ASTRAL… AUG. 16 – 22, 2026
START NOTHING: 4:31 am to 2:46 pm Mon., 7:46 pm Wed. to 1:30 am Thurs., and 1:31 pm to 1:59 pm Sat.
PREAMBLE:
The forecasts will be shorter this week, as I don’t have much time. Some of you will notice/care that I haven’t addressed Saturday eve/night, a usual dating/meeting time. I didn’t mention it because the aspects are negative. Any romance begun after 2 pm PDT Saturday will fail. (In Asia, Middle East, this is not a concern until Sunday.)
***
Uranus rules astrology and computers. I’m publishing the column a little late today because when I turned on my computer, the monitor remained black. No matter what I did, turning it off and on, changing electric outlets, etc. – nothing. 8 am, 9 am, 10 am, nothing: a dead computer. I noticed Moon was square Uranus until 12:24 pm, so I took a nap and came at it again at 1:00, after the square. (If this didn’t work it’s the 20 klick drive to the Apple Store.) Please help me, God, I whispered, and lifted the lid at about 1:10, and the darn machine leapt to life, fully operational.
WEEKLY FORECASTS:
ARIES: March 21-April 19
It’s your last week of romance and creative surges, Aries. (Although in truth good luck in these will last almost to next August — many untouched Aries will be holding hands before mid-’27.) You’re noticing the beauty and intelligence of others. Be gentle on the homefront now through September. Partnerships, relocation themes, opportunities, and opposition face you Sunday to mid afternoon Monday. Everything is sluggish Sunday morning, and filled with unrealistic fantasies even into the next predawn (3 am PDT) – a love the starts now is certain to drive you crazy. Monday’s better, but not by much. This afternoon through Wednesday brings secrets, potential profits, research, lust for sex, or power, medical and lifestyle concerns. Sadly, there’s very little luck here, so remain cautious – observe rather than act. Intellectual expansion blesses you Thursday to early afternoon Saturday (PDT). Far travel, legal matters, higher learning, philosophy, media, and gentle love are favored. In a jumbled way Thursday; in a way that’s both lucky and supportive Friday; and with pure sweet luck Saturday daytime.
TAURUS: April 20-May 20
This is your last week of domestic concentration, Taurus – garden, decorating, furniture, security, setting up your children’s future. These domestic things are fortunate, and will remain very lucky through next July. So stay alert for opportunities in real estate, rentals, food sources, etc. Great time to get pregnant! You are restless and will probably travel and write a lot through September. Workmates are pleasant and your job seems easy. Tackle chores Sunday to mid afternoon Monday, PDT. Stick to routine Monday. This is not an easy interval so proceed with caution – especially if you’re handling chemicals or cleaners. Relationships, opportunities and opposition, public appearances, and relocation themes arrive Monday afternoon through Wednesday – let caution be your guide, as obstacles are everywhere. Secrets, lust, heightened intuition, major finances and medical and lifestyle concerns fill Thursday to mid afternoon Saturday. There’s a bit of disruption Thursday and a bit of alienation around dawn Friday (PDT) but this is a great interval, especially during a lucky Saturday. Charge ahead!
GEMINI: May 21-June 20
One last week of communicating, letters, calls, driving around town and handling paperwork, Gemini. Try to get it done now, especially that paperwork, because it won’t be so easy in September. (In truth, this emphasis on communicating and paperwork will last through next July — and won’t be a bother as much as a booster. If you make a friend or acquaintance now, you’ll notice you talk a blue streak and so do they. Money flows to you until the end of September. The more you make this permanent, the better. And the less you spend, the better. Romance is both casual and thrilling — the casual will win. Sunday to Monday afternoon is romantic and creative. Usually I would say this is a winning streak, but the aspects are so bad that I’m not going to attempt that. Be cautious, realize that a hope might be, likely is, only a fantasy. Tackle chores, Monday afternoon through Wednesday – but proceed carefully as difficult aspects and obstacles litter your path. Partnerships, public appearances, opportunities, and opposition, and relocation themes fill Thursday to mid afternoon Saturday. Now, at last good luck comes, although you face some disruption around noon Thursday (PDT) and “love’s gloom” Friday dawn.
CANCER: June 21-July 22
One last week of earnings and possessions, of rote learning and casual sex, Cancer. This area will continue to reward you for the next 11 months. Try to make any gains permanent. For example, a small pay raise might be worth more in the long run than immediate overtime pay. You are filled with magnetism and determination (especially involving your ambitions) until the end of September – this will attract the opposite sex, but it can also make you a little too aggressive or dominating. Be gentle! Your home is sweet and comforting — but may not feel so Sunday to Monday afternoon, when practical problems and unreasonable fear or confidence can trip you up. Be cautious. Romance and a creative urge arrive Monday afternoon through Wednesday – and the obstacles are everywhere! Oh well, enjoy what you can, especially the beauty of nature. Tackle chores, Thursday through Saturday afternoon. There are a couple of obstacles.— disruption around noon Thursday, and a bit of love alienation around dawn Friday. But overall, this is a tremendously fortunate interval, especially Saturday.
