Another totally children appropriate animated mobile: When the wind blows.
I mean I was an adult when seeing it and it moved me to tears.
I mean I was an adult when seeing it and it moved me to tears.
Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread II
- Thread starter Peabody-Martini
- Start date
Part 90, Chapter 1408
Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Eight
2nd October 1960
Jena
As the weeks wore on, the full scope of Zella’s overreaction towards Ben became more obvious. It was something that she was finding that she was having trouble dealing with and because she lived with her parents off campus, her Mother’s disapproval of her actions was impossible to escape. Then her father’s old Helios motorcycle, the same one that had vanished during the March Revolution in 1921, had been found in a storeroom not far from where he had last seen it nearly four decades earlier. He had taken it upon himself to restore it as a labor of love and Zella’s failure to be impressed by the motorcycle that was covered in rust and filth had gotten her exiled from his garage. Was it her fault that she preferred to have actually have brakes?
It being a Sunday afternoon she had gotten on her own motorcycle and had taken an aimless course out of the city taking turns on the Autobahn at random until she had found herself near Jena. The assisted living home where her Grandmother was someplace where Zella knew she would always be welcome even if she just dropped in.
Sitting in the dining room, Zella was speaking with the Grandmother whose name she shared, enjoying tea and biscuits that were a bit stale when the uncomfortable subject of Zella’s behavior came up. It had turned out that her Grandmother had been talking to her father.
“I don’t understand why it is so important for you to protect your friends, you could have seriously hurt that boy” Zella’s Grandmother said, “And it doesn’t even sound like they have asked for your help.”
“They wouldn’t though” Zella said, “Every time I turn around, they are making some sort of stupid decision, particularly with men.”
“Really now” Zella’s Grandmother said, “So, now you are an expert on that subject? Since when?”
Zella felt the blood rise in her cheeks as her Grandmother chuckled at her.
“You know what men can be like” Zella said, “Acting like spoiled little boys, and the way that some of them look at me makes my skin crawl.”
“Are you being serious Marcella?” Her Grandmother asked as she took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, “I’ve seen a lot of changes in my life but there are some things that will never change. How you deal with matters needs to change though, these rash actions of yours are going to get you in trouble.”
Seeing just how thick the lenses were on those glasses Zella couldn’t help but noticing the irony of her Grandmother’s last comment. She was nearly blind.
That was when Zella’s Grandmother looked at her with a frown. “Your father always had that same look on his face when he is about to say some smartass comment” She said, “Or was thinking it.”
Her Grandmother clearly didn’t need perfect vision to see right through her, so Zella focused on cup of tea in front of her trying not to make things worse.
Near Rtishchevo, Saratov Oblast, Russia
Not for the first time in this aimless quest, Fyodor wondered why he needed to be here. Just his presence alone added to the validity of the stories that he was here to investigate. What he suspected was actually going on was that during the long winter nights the jug of homebrew vodka got passed around once too often and the talk had turned to restless spirits and the blood-soaked still recent history of this region. Those stories had become wilder with retelling as tended to happen and with winter coming Georgy had sent Fyodor to see if it would be possible to quell those stories. He felt that it was counterproductive, but he couldn’t easily disobey a lawful order from the Czar who wanted to be seen as taking an active interest in the welfare of his subjects. So, here Fyodor was.
As he had passed through the villages and farms, he had learned that everyone had heard the stories. The tame ones were talk of seeing soldiers, both Russian and German seen wandering down the roads at night or spectral armies continuing the battle even though it had ended more than a decade and a half earlier. The other more disturbing ones spoke of men still being found frozen where they stood because they had met someone or something that was a perversion of nature. Something dark and twisted that had been born in the midst of the bitter cold and the titanic battles that had been fought here. Supposedly, it still stalked the night, preying on the unwary or merely the unlucky. The best ghost stories had some basis in fact, Fyodor wouldn’t exactly thrilled to be getting to the bottom of that one. However, getting to those facts was what Fyodor was doing if he had any hope of having some sort of success to present to Georgy.
