstones or 3rd world business but recounts the adventures of a medieval woman, Demuth, and her Viking dog, Hal.
Germany, 1499 AD:
The Renaissance is dawning over Europe. Ideas of freedom and science shake the foundations of medieval society. New Worlds, discovered in the West, open unprecedented opportunities for Europe and its oppressed people.
Demuth, the successful but eccentric apothecary, knows little about these developments… until she is forced to flee from a witch-hunt and must leave her protected life for good.
With Hal by her side and a pouch of opium around her neck, Demuth learns that the world is much bigger than she had ever imagined.
Listen to Part I: Lives End!
The full audio-book can be bought from WildFish directly.
Or here it is on good old paper, for the Kindle and IPod or all other formats (just a few $).
Enjoy!
The Expat
Posted: July 1, 2014 Filed under: Africa, Asia, Good and Evil, South America, Uncategorized, World | Tags: Expatriat, Foreign, Lifestyle 3 Comments
See the green grass on the other side?
Finished: Trouble in Madagascar
Posted: October 3, 2013 Filed under: Africa, Europe, Good and Evil, Uncategorized, USA, World | Tags: adventures of a gem trader, edward bristol novel, madagascar 2 CommentsThe full novel is now available for Kindle and Apple.
Paperback is available here.
Thanks for all your feed-back. I hope to start a new Ed Bristol story sometimes this year.
The Boy and the Sapphire
Posted: December 16, 2011 Filed under: Asia, Good and Evil 3 CommentsBedroom Torture
Posted: November 25, 2011 Filed under: Good and Evil, Uncategorized, World 1 CommentYoung Hillary Adams recorded her sadistic father; and posted it online.
His shame is forever public. Well done!
Let all parents know: In the 21st century, you will be watched.
The clip ruined my week but never mind as long as William Adams’ week is worse. The memory of being whipped for nothing more than leaving the light on (so small, I was scared in the dark) or for an only average test result at school.
The fact that this is done by your own parents (shame the moms, too) and in your own bedroom makes it so inescapably terrible. The immediate pain on the skin is little compared to the effect of William’s final words: “See what you’ve done to your family! Are you now happy?” Obviously she wasn’t, cramping on the floor, but she might have believed that it was her fault, that she was blame and not him. That is how kids are.
I will not whine about how tough my childhood was. For most kids in Asia and Africa beatings are the easy part. But let me say that, after seeing Hillary’s video, I wanted to get on the next flight and give my dad a little whipping, just for fun or because he didn’t come to my daughter’s birthday. Don’t get me started. May he thank God that I am not all like him – an-eye-for-an-eye and so on.
Beware of neglect and the damage done to children. It comes back in terrible shapes; as terrorism, and racism, and crystal-meth and, of course, more child abuse. Personally, I intend to break this cycle in my own little family. My daughter will not have to endure what was done to me.
Sure, a teenage daughter can be a pest and all. My daughter will, perhaps, be a pest some-day, but I herewith –forever public– ask God to rot off my hands if I ever do anything remotely comparable.
I just love CCTVs, wireless webcams, IP-Cameras and constant home surveillance. Forget about privacy if we can protect our children from harm.
The dog in the channel
Posted: July 26, 2011 Filed under: Asia, Good and Evil 3 CommentsOur house in Bangkok stood at the end of a cul-de-sac inside a big compound bordering to an even bigger slum. A barbed-wire fenced wall separated us from the poor. I liked the wall for the cozy atmosphere it creates in our street, but the inhabitants of the slum didn’t seem to justify the security. Their lives were just as burdensome or as happy as ours; and they didn’t care about the crazy foreigners inside the compound.
Crime was not a topic, but bad things did happen behind the wall.
To control the swamp that Bangkok is build on, the city’s engineers dug up channels and concreted over every trickle of running water. Today, the channels and rivers of Bangkok are deathtraps to all land creatures. The embankments are unforgiving walls; too steep and slippery even for rats to climb up.
Such a channel lay behind our compound’s wall: a dark and still body of water choked with garbage, a sad sight with a bad smell, but normal in Bangkok.
During one of the first nights in our new house, I was roused by a wail and splashing sounds. I ran to the upper window from where I could see the channel. A dog had fallen in. I saw him paddling back and forth, searching a way out. Every few seconds, he let out this heart-stabbing wail. Then, he tried to climb on one of the garbage islands, but in vain; it sunk away and reemerged in a circle around him. I looked out for the fridge that I had seen floating the other day but it was gone.
Our dogs, joining the terrible wails with their own interpretation, interupted even my wife’s deep sleep. When she came up and saw what happened, she started to cry. I put my arms around her; she was shivering despite the heat. It must have been two or three o’clock in the morning yet Bangkok was still like a steam sauna.