LEO: July 23-Aug. 22
You’re still the star of the show this week, Leo. Next week you may have to surrender a little bit to Virgo. But in general, the luck and self-confidence of August will continue right through next July. This is going to be one of the luckiest years of your life, Leo. Plan, be determined, and don’t waste this great year ahead. Now through September 27, avoid sketchy venues and belligerent people. (This was the aspect in force when an assassin shot Trump’s ear.) oddly enough, you might succeed in dealings with the government, same period. Right now, you’ve got the gift of gab, and acquaintances are affectionate. Travel, errands, paperwork, and communications generally hit the fan Sunday to mid afternoon Monday — be cautious, and don’t expect much. Your home and family become important Monday eve through Wednesday, but there are many obstacles here, so proceed carefully, and with an open mind, because someone will certainly disagree with you. Romance and a creative streak – even a winning streak – visit you Thursday through Saturday afternoon. Chase romance, dive into sports and games, gather kids around, or create something. A very fortunate interval.
VIRGO: Aug. 23-Sept. 22
Stay in the background one more week, Virgo. Deal with government, management types, and institutions. Be charitable, examine how you got here, and ask advice. Get lots of rest, and in quiet moments plan in your future. This will pertain to some degree through next July – 11 months. During this time you could easily be promoted to management, take advantage of government programs, or join the bureaucracy. Now to late September, your wishes revolve around sex and increasing assets. You might talk of or learn secrets now. Your income remains good until mid September — but faces solid obstacles Sunday morning, and some sort of confusion early Monday (PDT). Stick to routine Monday. This evening through Wednesday brings messages, paperwork, and errands. Drive carefully, and reread your words before sending, as obstacles and little glitches are everywhere. Thursday to Saturday afternoon nudge you toward home and family. There’s a bit of disruption Thursday morning and maybe a bit of love’s disappointment Friday daybreak, but otherwise this is a great interval – get things done, discuss things with your spouse and family.
LIBRA: Sept. 23-Oct. 22
One last week of celebration, popularity, friendship delights, optimism, flirting, and friendly romance, and entertainment, libra. Truth is though, that these things will follow you through the next 11 months and prove very fortunate. This is the best year (July ’26 thru July ’27) in a quarter century for you to join a group. It could be a political group, environmental, sports, meditation, or a party. A jury, an investment club — anything qualifies if it’s a group. This year-long luck can, very likely will, bring an affair to single Librans. (Next February will be powerful here.) you are attractive now, so you could gather a few glances until mid September. Your energy and charisma are at a peak Sunday to mid afternoon Monday. Use that energy to solve problems rather than diving into any new project or relationship. Chase money, buy/sell, learn by reading, and/or dive into casual sex, Monday eve through Wednesday. But be cautious in all these, as the aspects are poor, especially Wednesday. Short trips, errands, communications, and paperwork fill Thursday to Saturday afternoon — with some very good luck. Charge ahead, especially Friday daytime (PDT) through Saturday.
SCORPIO: Oct. 23-Nov. 21
This is your last week of General ambition, Scorpio — although next week into September will combine socializing with ambition. And the entire 11 months ahead bless your ambitions, bringing the best career and business luck in over a decade. Strictly avoid lawsuits until September 27. Your inner world and dealing with government and head office are pleasant, and might even contain an opportunity, until mid September. Listen to advice or tips you might get about your ambitions. Lie low and rest Sunday to mid afternoon Monday. This is an unlucky interval, so don’t start anything. Just relax and contemplate — things will remain stable. Your energy and charisma surge upward Monday eve through Wednesday. Use your energy to solve problems rather than launch projects. There are many obstacles and frustrating little glitches, but you end Wednesday with good career work. Chase money, buy/sell, hug a sometime lover, read to learn, even dabble in investments, Thursday to Saturday afternoon. This interval is very lucky, especially Thursday night and Saturday. Avoid a break off or misunderstanding, Thursday, noon and Friday daybreak.
SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22-Dec. 21
One last week of intellectual expansion, far travel, life philosophy, publishing, international affairs, law, higher learning — and gentle love, Sage. This area is very fortunate for you during the 11 months ahead. So plan that trip to upper Siberia! (Many single Sages will wed.) Be careful with enemies and investing until Sept. 27 — give both a wide berth. Your social life looks affectionate and happy! (To Sept. 10.) Surprising people will come into your life until early 2033 — friendly but eccentric. You want friends, popularity, fun times Sunday to mid-afternoon Monday, but the aspects are alienating and confusing. Have fun, but don’t take anyone seriously. Lie low, rest, contemplate and examine plans (rather than plan) Monday eve through Wed. Handle what you have to, but leave anything else alone. Obstacles and irritating snags are everywhere. Your energy, charisma, clout — and good luck — rise markedly Thursday to Saturday afternoon. Charge ahead!
