My asian art history class went on a field trip to the Asian Art History Museum in Golden Gate Park before it closed. For our assignment, we were supposed to pick out a piece of artwork we liked and then write a diary entry of two or more pages double spaced from either the point of view of the artist creating the artwork or the point of view of a viewer at the time when the artwork was created.

This was a fun story to write, even though it was an assignment. The name of the artwork is the title of the piece.

Lintel – Reddish sandstone, Angkor Wat or early Bayon period – 12th Century CE Cambodia

Today the art school faculty is reviewing my work. I worked long and hard on my masterpiece and if I am lucky, they will choose my lintel for one of the great temples. Perhaps they may even use it at the great temple Angkor Wat. Although we are far away from the capital and north of the Dangrek Mountains, many works from our school are on temple walls. If they pick my lintel, I will be able to leave the school and apply to work at one of the great temples to be a full time stone carver. To be a temple stone carver at the age of 25 is unheard of, but I am confident of my own abilities. My father would be proud to have a son who is a stone carver, since I am the only son who does not own farm the land. I have dreamt of being a temple stone carver all my life and this lintel is my masterpiece.

I spent many months carving out the sandstone and even more months picking out what story from the Ramayana to depict. My mother told me many stories in my youth of the great monkey king Hanuman and his exploits and he is my favorite god and hero. Hanuman had to be on my lintel.

Reading the Ramayana repeatedly, I decided my favorite scene was the one with Kumbharkarna, evil King Ravana’s brother and King Hanuman. In this scene Kumbharkarna the demon, who is also called “Jug Ears because of his giant ears, is surrounded by Hanuman’s fighting monkey soldiers. The evil god cannot escape and he swallows two of the monkey soldiers but they escape out of his giant ears. I prayed nightly to Hanuman for inspiration and blessings and I hope I have captured the great Monkey King’s bravery and spirit.

In my design, I placed King Hanuman on the right side of the stone since I wanted to show him commanding his army. On his head, I gave him a crown, not a fancy crown, but a simple battle crown. I depicted Hanuman and his monkey soldiers wearing battle dhotis and necklaces of round beads. To show my prowess with stone carving, I carved each monkey’s dhoti with parallel lines. To carve such detail is difficult and I spent many days on these dhotis.

I gave the monkeys a uniform war bib in the shape of the letter ‘V’. On each bib, I carved circles to match the round beads of their necklaces, knowing my art teachers will appreciate the repetition of the circle forms.

I repeated the round curves with the serpentine arm and leg shapes of the monkey legion. I carved the monkeys bodies to be curving like a vine and if you step back from the piece, you can see their curvilinear shape and how they almost entwine.

I placed Kumbharkarna on the left directly opposite Hanuman and dressed him in ceremonial clothes for two reasons. One, Kumbharkarna is a king and should be attired as such and two, I wanted to show the demon god dressed in fancy clothes to reflect his arrogance and disregard for the power of Hanuman’s army. I carved Kumbharkarna‘s dhoti with many more parallel lines than the simple battle dhotis worn by the monkeys. I also gave Kumbharkarna a more intricately carved crown than Hanuman. Again, I liked the contrast between the two kings; Hanuman wearing a simple battle crown and the arrogant Kumbharkarna wearing a ceremonial crown, showing how he thought he could easily defeat his monkey foes with little or no effort. Kumbharkarna is also wearing ceremonial jewelry, which repeats his misplaced confidence in his ability to defeat Hanuman, not to mention my stone carving abilities.

I carved the figure of Kumbharkarna to almost the height of the stone to show the difference in size between him and the monkey legion. It looks very dramatic to see the giant King Kumbharkarna surrounded and immobilized by the monkeys who are as only as short as his leg. I also made Kumbharkarna very wide to further emphasize the size discrepancy between him and the monkeys.

Stepping back yesterday after I finished to admire my own art, I marveled at how the monkeys were so uniform in size and shape. I carved the stone down so the figures stick out from the flat surface. The monkeys look alive, almost three-dimensional. Their arms and legs are round and life like; it looks like someone placed the monkeys sideways in the stone.

I am nervous. I think my art is good but is it good enough for a temple. I don’t know. Praying at my shrine to Hanuman, I asked him to bless my lintel. I also prayed to the great god Vishnu to grant me his favors today. It will be up to the art faculty to decide whether I have captured the spirit of this Ramayana scene.

My friend Judy's dad died last Wednesday. They discovered an inoperable brain tumor in mid August. The familiy knew he didn't have long to live, but I think they thought he would last until early next year. Brain tumors are like that; quick and painless. Judy's dad died in his sleep.

My ex mother-in-law, whom I dearly loved, died like that. Brain tumor diagnosis one day and three months later she was gone. Even the doctors at Stanford couldn't do a thing for her. Poor Lou.

She asked my ex-husband about me, you know. Asked my ex in her last dying days, about me and about how I was. Lou even told me ex how much she loved me. She was a great mom-in-law. I was really touched by her gesture, since I hadn't seen in her in five years.

The last time I saw Judy's dad, we were in Vermont and watching Monday Night football. He was a big New England Patriots fan and was lamenting about his team. He had gone up the day before to Canada to buy Molson beer and we were drinking beer, talking about football and watching the game. He was such a sweet man. Sort of high handed in his own way, but then I think all old dads are high handed. And boy did he love his Big Band music, the music of his youth Judy said.