Fyodor had been led in circles because everyone had heard the stories. It was always around the lines of them saying that they had heard it from a guest who had heard it from their cousin who was certain that they had talked to someone who had witnessed something. This time that had led Fyodor to this stretch of road in the middle of nowhere. A man he had talked to in Rtishchevo had said that he had heard engines revving in the night. Not just any engines though, the low growls and roars of diesel engines found in armored vehicles.
All Fyodor found was open country and fields where anything that might be of later use had been harvested on a cool autumn afternoon. It was the reason why the claims about hearing odd engine sounds had caught his attention. Finding their homes on the front lines had been a calamity for the people in this region. What had happened in the months and years that followed had been a different story. A knocked-out tank or armored personnel carrier was tons of alloy steel that was just there for the taking, finding a cutting torch and securing the services of a lorry were all that stood in the way of a very nice payday.
Then at the edge of road, the exception to that caught Fyodor’s eye. A scare cat with the eerie yellow eyes still in place though most of the black paint had long given way to rust, was leaning against a stone wall. Throughout Russia it was said that to see one was unlucky and to touch one was to invite death. This was one of those superstitions that had a basis in fact due to the German Special Warfare Division spreading thousands of the things around the countryside. That they were often placed in close proximity to mines or were rigged to explode themselves played a large role for the dread with which they were looked upon. There were some ghosts haunting the countryside that were very real indeed.
2nd October 1960
Jena
As the weeks wore on, the full scope of Zella’s overreaction towards Ben became more obvious. It was something that she was finding that she was having trouble dealing with and because she lived with her parents off campus, her Mother’s disapproval of her actions was impossible to escape. Then her father’s old Helios motorcycle, the same one that had vanished during the March Revolution in 1921, had been found in a storeroom not far from where he had last seen it nearly four decades earlier. He had taken it upon himself to restore it as a labor of love and Zella’s failure to be impressed by the motorcycle that was covered in rust and filth had gotten her exiled from his garage. Was it her fault that she preferred to have actually have brakes?
It being a Sunday afternoon she had gotten on her own motorcycle and had taken an aimless course out of the city taking turns on the Autobahn at random until she had found herself near Jena. The assisted living home where her Grandmother was someplace where Zella knew she would always be welcome even if she just dropped in.
Sitting in the dining room, Zella was speaking with the Grandmother whose name she shared, enjoying tea and biscuits that were a bit stale when the uncomfortable subject of Zella’s behavior came up. It had turned out that her Grandmother had been talking to her father.
“I don’t understand why it is so important for you to protect your friends, you could have seriously hurt that boy” Zella’s Grandmother said, “And it doesn’t even sound like they have asked for your help.”
“They wouldn’t though” Zella said, “Every time I turn around, they are making some sort of stupid decision, particularly with men.”
“Really now” Zella’s Grandmother said, “So, now you are an expert on that subject? Since when?”
Zella felt the blood rise in her cheeks as her Grandmother chuckled at her.
“You know what men can be like” Zella said, “Acting like spoiled little boys, and the way that some of them look at me makes my skin crawl.”
“Are you being serious Marcella?” Her Grandmother asked as she took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, “I’ve seen a lot of changes in my life but there are some things that will never change. How you deal with matters needs to change though, these rash actions of yours are going to get you in trouble.”
Seeing just how thick the lenses were on those glasses Zella couldn’t help but noticing the irony of her Grandmother’s last comment. She was nearly blind.
That was when Zella’s Grandmother looked at her with a frown. “Your father always had that same look on his face when he is about to say some smartass comment” She said, “Or was thinking it.”
Her Grandmother clearly didn’t need perfect vision to see right through her, so Zella focused on cup of tea in front of her trying not to make things worse.