CAPRICORN: Dec. 22-Jan. 20
It’s your last week of general financial, lifestyle, medical, research, and sexual involvements, Cap. These are fortunate, but not until Thursday onward. But in a large view, these things — secrets, research, sex — will tend to 1) be very lucky and 2) contain responsibilities, now to late July, 2027. Now to Sept. 27, others can be aggressive, even violent toward you, so put on your diplomat’s hat. You can learn some valuable information now – you only need to ask. Bosses and higher-ups continue to favour you until September 10. But that won’t help Sunday through Monday afternoon, when your ambitions are highlighted, but obstacles abound. You are very likely to have a distorted or pie the sky belief about someone. Stick to routine Monday. This evening through Wednesday brings optimism, popularity, social delights, and flirtations — and a slew of difficult aspects. Proceed, have fun, but avoid practical matters and remain mildly self protective. You subside into rest and quietude Thursday to Saturday afternoon. Ironically, this is your luckiest interval this week. So contact government, institutions or head office at your own work, seek advice, be charitable, and hold confidential conversations.
AQUARIUS: Jan. 21-Feb. 18
This is the last week of super-charged relationships, relocation themes, public appearances, opportunities and opposition, Aquarius. Actually, these themes (relationships, etc al) will remain very fortunate for the 11 months ahead. Simultaneously, your planet, Uranus, will spend the next 6 years in Gemini, your romance and creativity sign. Do I have to spell it out? Others are quite willing to talk to you now, so it’s a good time to ask questions, especially about love and feelings – and sex. Your work will be hard, intense until September 27 so you may as well set your shoulder to the wheel. Avoid burns, caustic chemicals, same period. Sunday to mid afternoon Monday brings intellectual expansion, gentle love, international concerns, law, far travel, media, higher learning, and philosophy. But little works well, so stay sober and cautious. Monday eve through Wednesday highlights your career and ambitions. But this interval is so filled with obstacles and snags that you would be wise to just keep your head down and do your job. Thursday to Saturday afternoon, brings social delights, optimism, popularity, flirting, and friendly romance, and entertainment. One disruption about Thursday noon, and one love alienation around Friday daybreak, but the rest of this interval is decidedly lucky! Dive in, you’ll be happy!
PISCES: Feb. 19-March 20
This is your last week of heavy chores and duties, Pisces. But remember, you will meet good luck, maybe very great luck, in the 11 months ahead, in this very area. You could be promoted, find fortunate purchases of equipment or machinery, and generally enjoy good health. One warning: health problems can expand (even quickly) in these 11 months. If you have a problem, get to the doctor, don’t ignore it. You’re very brave about love and romance (and about your creative talents) until late September, This can work to your advantage next week to Sept. 22. Sunday through Monday afternoon lures you with promises of sex or riches or exotic secrets, but it’s all an illusory “fever.” Buy nothing, make no investments. Monday eve through Wednesday, brings intellectual expansion, law, higher learning, publishing, and gentle love. But be slow to enter or commit to anything – obstacles are everywhere, and they’re unforgiving. Be ambitious Thursday through Saturday afternoon. Your luck is very high, so charge in! (Be a little careful noon Thursday and daybreak Friday — otherwise, all systems are go!)
AFTERAMBLE:
Did you ever notice that words ending in ITCH tend to carry a negative connotation? Witch, ditch, bitch, itch, hitch, pitch, etc.? (I’m sure there are some good words too!)
***
August is for pink, for blondes and bikinis and breezy picnics.
***
If it were up to us, we would live longer. But to put it in a more objective perspective, no nation or civilization wants to be obliterated, yet every civilization falls. There is one of the proofs of destiny. Were it up to a state, country or society, it would perpetuate itself forever; destiny steps in to revert that. And oddly enough, the end of a civilization comes fr0m within, from corruption or internal schisms, etc. Why do societies fall “ill” and decline? I think it’s in the collective DNA — something just as strong as individual DNA.
When in the 1980s I predicted that communism would go capitalistic and capitalism in the US would go communistic, there was no basis for that that I can see. I only wrote it because it seemed right astrologically. I don’t really know if that’s true, it may have been just an intuitive thing. But in any case, the fact that it is now occurring, as you see the DSA in the United States, and in the general falling apart of one of the two major parties in the US, and Trump‘s present dilemma in Iran – these are signals of a deteriorating — or upheaving in change — country. Remember in 2016, I said here that the Democrats would do anything to stop Trump because they consider him a threat to democracy and that they would even violate democracy itself to save it from Trump. Irony intended. That has unfortunately come true. There’s no democracy left in the Democratic Party.
i’m not saying here that this marks the decline of the USA – this nation has at least a couple hundred more years and will likely dominate during those 200 years. After that (2229 onward) we begin a whole new civilization, so I can’t predict for the US – well at least I haven’t tried.
