So, Ted said it was a long story and that nothing happened.

I perceived Ted’s response to be something other than a denial. I heard someone who thought that a situation had been worked out and that he simply did not want to go into detail about Ghandia’s business. I actually thought that Ted took the high road. He respected her privacy.

He could very easily have said, “Whoa, wait a minute! What did she say? She was spooning back at ME! She grabbed my arm and held it around her. SHE is the one who’s always touching me, leaning on me. She is the one who suggested we sleep next to each other.

She was raped and now she is overreacting because she still isn’t over that trauma.” But he didn’t. He just tried to let it die so that Ghandia’s personal life isn’t dragged out for the world to see. “It’s a long story. A mistake happened and I rectified it.”

And when he said nothing happened, I’m guessing that he meant that nothing happened that should be made into a big deal.

Brian told Helen that Ted said nothing happened. Helen promptly went over and relayed this to Ghandia.

I’m sitting here trying to think of something to say, something wise, something witty. But I just can’t come up with anything.

In my opinion, Colby should’ve won. Not that I disliked Tina (in fact, I really liked her and defended her against all the nutballs who say she backstabbed Mad Dog). Out of the four votes for Tina (Elisabeth, Jerri, Alicia, and Keith), Alicia gave the only sound reason for her vote (she was able to make it this far WITHOUT winning immunity challenges). Two of the four were simply illogical popularity votes. And Jerri voted for Tina only because Colby didn’t kiss up to her.

In my Manly Man predictions, I predicted Colby and Tina to make the finals (I finally was right and the Unbelievable Bloombergini was wrong on something), but I predicted Colby to take the prize. My reasoning for Colby or Tina to NOT select Keith to be with them in the final was the same as Colby’s reasoning (the best people should be in the final – not the person who’s going to give me a definite win). And it is this reasoning that will afford Colby easily more than a million dollars in endorsements and whatever else comes his way.

As I watched the post-Survivor wrap-up and as I listened to Tina speak each time, I just can’t imagine her having anything close to what Richard Hatch has as far as post-Survivor fame. My prediction for the biggest earners: Colby, Elisabeth (these two are a given), Rodger, and Amber. Kimmi has already demonstrated herself to be the winner in capitalizing on the Survivor fame by doing the stupidest things, and I believe she’ll continue to do so.

Here are some of the first things that come to mind as I ponder the three hours of tonight’s Survivor:

* I could’ve done without the 45 minutes of introspection and showing Colby, Keith, and Tina pondering their fate and thanking everything down to the tree bark. Boring. But the show has already demonstrated a keen sense in milking the money out of the advertisers and the advertising time, so it wasn’t entirely unexpected.

* I loved the tough questions Colby and Tina were asked. Even Mr. Gumbel asked a few tough ones.

* Jerri’s question to Colby and Tina, which was so obviously Jerri expecting some sort of apology from them, completely backfired. Instead of Tina mentioning how she lied to Jerri or Mad Dog, Tina mentioned the beef jerky incident and how horrible she felt for screwing Kel as they did. Nice job, Tina!

* Kel said how he still very much dislikes Jerri, accompanied by a whole audience applauding in agreement. (I would’ve like to have heard Kel say something like, “And you STILL think I had beef jerky, with all the security we went through? You are such a stupid bitch.” I would’ve liked that. Actually, I would’ve like to have heard more from Kel. I think he and Michael were two that deserved to go further than they did.)

Well Barren’s new living and schooling arrangements are working out so well aren’t they? Not exactly. It seems that there is a lot of misinformation amongst her multiple sets of parents and grandpa Michael about moving her to a different place and everything will be just fine.

Contrary to what her parents or grandparent believes drugs are EVERYWHERE. Just because Barren is living in the spacious Abbott mansion or going to a prestigious school does not mean that she is now protected or insulated from drugs or bad people. To the contrary it just means she has to find another supplier in her new surroundings and she may have already found one.

Why her parents don’t realize that her problems need more treatment than a change in scenery is beyond me. But they may find out the hard way when Barren ends up in big, big trouble from her drug use or the people she is making friends with. Grandpa Michael and the parents seem willing to heap the responsibility of watching Barren onto Sanders. I think they are all in for a rude awakening about what teen life is REALLY like.

The show though is doing the story the right way. If the intent is to show that kids from ALL backgrounds, financial status and good homes can be hooked on drugs they are doing it the right way. Barren was moved from her parents home into her grandfather’s home and a really good school and the families thought all was solved but in reality the problems are still there just like they are in many families watching the show. Hopefully at the end of this story a lot of people will be so much the wiser including Barren’s family and Barren as well.