After years in the third world, one, sadly, gets hardened to suffering; yet I can not stand idle when there is at least something that can be tried. The compound’s wall was too high to climb. Even if I had a ladder, there was too much barbed-wire on top. The dog wailed and paddled-on for his little life.
I grabbed my sneakers and started to run – first a kilometer or two into the opposite direction, away from the wall and the channel, out of our compound and down onto Sukhumvit Road, one of Bangkok’s busy eight-lane arteries. There I turned right towards the first big junction. I ran fast, feeling positively athletic in my mission, which I was not – in fact I carried 20 kilo overweight. Lorries and cars honked at me: a crazy foreigner in pajamas and sneakers racing through the dark.
At the big junction I turned right into a smaller road (which means only four lanes in Bangkok) and from there again right into a residential street, consequently making a wide circle around our compound; and finally arriving at a bridge crossing the channel behind the compound. Beside the bridge I found the little track which I had noticed earlier and which followed up the channel between our compound’s wall and the slum.
When I got to the back of our house, my wife had climbed into a tree from where she could peer over the wall. The dog was still alive but in-between his wails there were gurgling sounds. He was clawing the wall, trying to hold onto the slippery moss. I lay on my belly and leaned over the bank. As he saw me, he squeaked and tried to get away. It was a typical midsize street mutt – half-wild creatures with no family attachment, shy and wary of humans.
I snatched him by the neck and hauled him up. Determined to fight for his life even in this misery, he bit me in the wrist. Now, I squeaked; and let go in midair. Luckily he was already on an upward trajectory. He crashed against the wall and landed on his feet.
For a moment we stared at each other, me breathlessly non-athletic and him scared out of his senses. Then he dashed off; and again fell into the channel!
There he was paddling around and wailing once more. I was rather dispirited but my wife up in the tree was not.
The second time, having learned my lesson, I got him by the tail, pulled him upwards and swung him to safe ground, always keeping good distance from his jaws. I was afraid his tail might come off but it held fine. Those street mutts are tough little fellows.
The instant I let go of his tail, he disappeared down the path and into the dark. No more splashing sounds. He, too, had learned his lesson. Probably he felt that he had escaped not only the water but also Bangkok’s legendary dog eater, the nightmare of all street puppies. I was left behind in the mud, bleeding and panting. You can’t expect him to say thanks.
To my wife, however, I was a hero and back in the house I got beer for my wrist and many hugs. The next day, I broke the lock of an emergency exit in the compound’s wall (there was, of course, no key) and thus got direct access to the little path next to the channel. Then, we bought a big landing net in a fishing shop.
We regularly rescued lizards, birds and cats, but mostly dogs – young dogs; they are just too silly. We also built a watchtower for our dog to guard the channel (see picture). When something falls in, he howls; and we get the net ready.
Voodoo
Posted: November 10, 2010 Filed under: Africa, Good and Evil 25 CommentsVoodoo Killed My Mother
My mother is dead. The doctors say she died of meningitis, but I know that is not the whole truth. My mother was killed by a voodoo spell.
Our family comes from a rainy northern city. My mum always hated the cold and spent her entire life trying to get away from it. She did get away; she made it to the jungles and beaches of Asia and Africa, but life always forced her back into cold cities.
The last time in Africa, she met a young man, an ex-police officer for whom she fell head over heels. He had nothing – no job, no home, nothing but debt and a big family. My mother paid his bills. He was still married, but she refused to believe it. We do not know how he lost his job in law enforcement, but you don’t get fired from Africa’s police because you are too clean. When her cash cards were emptied at the ATM, she said it was a banking miracle, not him stealing.
Together they built a house near the beach and opened a restaurant. She wouldn’t listen to anybody, cutting off those who questioned the young man. In the end, she gave up her family, her children, and everything else that mattered to her, except for her dogs, because they were loyal and uncritical, no matter what the young man did to her. She never saw her grandchild, not even a photo, because the young man warned her that a voodoo curse might be attached to the photo.
It was not her will, she said, but the voodoo spell that bound her. She wanted to escape but she couldn’t. Every time she tried to leave him, she got terribly sick. She tried counter-spells too, but they didn’t work; probably her sorceress was no good, she said. In Africa, musungus never get the real deal.
The restaurant was robbed many times, miraculously whenever they held some cash. Traumatized by violent crimes, my mother sold the house near the beach and followed the young man to the up-countries, where his wife and children lived.
He convinced her that building an apartment house would be a solid investment. Her remaining funds went into twelve flats in Nairobi. She kept the address of the apartment house secret so we could not find her or her young man.
Nairobi (or “Nai-Robbery” to the insider) is almost as cold and rainy as the city where she was born. It was there that her life’s cycle closed. When she had no more money to invest, she was chased away by the young man’s wife and soon succumbed to illness.
“I know you don’t believe me, but there are things in Africa that one cannot explain. Things beyond our understanding.” It was one of the last things she said to me.