***
News reports say Elon Musk is going to build a 100 million square-foot building. That’s over 2200 acres. If all city blocks were 5 acres (many are 3 acres) that would equal 440 city blocks, or a rectangle 10 blocks wide and 44 blocks long. That’s bigger than a lot of towns.
He might face problems with ventilation and delivery. Ventilation is a major concern, due to the possible spread of disease or toxins. in general, the builders/designers will work vertically rather than horizontally. For example, if there are 500 subsections of the building, each could have their own ventilation system, which would intake and exhale from the roof. This would limit the spread of any possible contagion by air, and markedly decrease piping an air shafts.. Each unit would contain an average of 220,000 ft.² – or almost 5 acres.
An innovative roof design could also provide for the delivery not only of air but of supplies and food. This word reduce the need for a 120 foot wide corridor – with many tributaries – needed to supply such a large building. If it were built as a square, it would be 10,000 feet times 10,000 feet – or almost 2 miles x 2 miles. An electric wagon or cart – because they will probably do their shipping and receiving at the edge of the building and load different carts for different designations among the 500 sections, and put them on the electric road and away they go — a cart might have to carry its load over 2 miles.
However, a rooftop delivery takes place outside the building, so does not take up the delivery space – which will usually be about 10% of the real estate, or 10,000,000 ft.² devoted solely to transportation within the building. This could be accomplished – not with expensive helicopters, – but by having a type of highway or railroad arch over the building, and load and unload either by crane or hydraulic devices. The bottoms of the train cars could be hinged for easy, unloading and loading, but both tasks will have to be done very delicately, and it is hard to see how, if the floor is missing, even in part, much can be loaded in the cart unless the floor can be opened and closed with any speed needed.
If it would cost too much to support raIlway cars, the overarching line could instead be a roadway for freight trucks, etc.
Obviously, with this design, there will still be a receiving and shipping department and all its equipment and space, which would need to be located on the roof. But we also have to provide sunlight to the floors below. Clever Elon would probably do this by mirrors, but reflected sunlight is not that healthy, mood lifting real sunlight. The shipping/receiving depot would probably only obscure one or two of the 500 strong sections. So those two sections could be used for warehousing or whatever. Otherwise., 480 of those sections would only have to deal with a pathway or two over their heads.
***
Iran: nukes will be discussed.
***
Here’s what I wrote months ago in advice to Trump (once again, I’m not saying he reads me): that he should simultaneously and by surprise, bomb the barracks of the IRGC and the presidential Palace, or wherever the leaders congregated, and distribute weapons to the populace. The IRGC might have countless weapons, stored underground, but they don’t have an infinite manpower. And they have to sleep and eat somewhere. Find these places and kill them at their supper. If Trump had started the war in this manner, I think he would have won quickly.
He could still try some of this to some degree, but not nearly with a success he might’ve had with a first surprise strike.
***
People who don’t believe in destiny, lack experience.
Even on an historical or national level, destiny is obviously at play. For this reason, we can believe that destiny is ultimately benevolent. Are we not greatly advanced in the last 500 or 10,000 years? Yes we are, technologically and in knowledge, but we remain very similar to our ancestors in strength of intellect, awareness, and basic desires. About 35 years ago, my partner, and I toured the caves in southern France. One thing I will never forget: that the artist who painted the deer and Buffalo and Bears on the cave walls had a genius comparable to da Vinci, and in a different sense, seemed to reach across the centuries, the millennia, to speak directly to me (or any observer) and my consciousness with a confidence, a serious investigation of nature/existence, and a message or a picture.
To me, and here is where I smell destiny, the most significant effect of World War II was that it spawned the social welfare system.
But the best proof of destiny occurs in astrology. When time after time (90%?) I see Sun or Jupiter in a client’s birth chart 9th house, the person reveals they are travellers, have been to 2 or 3 continents, or 10 countries. When the moon is up there, I always ask: Was your mother born in your native country? If the answer is yes, I tell the client they will live, or have lived, in a foreign country. This proves true more than 90% of the time. Is this not destiny? We can say destiny resides in the birth chart, which is very true for astrologers. But probably more accurately we could say destiny resides in the DNA.
***
Below is the third instalment of the “1969 Story.” I hope you like it. BTW, if you want to see the entire book, “Stories From the Other Eye,” it’s for sale on Amazon. If you are a Canadian reader, for some reason, Amazon is trying to gouge you and they won’t let me reduce the price. So if you are Canadian and you buy the hardcover, I will refund you $20. Just send me the proof of purchase. But you can also have the whole book for free. Just email me and ask me to send you a PDF. But I warn you: these stories are not really for the faint hearted.
THE 1969 STORY
By Tim
CHAPTER FIVE
“It’s okay,” I said.
“WHAT?”
“—“
“You pulled me out —“ she sputtered, flecks of foam flying off her lip — “ to give me — THIS?” Her hand, rigid, palm up, swung out. Her face was bare and hard to look at.