Near Rtishchevo, Saratov Oblast, Russia
Not for the first time in this aimless quest, Fyodor wondered why he needed to be here. Just his presence alone added to the validity of the stories that he was here to investigate. What he suspected was actually going on was that during the long winter nights the jug of homebrew vodka got passed around once too often and the talk had turned to restless spirits and the blood-soaked still recent history of this region. Those stories had become wilder with retelling as tended to happen and with winter coming Georgy had sent Fyodor to see if it would be possible to quell those stories. He felt that it was counterproductive, but he couldn’t easily disobey a lawful order from the Czar who wanted to be seen as taking an active interest in the welfare of his subjects. So, here Fyodor was.
As he had passed through the villages and farms, he had learned that everyone had heard the stories. The tame ones were talk of seeing soldiers, both Russian and German seen wandering down the roads at night or spectral armies continuing the battle even though it had ended more than a decade and a half earlier. The other more disturbing ones spoke of men still being found frozen where they stood because they had met someone or something that was a perversion of nature. Something dark and twisted that had been born in the midst of the bitter cold and the titanic battles that had been fought here. Supposedly, it still stalked the night, preying on the unwary or merely the unlucky. The best ghost stories had some basis in fact, Fyodor wouldn’t exactly thrilled to be getting to the bottom of that one. However, getting to those facts was what Fyodor was doing if he had any hope of having some sort of success to present to Georgy.
Fyodor had been led in circles because everyone had heard the stories. It was always around the lines of them saying that they had heard it from a guest who had heard it from their cousin who was certain that they had talked to someone who had witnessed something. This time that had led Fyodor to this stretch of road in the middle of nowhere. A man he had talked to in Rtishchevo had said that he had heard engines revving in the night. Not just any engines though, the low growls and roars of diesel engines found in armored vehicles.
All Fyodor found was open country and fields where anything that might be of later use had been harvested on a cool autumn afternoon. It was the reason why the claims about hearing odd engine sounds had caught his attention. Finding their homes on the front lines had been a calamity for the people in this region. What had happened in the months and years that followed had been a different story. A knocked-out tank or armored personnel carrier was tons of alloy steel that was just there for the taking, finding a cutting torch and securing the services of a lorry were all that stood in the way of a very nice payday.
Then at the edge of road, the exception to that caught Fyodor’s eye. A scare cat with the eerie yellow eyes still in place though most of the black paint had long given way to rust, was leaning against a stone wall. Throughout Russia it was said that to see one was unlucky and to touch one was to invite death. This was one of those superstitions that had a basis in fact due to the German Special Warfare Division spreading thousands of the things around the countryside. That they were often placed in close proximity to mines or were rigged to explode themselves played a large role for the dread with which they were looked upon. There were some ghosts haunting the countryside that were very real indeed.
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Zella's sexuality vs Ghost Stories.....
Talk about polar opposite extremes in an update.
Talk about polar opposite extremes in an update.
The fact that right now in France there are still reports of farmers coming across unexploded munitions from WW I and the recent report of a bomb from WW II exploding in a field in Germany shows that this will be a long recurring problem ITTL.
God knows how many unclaimed remains of soldiers from both sides and civilians caught up in the fighting are still lying in the fields just waiting for someone to trip over.
The reaction of Kat is going to be interesting to see if a child comes across one of her scare cats and it explodes and kills them.
A question I have is there going to be things like The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in various countries after this ITTL WW I?
If so then the one at Arlington National Cemetery may not be as elaborate as it is IOTL.
God knows how many unclaimed remains of soldiers from both sides and civilians caught up in the fighting are still lying in the fields just waiting for someone to trip over.
The reaction of Kat is going to be interesting to see if a child comes across one of her scare cats and it explodes and kills them.
A question I have is there going to be things like The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in various countries after this ITTL WW I?
If so then the one at Arlington National Cemetery may not be as elaborate as it is IOTL.
The Red Zone in France is very real in OTL, in TTL it is not as extensive because the war didn't last as long but still there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge
Or what was found in the middle of a major city. https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/03/europe/germany-frankfurt-bomb-evacuation/index.html
Heart over here, heart over there, and some poor sap's mind all over that tree.
In Northern France and Belgium, they have what is known as the Iron Harvest and that is in areas well clear of the "Red Zones'
Yup, Flanders fields provide plenty of bombs every spring. Farmer just pile them up on the side of the road for the military to pick up.