Martin sighed. “I thought you were a…”

He stopped, shrugged and hoping that his confession could somehow expiate his sense of guilt continued, “…a thief! Funny isn’t it! I thought you were a thief. I’m sorry!” Suddenly he was aware of the whiteness of her small breasts visible in the deep plunge of her yellow shirt.

The girl bit into a luscious fat fig she had just peeled, and with her mouth full, some seeds dribbling from the edges of her mouth, said “Who said I’m not a thief?”

“I’d rather you were not!” The girl got up and eyed him defiantly. “Well, I am. You’d better catch me!”

She climbed over the rubble wall and, her bare feet hardly making a noise on the tarmac, ran into the factory. Somewhere in the pit of his stomach the old familiar pain swelled up. Was it possible she did not know he was a cripple? Suddenly he heard her shout. The great dane was barring her way. Growling, it was poised to spring at her slightest movement.

“Boy, come here boy, come” but the dog, sensing the girl was a friend, began to bark and jump around her. She responded to the animal and began to chase it up and down the road. Martin limped into the factory and sat down on the flat stone watching them from behind the iron bars.

Soon it was too dark to see as the road was badly lit. She came towards him and bid him good-bye. “So you’re going then!”

“I have to. Besides I’m hungry. We have green peppers in tomato sauce today!”

He felt his mouth dry. He licked his lips. “Don’t, please don’t. You make me hungry!”

Her laugh rippled towards him in the stillness of the night as she vanished over the rubble wall running towards some buildings behind a clump of oak trees.

Suddenly Martin felt alone. The great dane, its huge tongue dangling out of its mouth, settled down near him. All around was silent and now and then a solitary car rushed through the night, its headlights cutting tunnels through the darkness. Otherwise he was alone, the tiles his inanimate companions.

Suddenly, just as he had decided it was safe for him to get some sleep, he felt an icy hand covering his eyes. He turned and grabbed the intruder. It was the girl. “You gave me a fright. You shouldn’t do that.”

“I’ve brought you some food!” She offered him a plate she had hidden on a flat tile some distance away. “Not that you deserve it. You make a bad sentry. I could have bumped you off easily!”

He pleaded mockingly: “Have a heart!”

When he had eaten the green peppers she looked at him mischievously, “You liked it?”

“Thank you, yes.”

“Well I must now demand payment.”

“What do you want?”

“Give me a kiss.”

Shyly he kissed her. He had never kissed a girl before. He felt he did it right, very much in the same way he had seen people kissing on the big screen. She clung to him and kissed him again and again. He stiffened and then quivered like a jelly. Silently she led him to his small room. The great dane was left near the iron door to do his master’s job.

It became a habit and every sunset she used to come and spend some time with him, first letting him eat the food she had brought, then making love to him Her name was Carmen. Her mother had grudgingly allowed her to work on a farm nearby, but that virago was not happy with the situation because she never liked her to sleep away from home. “What would your father say!” she would complain; but father was far away earning a living in Australia, and every time he wrote he promised to return, knowing he had no intention of doing so.

Summer soon ended and the leaves on the trees turned to mellow brown. The nights grew cold but Carmen was there to keep Martin company. Until one day she failed to turn up. What could have happened? Perhaps she was sick! A week went by and she never came. Plucking up courage, Martin hobbled towards the farm and asked for her. The farmer smiled wryly.

“Her mother took her away. I heard they emigrated to Australia.”

“Like that? Without notice?”

The farmer scratched his bald head: “Seems they took the place of some other family who could not go.”

The night watchman limped back to the factory. Two small tears trickled from the edge of his eyes but he quietly wiped them away. His eyes had to be sharp and alert. After all was he not the guardian of the tiles?

The distant chimes of a church clock informed listeners that the afternoon was seven hours old. Martin looked around him in distaste. Seven o’clock was the time people left their flat-roofed houses and made their way to the sea-side promenades, scattered here and there on the tiny island, where they could enjoy the pleasant sea breezes and lick vanilla-flavored ice-creams or bite into the large pizzas that had become so popular. The seaside promenades were meeting places for lovers and friends, but Martin had neither lover nor friend that is why he preferred to work at night, alone, watching the tiles.