I had no answer. I put the rifle down gently on the floor, to show I wasn’t going to shoot her, or anything else. I could smell the RCMP’s wet wool uniform. I stood, waiting, unable to leave her.
Finally, though, I stepped outside. An emptiness I have never felt before filled my chest. It was huge and endless, it filled the whole cut, and seemed to soak into the trees, into the logs, into the dirt at my feet and filled the twilight sky above. Every bit of the world was drenched in an invisible film of — emptiness. Way worse than sadness. Not regret — I didn’t regret anything, exactly. Dead emptiness.
I stepped inside. When I saw her small, delicate body, her standing pulled inward in the centre of the tent, shocked and lost, I ran to her and threw my arms around her. I knew I would never leave her. She was my antidote to what lay outside, that world poisoned with — whatever it was. Deadness. Even the plants and the little birds’ songs, all were “dead.” And to what lay here, inside, a huge cop’s body.
“I had to,” I said.
She contracted into herself, trembling. “Let me go!”
I backed away, shocked. I wanted to be with her, to stay near, though now I hesitated to come too near or touch her. Her astonishment and grief at what I had done told me she was innocent. Surely, someone else had shot that Deitmar man. But why did I find this out now, after I’d killed someone? Things were all suddenly going everywhere, without a direction to go in.
She sat in a chair, head down, hands with stiff fingers shading her brow. Her grief excited me in a painful way. I felt sorry for her, sorry like her arms had just been torn from her, and I could do nothing except stand, helpless.
In that moment, looking at her in the strange grey light that filled the tent and the lingering acrid odour of the shooting and the horrible loud noise of the guns, looking at her now she seemed small, perfect, and fragile.
I said loudly: “You have nothing to do with this. I’ll leave. Just tell them what happened. You’re totally innocent,” I said. “Innocent.”
“Nothing to do with this? Oh no, oh no, no, you — don’t leave me,” she whispered to the floor, bent over almost double. “Please, stay here.”
”What do we do now?” I asked. It seemed almost silly to ask, and I didn’t want to get silly. Something was happening to me, I could feel it coming. I grinned, actually grinned. I was triumphant, a warrior. I’d killed a man and owned a precious, puzzling angel. I began jumping around the tent, bouncing with energy and fire, ready to shoot the whole world.
”I don’t know!” she yelled, I think to stop my antics.
I settled down. We could never clean up the mess, the blood and bullets and bullet holes in the tent, and the man’s body and uniform. It was useless to try. And others would be here, he’d be missed. His cruiser must be on the other side of the cut, on the old road I’d taken. So the evidence was everywhere. We could only run. Or make a stand here. I considered that for about 10 seconds.
I had asked her once — was it the first day? — if she had a vehicle. No. Dropped off by somebody, then the drowning. The boots and the rifle. There was somebody else.
I looked at Berry and said, “We’ve got to get out of here.”
Her not having a vehicle, never having an escape route – who brought her to this clearing with the smashed and felled trees, and who was she waiting for here? Why had she been sitting there so helpless, like a bait goat, or a sacrifice?
I glanced at the body on the floor. “Do you know how to drive?”
“Yes.”
With a lot of huffing and puffing I dragged the policeman’s body from the tent and across the clearing into a small wood where skunk cabbage grew. Bears loved skunk cabbage, would find him here and probably eat most of the evidence. I took his keys and his pistol. I half ran to the cleft between the granite hills and a hundred or two hundred feet beyond, and it turned to forest and dropped off, down a steep slope. I whirled the rifle around my head by the barrel and let it fly. It disappeared into the brush with a scratchy sound and a plonk, like it hit wood. Then the pistol.
She was waiting on a log outside the tent.
I pulled up every plug so the tent collapsed partway – not completely, and I couldn’t easily pull it off the roof beam, so I left it. From the road, you wouldn’t see it anyway, and if you came closer you’d think it was just left, maybe.
We found the police cruiser near the road to the cut. It was actually a pick up. We sat on the cold seats. I looked at Berry and raised my eyebrows. I wished I could drive. She sat gingerly, started the truck and began to drive down the trail, a serious, concentrating look on her face.
Halfway down, maybe more, I pointed — “Up there! Up there! As far as you can go!” So she drove the police cruiser up a skid road, which if you know what skid roads are like you know we were lucky to get it even a hundred feet, but I think she coaxed it twice that far. She gunned that engine fiercely; I was surprised.
“Rub everything you’ve touched,” I said. I rubbed the keys, then threw them as far as I could, into the bushes. That would delay them.
We walked out. I turned. You couldn’t see the cruiser, though it had left tracks in the mud. I kicked some of the mud, then gave up.