The young man had her buried behind the graveyard’s toilet, next to the garbage, but only after we sent money for the funeral. He had no cash, he said even though my mother’s will left all to him, the apartment house and the car. He did not bother to put a stone or a flower on her grave. My mother’s beloved dogs went to an animal shelter; we will never get her personal belongings, as her will stipulates, because the young man is afraid that we will put a spell on him.
Remarkably, my mother never went to church. The church just wanted her money, she said. However, against all indications, my mother was not stupid. In fact, she was very successful in everything she did except in regards to men.
She was a nihilist and a misanthrope, yet it was love that killed her.
Love in the form of a voodoo spell.
Coincidences
Posted: October 28, 2010 Filed under: Good and Evil 4 CommentsBy the time I officially became a teenager, I was a hippie already. I had stopped combing my hair (don’t even mention cutting it); wore ripped jeans and adored Jim Morrison.
Smoking hash was, of course, very important. Business-minded from birth, I thought it would be extra cool to sell hash too. Fortunately, I didn’t have the money to actually buy serious quantities to wholesale. Thus I concentrated on services by rolling joints for my fellow classmates. It was a silly teenager act; however, it could have gotten me into serious trouble.
In my class was an obese girl; she was very un-cool according to my value system, but I rolled her a few joints. She kept a diary about her experimental drug use and, predictably, her mother read it. My name was mentioned and I was reported to the local police.
As I learned later, they also heard of my family’s business in Asia and thought I might be a professional dealer, possibly a major catch if with my family was involved. The prospect of an international drug-ring must have been too much for our small-town officers, so they escalated the affair to the state drug agency. My case was taken by a man whose name was legend and program: Mr. Happydrink was an alcoholic and he hated illegal drugs.
One terrible day, I was sitting in class probably dreaming of Jim Morrison, the school master rushed into the room and straight for me. While I was escorted to his office I thought of dumping my hash but it was just too precious so I hid it.
As I entered the school master’s private office, Mr. Happydrink’s Special Forces team jumped upon me. I imagine they were disappointed with me being such a milk face but they stripped and frisked me professionally.
They emptied the contents of my Moroccan hippie-bag onto the table and found the tell-tale missing cardboard of the cigarette papers but no pot. They dug through my leather jacket with the ‘Bob Marley’ stickers and multiple secret pockets – no pot, only old tobacco. My jeans, more patches than fabric, revealed nothing, not even inside the patches. My socks were empty, my t-shirt was all holes and my painted converse sneakers were filled with nothing but dirt.
Now, in my stained underpants, I was not a hippie anymore but only a bony, white and pimply thirteen year old, sweating and shivering simultaneously.
“My underpants, too?” I asked.
After all, officer Happydrink must have felt sorry. He did not call my bluff.
Though there was no hard evidence Happydrink took me to the police station for a full course of one-on-one gangster grilling. I knew nothing.
Mug shots were taken; left and right. As I was standing there I felt a little plop down my trouser. The hash had worked its way out from my underpants and down my jeans. There it lay, neatly packed in aluminum foil, too precious and dangerous to be left behind so I picked it up and put it in my pocket. Happydrink’s mug-shot-shooter did not notice.
It was early afternoon when they let me go and I remember a terrible exhaustion. My mind, however, was set. I was not going to face this drama; I was going to run; run hard and far. In Greece, in the seventies, there were still islands to discover.
Though it was deep winter I walked home and made plans for my final escape. At that time, I was living alone with my dad. My mother and sister had gone to find a new life in Sri Lanka, again. My father always worked late. I had the rest of the day for myself to prepare the break.
My dad had some cash hidden in a secret compartment in the old cabinet and a small revolver under his socks. The gangster I now was needed both (for my American readers: guns are very illegal in Europe). I packed my gemstones from Sri Lanka, some cloths, my passport, the diary with addresses and a few essential music tapes into an old army backpack, poured some cognac and orange juice into a plastic flask and I was ready to go.
Never, in my memory, had my father, ever, come home early; except on that day.
He stood behind the kitchen door and when I walked by he jumped at me with a good-natured whoop. It is a miracle that I did not die of a heart attack.
“Hey! Let’s walk the dog!’ he said.
He didn’t know and he had no foreboding, pre-vision or something; he just came home early, that’s it. Coincidence, fate or parental sixth sense? I still don’t know.
He was in a good mood, probably because my mother was gone and all, but not for long. I told him about my day with officer Happydrink. He sat down and listened.
My father could fly into a violent rage over bad table manners but in a case like this he was all business: “Did they find something? Was it true? Would I have to leave school?”
“No, yes and yes.” I did not mention the contents of my backpack and he did not ask.
“We will talk later” he said and left me in despair.
I had no energy left for Greek islands. I put back the revolver and the cash.
Then, finally, I cried.