Losing a parent is so hard, even though you're expecting them to die. My dad was in the hospital for two years before he finally moved on. Towards the end, I couldn't even go and see him. He was wasting away to nothing, paralyzed from the waist down and in pain, and just getting sicker and more depressed as the two years wore on. My family was relieved when he finally left since he was depressed and in pain, but it was still hard, very hard.

My friend Patti, from my writing group, is into writing flash fiction. I had to write one page story for a writing class I was in during the Fall 2000, so I think this qualifies as flash fiction.

Flash Fiction – Maggie and The Crying Freeman

It's late she thought, looking at her watch, almost midnight. Maggie stared at her notes again to see if there was anything she might have overlooked. Five killings were done assassin style. The victims were all males, between the ages of 30 and 50, found in dumpsters in the Mission district in San Francisco with their hands and feet tied and a note pinned to their chest which read, "The people have spoken and made their judgment. The accused has been punished in the manner befitting the crime". The note was signed "The Crying Freeman" and under the signature the killer had drawn tears as if he was sorry for the killing. Each victim was shot in the head at close range from behind. Each man had been wearing an expensive suit, had carried a briefcase, laptop, PDA and a cellphone. Each had held a top position at their respective dot com companies and they all lived in the mission.

Other than that, there was no apparent connection between each man. Maggie put her pen down and stared out of her hotel window gazing at the lights of the city flickering in the darkness. The Crying Freeman was a comic book character she’d found out. However, the murders were nothing like the comic books. If this was a copycat murder, she mused, then the assassin would use the same killing metho, but he didn't. Maggie leaned her head back and closed her eyes and thought about all the murders she had helped solved over her twenty-five year career as private investigator; not one resembled this case. She thought about the young kid she had interviewed at the comic book store. The killer must be a regular at the comic bookstore she thought and wrote a note to herself to question the employees again.

Suddenly there was a loud knock at the door. Maggie started and looked at the clock wondering who it could be at this late hour. She stood up, went over to her bag on the bed, and got out her gun. She looked through the chambers making sure it was loaded and then put the gun in the holster at her side. She put her jacket on and then went to the door and opened it.

"Maggie, Hi, I’m Oscar, the guy you interviewed today at Al's Comic Books."

"Oh yeah, hi, how are you?" Maggie wondered why he was here.

"Good. Listen, I know it's late, but you told me to come by your hotel if I remember anything and I have. Can I come in?" Maggie looked at the kid again. He wasn't a kid actually, she thought and guessed his age to about late 20's. There was something very sweet and eager about him.

"Sure come in" she said, "I was just go over my notes again." Maggie closed the door, undid the chain, opened the door again and gestured for Oscar to come in. She saw the kid's eyes look around the room and widen as he walked in. Her room was a big suite with a desk and a living room.

"Why don't we sit on the couch and you can tell me what you remembered", Maggie said walking over to the sofa and noticed out of the corner of her eye, Oscar fumbling for something in his jacket. She turned around and put her hand on her gun under her jacket, watching him. All of a sudden, the hair on her neck started rising. She caught a brief glimpse of the gun in his hand.

Maggie pulled her own gun out and yelled, "Drop it", cocking her gun. Oscar started for a second but didn't drop his gun.

"I said drop the gun or I'll shoot", Maggie yelled. Oscar stared at her and the gun. Maggie saw a tears roll down Oscar's cheek and thought to herself that he wasn't prepared for her having a gun and that she had caught him off guard.

"Why are you doing this?" Maggie asked, "Who the hell are you?" There was a long silence in the room.

"I said, who the hell are you.”

"I am the Crying Freeman," he said simply. Oscar lifted his gun and before Maggie could shoot, he shot himself in the mouth.

Dropping her hands to her side, Maggie wiped her brow. She felt her hands clammy with sweat and noticed that her blouse was also wet. She saw a small book that must have fallen out of his jacket. Maggie reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the rubber gloves she always carried with her, and put them on. Then she bent down, picked up the book, and flipped through the pages. There was a page for each victim, with their names, what comic books they bought, where they worked, where they lived, how they looked. They were all comic book shop customers she thought, that's the connection.

She saw another page. It read, "I am the Crying Freeman. It is my duty to rid San Francisco of those people who are responsible for its demise. I have been ordered to kill all those work in dot com companies." Maggie shook her head, went over to the phone called the police.

God, all this talk about anthrax. Who knows what to believe? I feel like I'm listening to the Y2K doomsayers again and Y2K never happend. People are so paranoid right now, even the experts. They're saying that these early cases of anthrax are just test cases and that we can expect a mass attack. Why do they do this? It's scary!!! They're talking about spraying biological and chemical weapons on money, on food, in our water supply, etc.

Whoever is doing this, I think they are very serious. But I believe in karma and it's really, really bad karma what they're doing and I think karma will take care of these people down the road. But until down the road comes, I'm afraid of what will happen to me, to my family and friends and to my country.

I honestly don't know what to believe. I'm listening to a guy who's scaring me about biological and chemical weapons and in the same breath, he's hawking his book about biological terror for $20. There's something not right about that somehow.