We walked in silence, maybe an hour. Then something strange happened. I’ll probably never see it again. Just as we stepped onto the final dirt road to the highway I felt a light breeze — but the trees were really swaying up top. I felt something odd, so I grabbed Berry’s arm and stood still. Seconds later, one by one, huge fir trees began to fall across the road. As if they were silent kings, falling, slow and soft and dignified as they slowly tumbled over, one by one — each quietly, a long, slow whoosh. Each tree took about four or five seconds to fall, as the tip, about a hundred fifty feet up, slowly waved to the ground, hitting with a soft, muffled shuffling sound. Here and there you’d hear a snapping of the branches, and sometimes a whole tree trunk cracked in two like a rifle shot. But mostly whole trees fell over, roots and all. The roots were as shallow as tea saucers, and about 20 feet across. They looked like a huge flat plate of worms. The whole thing lasted maybe five minutes, maybe half that. Perhaps a hundred fell, that I could see, up and down the hill. Their trunks were about as thick as a small car. Strangely, where we stood, there was hardly even a breeze.
We made our way forward, crouching under some trunks, climbing around others. Behind us, up the hill, the storm must have climbed, for we heard distant cracking and tha-whomphs in the direction of the cop car, and the tent.
PART THREE — DYING TO BE HOME
CHAPTER SIX
Berry seemed calm now, except that the frown of concentration that she’d shown driving the cop’s truck — and in fact that she’d shown since I blasted the RCMP — never left her brow. Now it seems like a dream. It must have taken hours, but in memory it seems like a few minutes. We hitched two rides to the ferry terminal. There were no downed trees on the highway. Foot passengers walk on free, so we waited at the cement picnic tables, then the huge ferry came and we went on board, and the ferry went through the wind over the black water through the islands to West Vancouver. We rode a taxi into town — into the West End, where all the apartment towers are.
That’s the whole story of our escape. Well, except for this:
We were only a few minutes before docking when she said, “John, you can’t stay with me.”
She must have seen my face, because hers immediately changed, to a sort of surprised fear. I got up and left her. I went outside, to the roaring wind. I grabbed the rail and stared at the dark water.
She grabbed my shoulder roughly, dug her nails into me, until I turned.
“I didn’t mean you have to leave me,” she shouted in the wind. “I mean you just can’t stay with me!”
“You’re crazy! Why? Why do you hate me?”
“Come inside!”
I kept my grip on the railing.
“Come inside or you don’t love me!” She shouted.
So I came inside.
“I only have an apartment, but I don’t own it,” she said in the thrumming interior.
“Who does?”
“This person…the owner… comes every Sunday, and it would be very, very bad if you were there.”
“Today’s Thursday,” I said, my voice like leaden feet.
“Yes. Yes, okay, you can stay tonight and tomorrow, but you MUST be gone by Saturday. You can only come if you promise. Do you promise?”
“Well, can I come back Monday?”
“No — right now, no. Promise me.”
“I promise.” I didn’t know if I would be able to keep that promise or not. How could I promise not to see her?
The ferry swayed as it hit the docking guides.
“What, is this a priest, and you don’t want to live in sin?”
She didn’t answer.
“Are you a kept woman?” I muttered shyly, quietly, because it was probably true.
But I had deeper thoughts. Here’s the thing: she didn’t have a vehicle. That means there was someone else. That means there was her, and Dietmar — the man I watched die on the trail — and someone else. Someone else drove the vehicle away before I found Beryl at the black pool, unless Dietmar had cached it somewhere. Because there had to be a vehicle, but there wasn’t any vehicle. Maybe dead Dietmar had a vehicle, but I hadn’t seen anything. So there was a third person; she had just said as much.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I hated her apartment. Everything was stark and hard. It’s on the 23rd floor. I mean it’s a nice apartment, with carpets and everything. The carpet’s grey and thick, so you can’t feel the floor underneath. There’s modern furniture, and wine glasses, and paintings on the wall. But it was still hard and stark. There was not a photo anywhere, not one. No family, no friends? At first I didn’t ask her about it, afraid it might open a box that would make everything strange. But then I did, curious.
“I intend to be the last of my line,” she said. I figured it was a joke.
But it’s still a splendid, luxurious place. A palace, an apartment as big as our house. The view looks out over English Bay, a wide semi-circle of ocean, and the park trees and stores and cars and people and streets beneath. I love that view, as if you could sail out over the ocean, glistening in the sun. But I don’t like it inside here, its all stark and hard, even the luxury is cold. Nothing’s moist or soft — except Berry. Berry’s soft, with a round bum and plump tits, and she curls up on the couch or reads on the bed and I watch her.
At night she wears a semi-see-through pink nightie, so you can see her breasts all round underneath. When you slide the nightie back her nipples are pink as bubble gum. Her vagina is a bright pink inside, too, almost scarlet. When I touch her a creamy, iridescent liquid oozes out, so I know I can come in. She just lets me. She doesn’t protest, and she doesn’t make me flirt or anything, which I couldn’t do. I’m too tired. I’m so tired, of people, of everything. The trouble is, I — I’m so fucking angry. I’m more angry than I’ve ever been in my life. I never imagined such anger could exist. I’m seething with it, and guess who this anger burns at? At her! At this woman I can’t leave, who is everything beautiful on earth, who I would not harm, not let even a bug land on her flesh. It would be horrible to hurt her feelings, or disturb her beauty. And yet I’m angry.