"Dennis, is it a British bomb?"
http://yankwatchesbritcoms.blogspot.com/2017/05/auf-wiedersehen-pet-series-1-episode-2.html
I remember watching that. It was either PBS or CBC that broadcast it over here. I remember thinking it was pretty good at the time.
The book was likely novelisation of several episodes. That happened with quite a few TV series before VCR took off in the 1980s.
I came across this reference a while back while reading about WW1 and its (still lingering) aftermath:
"The Battle of Messines was regarded as the most successful local operation of the war but it left a legacy: six mines were not used. Four on the extreme southern flank were not required because the ridge fell so quickly, and another, a 20,000-pound (9,100 kg) mine codenamed Peckham, was abandoned before the attack due to a tunnel collapse. The sixth, and one of the biggest, was planted under a ruined farm called La Petite Douve. It was lost when the Germans mounted a counter-mining attack, and never used. After the war, La Petite Douve was rebuilt by its owners, the Mahieu family, and later renamed La Basse Cour. The mine is beneath a barn, next to the farmhouse.
— Neil Tweedie"
All but one, Birdcage 3, are still in place. Birdcage 3 exploded in 1955, 40 years after the war, after lightning struck a power pylon that had been built upon it.
"The Battle of Messines was regarded as the most successful local operation of the war but it left a legacy: six mines were not used. Four on the extreme southern flank were not required because the ridge fell so quickly, and another, a 20,000-pound (9,100 kg) mine codenamed Peckham, was abandoned before the attack due to a tunnel collapse. The sixth, and one of the biggest, was planted under a ruined farm called La Petite Douve. It was lost when the Germans mounted a counter-mining attack, and never used. After the war, La Petite Douve was rebuilt by its owners, the Mahieu family, and later renamed La Basse Cour. The mine is beneath a barn, next to the farmhouse.
— Neil Tweedie"
All but one, Birdcage 3, are still in place. Birdcage 3 exploded in 1955, 40 years after the war, after lightning struck a power pylon that had been built upon it.
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Part 90, Chapter 1409
Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Nine
9th October 1960
Tempelhof, Berlin
It seemed that quiet Sunday evenings had become a luxury for Ilse as she sat on the recliner in the library watching Albrecht sitting on the couch trying to read to Nikolaus. Niko seemed far more interested in the sounds from the nearby parlor where his cousins were watching television.
The latest paper that Ilse had published had caused a stir. This time it was peer reviewed and the experiments had been duplicated in other laboratories. The conclusions were clear, burning coal released a considerable amount of sulfur dioxide and that came back down in the form of acid rain. Unfortunately, that led straight to the questions of what was going to happen next and those were ones that Ilse was not prepared to answer. To do so required delving into areas of policy that she hadn’t thought too much about. Sure, there had been the presentations that she had given in London a few years earlier, but Ilse had been a few steps removed from the British Government. In Germany her sister-in-law was Helene von Richthofen and with the National Liberals only having a precarious hold on power there was a chance that new elections might be forced at any time. The Democratic Ecology Party that Helene had founded with Sophie Scholl and her father could easily become a key part of a new coalition Government after that. For someone who abhorred politics, Ilse was finding herself neck deep in them.
It did however change the way that Ilse was treated within the University. To have a paper hold up under peer review like that, was truly something. Her colleagues would love nothing better than to than catch some flaw in the methodology or an example research that couldn’t be duplicated in the field. They would have cheerfully torn her to pieces, it wasn’t because they hated her, it was just what they did. Where before she had spent years quietly collecting samples, sometimes with students helping her but mostly alone, she was now finding that there was suddenly a great deal of interest in her work from both her colleagues and the press. This was in addition to the challenges that she already had to contend with.
Albrecht, who had taken on the role commanding the Carrier Air Group for the SMS Voss, had told that she should push the University for more funding while she was finally enjoying the recognition that she had deserved for a long time. His career was currently keeping him in Kiel all week where the Voss was undergoing a refit and her air wing was tasked with patrolling the Baltic from airfields around that city. It was something that enabled him to come home every weekend. However, the refit of the Voss was nearly complete, and she would be headed for the Pacific in a few months. It was something that neither Ilse nor Albrecht were looking forward to.