When we first arrived, Thursday night, she suggested we look for a place for me to live.
“I can just go home,” I said, defeated. Obviously she didn’t want me around. Finding a place? — she was just being kind.
“Yes,” she said quietly. Then: “Don’t you want to be near me?”
“I thought you were trying to get rid of me! Forever. Always.”
“We will find a place together. Even a poor place.”
“For us to live?“
“No, we’ll look together, that’s all. I have to stay here.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Please. Please don’t be this way.”
“Well how should I be? Maybe I should dance around, to celebrate that you want me to go away!”
When we first arrived, she showed me a pile of empty cardboard boxes on the big balcony. Apple cartons, mostly.
“If anyone comes,” she said, “Hide quickly on the porch, here, and hold the boxes around you.”
“Umm — okay.” It was half a question, but she didn’t answer.
She broods all day long. Or maybe she’s always thoughtful. God how I miss the woods! There I could breathe and feel the wet and get lost in the smells and run if I had to, run and run until I could escape this anger. You’ll think I’m a pansy, but she came in from food shopping Friday afternoon and found me crying, not bawling or anything, just sitting on the couch trying to watch tv and my eyes were filled with tears, and I couldn’t stop them.
“Oh, no, no,” she said, bending onto her knees and quickly wiping my eyes with her fingertips. “No, don’t cry. You rescued me. I wouldn’t live if you hadn’t. Don’t cry.” Her eyes were deep and dark underneath her eyebrows, and I wondered what she really thought, deep in there. I touched her sweater. It was soft. I was erect.
“Do you want to make love?” She asked, her fingers lightly squeezing my cock head through the jeans. So we fucked.
And afterward she said, “You’re a good man, John. Not a bad man. A good man.”
“Yes, no,” I said.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
Here’s the problem: I killed the RCMP because I suspected Berry might have killed that Deitmar guy and I had to rescue her. I think that’s why. I’m not sure. But now I know — well, I’m very, very certain — Berry is innocent. So I was not saving her from anything by killing that cop. But now she was able to go free, because she didn’t kill anyone, while I will burn in hell for eternity. I’m a murderer. She — loving her — is the antidote for what I saw after I shot him, the horrible emptiness of the world back at the tent site. And yet she is the only reason I need an antidote. But that isn’t why I was crying. I think I was crying because I loved her. Or because it was all ruined all hopeless, crime-wise.
“You could run away, there is still time.” She became practical, almost businesslike. “And I could just…Plead ignorance. There’s nothing to tie me into it except that I was camping there. You said so yourself. This…murder… must’ve happened the day after I left. You can go. They will never find you. Go.”
“Don’t you love me?” I had never asked her that.
“What do you think?”
“You haven’t once said you love me.”
“It’s why I want you to go.”
“Why? Because you don’t love me?”
But I couldn’t go. I ran away once when I was 14, with Gerald. We made it to Portland, then we split up. I remember walking down the streets at night and the houses were lit up in the living room or kitchen or wherever and a family was living and talking to each other in there, in that warm yellow light. But I was a stranger, I wasn’t allowed in such warm, secure places. Being alone on the street is horrible. I stayed in a $ 20 motel room, and it was empty and ugly and horrible. Everything was coated with a horrible loneliness. It was a little like the emptiness I saw all the way to the horizon after I shot that RCMP. The RCMP emptiness was less horrifying, yet worse. So now, without even a high school degree, I was going to go traipsing around North America, hiding from the police and being eternally alone, living in the emptiness and the horror combined, In those horrible motel rooms, reeking of loneliness.
“I can’t leave. Unless you want me to.”
“You have to leave tomorrow. You know that. Besides, if you stay here our stories might break down.”
“We just both totally claim ignorance,” I said. “You were leaving your campsite to go back to Vancouver, and I was just fiddling around and I approached you in the café in Gibsons and I kept gushing about how beautiful you are and how I didn’t think I could live without you, so you brought me home, and we went to bed that night in your apartment, here, And we’ve been in here more or less ever since. You can tell them I’m a really good lover if you want.”
“How can you joke?”
“Because you won’t say you love me. So it’s all a big JOKE.”
“No, no. It’s not.” She tossed her head, then buried it in her hands.
“Because I love you an amazing amount.” I couldn’t not love her, just because I was angry.
Minutes later I grew excited, I had a plan:
“Get the calendar, we need to mark down the day before we actually came back. Today’s Friday, right? So we came back WEDNESDAY, not yesterday. Since we didn’t have to buy tickets they don’t have any record except casual witnesses. Wednesday will be the day we came back, and we’ll stick to it. But first, is there any other way they can find out? Like, does your door lock record every time it is opened and does it keep those records?”
“No.”
“Or did you charge anything on VISA while we were on the ferry or before — No, nothing, right?” We had not bought food, even coffee. I don’t think we even thought about it.
“Or, hey, let’s change our story: we met while waiting for the ferry. Cut out the Gibsons cafe, completely!”
“Yes,” she said.
“Do you want to?”
She was silent for a moment. “Yes.”
She looked at me: “But you can’t stay! You must leave tomorrow, must.”
“Yes.”
“In the morning. And you must NOT come back unless you hear from me. You have my phone number. If anyone but me answers, hang up. And only call from a pay phone. Don’t call me from your home, if you go there…. If the police came and you were not here,” she said slowly, thinking. “No one would have any record or idea of you. And I could keep my story simple and easy to remember because it would not involve you. And if you were here, it would be almost certain our stories would — they would — we’d be guilty. And what questions might be asked, like why am I — with — you know — a 15 year old?”
“16!”
As she talked, that black mist from the forest, when she rejected me, returned — had been slowly creeping back all morning. It lit everything with dread, swirled around the room, around me. So she would let me go. That made me angry and helpless. But obviously she was exiling me to save me from the cops, from any connection to the murder. So I loved her like I guess adults love, muted, weakened by complications.
We went to the bedroom and made love. Afterward, I had another genius idea:
“Hey, just a second!” I blurted out “— I could just go home! That way you’ll always know where I am.” (I had shown her our house as we emerged from the woods and walked down the highway.) “And I know where you live. And it’ll raise a lot less suspicion if I show up at home and said nothing happened… I’ll just tell them I ran away…They’ll believe me because I ran away before, last year. No, it’s decided, this is what we’ll do, what we have to do. Do you think?”
“It sounds…reasonable.”
“I love you.”
So she let me love her again, with a sigh and her cool hands on my cheeks.
In the morning, Saturday, she watched me with a soft, deliberate gaze. “When are you going?”
“Soon.” I reached for her, but she twisted her shoulder away. I lay there, sunk into my waiting.
Finally she said, “I don’t want to.”
“You mean, now?”
“Yes. I mean not any more.” She rose from the bed and went for a shower. She returned, wet, in a housecoat with a towel around her head.
“Did you mean – forever?”
She softened. “We’ll see what happens.”
“What happens is I love you. But you never said that back to me.”
She sank into thought, not looking at me, her head bent in privacy.
“Why won’t you?”
She lifted her head and looked at me. “It’s too much to explain. I might love you. I think I probably do, John… dear John… I’m… my situation — I’m in a situation.” Her eyes filled with water; I was afraid the red prune-face collapse would come. But no.
“And? Please tell me, please. I can’t understand.”
“If things work out, I will come, I will contact you. But until then I don’t want you to want me. We are dangerous to each other — or I am to you. Get your things together, please, quickly. You MUST leave today.”
She began gathering my clothes from the floor (she’d bought me some Friday) and stuffing the toothpaste and toothbrush she’d bought, into a jiffy bag. Joining her, I shoved the whole mess into my pack sack.
We ate a quick, cold cereal breakfast.
Goodbye, she said at the door. She rose up on her toes and pecked me affectionately but with a solid, gently dismissive air that told me she was not fooling.
“He won’t even be here until tomorrow morning, so I can stay today.”
“No. It’s not safe.”
Did she have to get rid of me that fast? I punched the elevator button. Before it arrived, that black mist returned, clutched my mind. In the entire world, I was alone, and everyone else were just dolls living lives that I was excluded from. I think I understand what they mean by black depression.
Suddenly, I turned on my heels and went back and knocked on her door.
“I need some money.” I was a little through with being gentle and polite.
She returned in a few moments. “Is $50 enough?” It was way more than enough — the ferry was free, and $ 50 would feed me for a week, cafes included — so I took it. She hardly looked at me for this whole exchange, as if to ignore my poverty. This would have angered me, but I saw her eyes were red so instead my heart broke again. But on a low, “background” level, I was still angry toward her, toward fate, or the universe or whatever had put us here.
“Berry, can I just come in for a minute? Please? No one’s coming until tomorrow, and If anyone comes I’ll hide on the balcony or in the closet.” She retreated; I entered.
We sat silently for about an hour, holding hands, then she rose and went into the bedroom. I followed and quietly curled up beside her. She touched me and we communed (I learned this word last year from a hippie comic book) and napped until daylight softened. I must have said I love you 20 times.
“IS someone keeping you as a mistress?”
“You must go. Please go. Don’t phone me, I’m sure they’ll check all my phone records. Oh my God. Did I tell you not to use my phones — have you?”
“No. I called my mom collect from the pay phone late yesterday. Remember? I told her I had decided to run away?”
“Then go, go now. If you get in the hallway and see the elevator doors opening go down to the end to the stairway and go down the stairs, just in case. Oh god oh god why did we wait so long?” She was pulling on her underpants and buttoning her blouse. She came to help me, buttoning my shirt.
“Here. Your packsack. Just go. Say nothing. Go. Go go go go go go.”
Loud as a car crash, we heard a key being inserted and the front door lock turning.