Tonight though, Ilse was content with this moment.
Saratov, Russia
“Please tell me that you are joking” Gia said when Fyodor had explained his plan to her after she had arrived by train a few hours earlier. He had called in a favor that she owned him to get her here and his hope was that when they returned to Moscow her cousin Georgy would be suitably grateful. Hopefully to the point of finally giving Fyodor a few months off to pursue his own interests for once.
“I’m not” Fyodor replied, “I’m not asking much of you, just make it look good.”
The plan was simple, the people of Russia had a deep reverence for her even if she was uncomfortable with it. Fyodor intended to take advantage of that by having her come out say a few words and then light a bonfire with a couple dozen of the scare cats that the Sappers the Army had provided had found in the countryside of this Oblast. His thinking was that if the ghost stories were the problem, then he needed a better story to counter it and the woman who the public knew as Grand Duchess Alexandra or Sasha as many liked to call her was perfect. The Orthodox Church had declared her to be a saint of sorts while they thought she was dead. Nothing that they knew of had run counter to that in the years since she had turned up alive. Many of her actions had in fact buttressed the notion that she was a living saint.
The problem that Gia had was that the scare cats were the work of her adopted uncle and that she felt that the superstitious dread that surrounded the things was absurd. They were just sheet metal cutouts and a couple pieces of glass. Klaus Böhler and his wife had welcomed her into their home and made her a part of their family. They had given her the space to heal after the ordeal that she had endured, and she felt that having the scare cats be a part of his legacy was obscene.
As for the Church, Gia had said to Fyodor on a few occasions that the way that they had depicted her was grossly inaccurate but had gotten embarrassed when Fyodor had questioned her too much about that. He found that amusing but hardly a surprise, no one was as pure as her public persona. That time he had watched her give in to anger and shoot that man in Danvers, he had seen the real woman under the artifice. Like it or not, Gia was a daughter of this land and it was good that she was home as opposed to wasting her time in Berlin.
Now Gia stood before several hundred people in the center of Saratov with a flaming torch in her hand and with a bit of flourish spoke of the need to banish the darkness from their hearts, then the need to heal the world itself from the evil that sprang from that darkness. She had thrown in a few references to Jesus Christ and invoked the faith that seemingly everyone here shared except for Fyodor and he had his doubts about her as well. It didn’t help that while her words were compelling, they were largely paraphrased from Gandalf the Grey. Luckily, few people in Russia knew of Tolkien, the Oxford Don turned fantasy writer.
As Gia threw the torch she was holding onto the pile of wood and tinder that had been prepared the people of Saratov witnessed the shocking sight of white flames consuming the scare cats. They thought it was a miracle. Of course, it had more to do with the thermite that Fyodor had put in there. He stood there enjoying the spectacle and Gia was looking at him accusingly. He had forgotten to mention that last part of the plan to her.
9th October 1960
Tempelhof, Berlin
It seemed that quiet Sunday evenings had become a luxury for Ilse as she sat on the recliner in the library watching Albrecht sitting on the couch trying to read to Nikolaus. Niko seemed far more interested in the sounds from the nearby parlor where his cousins were watching television.
The latest paper that Ilse had published had caused a stir. This time it was peer reviewed and the experiments had been duplicated in other laboratories. The conclusions were clear, burning coal released a considerable amount of sulfur dioxide and that came back down in the form of acid rain. Unfortunately, that led straight to the questions of what was going to happen next and those were ones that Ilse was not prepared to answer. To do so required delving into areas of policy that she hadn’t thought too much about. Sure, there had been the presentations that she had given in London a few years earlier, but Ilse had been a few steps removed from the British Government. In Germany her sister-in-law was Helene von Richthofen and with the National Liberals only having a precarious hold on power there was a chance that new elections might be forced at any time. The Democratic Ecology Party that Helene had founded with Sophie Scholl and her father could easily become a key part of a new coalition Government after that. For someone who abhorred politics, Ilse was finding herself neck deep in them.
It did however change the way that Ilse was treated within the University. To have a paper hold up under peer review like that, was truly something. Her colleagues would love nothing better than to than catch some flaw in the methodology or an example research that couldn’t be duplicated in the field. They would have cheerfully torn her to pieces, it wasn’t because they hated her, it was just what they did. Where before she had spent years quietly collecting samples, sometimes with students helping her but mostly alone, she was now finding that there was suddenly a great deal of interest in her work from both her colleagues and the press. This was in addition to the challenges that she already had to contend with.
Albrecht, who had taken on the role commanding the Carrier Air Group for the SMS Voss, had told that she should push the University for more funding while she was finally enjoying the recognition that she had deserved for a long time. His career was currently keeping him in Kiel all week where the Voss was undergoing a refit and her air wing was tasked with patrolling the Baltic from airfields around that city. It was something that enabled him to come home every weekend. However, the refit of the Voss was nearly complete, and she would be headed for the Pacific in a few months. It was something that neither Ilse nor Albrecht were looking forward to.
Tonight though, Ilse was content with this moment.
Saratov, Russia
“Please tell me that you are joking” Gia said when Fyodor had explained his plan to her after she had arrived by train a few hours earlier. He had called in a favor that she owned him to get her here and his hope was that when they returned to Moscow her cousin Georgy would be suitably grateful. Hopefully to the point of finally giving Fyodor a few months off to pursue his own interests for once.
“I’m not” Fyodor replied, “I’m not asking much of you, just make it look good.”
The plan was simple, the people of Russia had a deep reverence for her even if she was uncomfortable with it. Fyodor intended to take advantage of that by having her come out say a few words and then light a bonfire with a couple dozen of the scare cats that the Sappers the Army had provided had found in the countryside of this Oblast. His thinking was that if the ghost stories were the problem, then he needed a better story to counter it and the woman who the public knew as Grand Duchess Alexandra or Sasha as many liked to call her was perfect. The Orthodox Church had declared her to be a saint of sorts while they thought she was dead. Nothing that they knew of had run counter to that in the years since she had turned up alive. Many of her actions had in fact buttressed the notion that she was a living saint.
The problem that Gia had was that the scare cats were the work of her adopted uncle and that she felt that the superstitious dread that surrounded the things was absurd. They were just sheet metal cutouts and a couple pieces of glass. Klaus Böhler and his wife had welcomed her into their home and made her a part of their family. They had given her the space to heal after the ordeal that she had endured, and she felt that having the scare cats be a part of his legacy was obscene.
As for the Church, Gia had said to Fyodor on a few occasions that the way that they had depicted her was grossly inaccurate but had gotten embarrassed when Fyodor had questioned her too much about that. He found that amusing but hardly a surprise, no one was as pure as her public persona. That time he had watched her give in to anger and shoot that man in Danvers, he had seen the real woman under the artifice. Like it or not, Gia was a daughter of this land and it was good that she was home as opposed to wasting her time in Berlin.
Now Gia stood before several hundred people in the center of Saratov with a flaming torch in her hand and with a bit of flourish spoke of the need to banish the darkness from their hearts, then the need to heal the world itself from the evil that sprang from that darkness. She had thrown in a few references to Jesus Christ and invoked the faith that seemingly everyone here shared except for Fyodor and he had his doubts about her as well. It didn’t help that while her words were compelling, they were largely paraphrased from Gandalf the Grey. Luckily, few people in Russia knew of Tolkien, the Oxford Don turned fantasy writer.
As Gia threw the torch she was holding onto the pile of wood and tinder that had been prepared the people of Saratov witnessed the shocking sight of white flames consuming the scare cats. They thought it was a miracle. Of course, it had more to do with the thermite that Fyodor had put in there. He stood there enjoying the spectacle and Gia was looking at him accusingly. He had forgotten to mention that last part of the plan to her.
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