He opened the large iron door and prepared to make his round of the factory, making sure no one was lurking in the vicinity. For a moment he stopped and breathed in the sweet smelling breeze that wafted its way up the valley. Then he whistled and a great dane came bounding from amongst the tiles and barked its delight at its master. Martin sighed and hoped it was going to be a peaceful evening, a lonely, peaceful evening, one of those three hundred and sixty-four days of the year when nothing happened to disturb the tranquillity of the surroundings. Thus he hoped, knowing that after all nothing ever happened to him.

He shrugged his shoulders and began his beat around the factory, walking slowly and silently like a cat, one foot after another, one long leg dragging after a short one, hobbling silently, his tall lean figure like a ship’s mast going up and down as if in a storm. All around was peace. The storm was inside him and at times it welled up threatening to engulf him in a whirlpool of self-pity. However, the peace of the countryside helped him to ignore the pain that gathered in the pit of his stomach. He concentrated on the surroundings, his sharp, hazel eyes piercing the gathering darkness, on the alert for the slightest movement.

Martin was thirty-three years old and was all alone in the world. At the age of seven he had contracted polio. It is rare for a grown man to remember in detail his worst childhood experiences, but Martin remembered everything; the white uniforms, the pungent smell of surgical spirit, the poker-faced doctors running around like ants, prescribing, observing, feeling, helping and vanishing into the obscure corridors of the hospital: but most of all he could never forget the deep-lined, worried-looking faces of his parents. Their red eyes, that peered at him over the iron sides of the bed, their cold hands that caressed his forehead and stroked his brown long hair, cuddling him to sleep, reassuring him of their love whatever the outcome. Somehow he pulled through–only to leave that foul-smelling hospital a cripple never to play as other children played, never to walk as other men walked, and somehow he felt that this condition rendered him so different that he could never love as other men loved.

Yet notwithstanding his limp he could move with agility. He trudged around the small factory, his faithful dane bounding in front of him. The beaten track was as desolate as the fields around. He tramped over the aromatic fragrant pinkish flowers of the wild thyme, oblivious to their beauty amongst the hard granite that jutted out of the ground and spread into the adjoining fields before getting lost in the rich soil of the valley.

For a moment he stopped, mesmerized by the echoes of past days when as a young boy he used to join his classmates and go in search of the small honeycombs that bees built amongst the trees growing in the crevices of the rocky fields. Wherever the thyme grew one was sure to find bees. Those days should have been happy and carefree. When he left hospital he hoped his classmates would find his limp interesting, his friendship a thing to covet; but it was not to be. His classmates could not be bothered with him. He was a nuisance to them.

They would shout: “Come on Martin, run!” never thinking for one moment that he could not. And when the teacher recounted the adventures of the Pied Piper, he felt somehow that the story was meant for him. Like the poor limping child he was always to be left behind, alone even amongst a crowd, a cripple whom no one loved. He became introspective and suspicious of anyone who tried to help him.

When he grew up it was very difficult to find employment. School had been a formality and he had never bothered to learn, not even a skill. He had only his limp and that was hardly an asset. By the time he was twenty-two years old his parents were both dead, interred under the cypress trees in the family tomb. For a while he lived on social assistance until someone suggested he should register as a disabled person. He tried his best not to feel the pain in his chest. It was like an insult to him. Finally he did register as disabled and was surprised when three weeks later he was offered employment as a night watchman. It was a job he could do easily, hobbling around a deserted factory, guarding the tiles.

And now, tonight, on his rounds, the silence was so perfect it could almost be heard. He came back inside the factory again and peered into each of the four rooms. There was very little to see. In the two big rooms there were the machines, the heavy bags of cement, the tools and stores. One of the smaller rooms was an air-tight, air-conditioned, tastefully decorated office and the other one was his room, not air-tight, not air-conditioned and not at all tastefully decorated. Its paint had long since peeled off the limestone, but his small bed was comfortable. It was all Martin needed.

When he had made sure no one was lurking anywhere in the factory, he limped towards the iron door and sat down on a flat stone near the door. It would not do for him to let a thief get away with anything from the factory. Not that there was anything to steal, but one never knew. The factory had been broken into once since he had taken over the night watch ten years previously. Everyone knew who the culprit was. It was a young man from a nearby village. One morning he had been found loitering by the boss. It was a hot day and the quarrel grew out of all proportion. The young man got the sack. During the night someone entered the factory and partly dismantled one of the machines, stealing a vital piece that could not easily be replaced. The police soon pounced on the young man and took him to their headquarters. But he had a strong alibi. During the night he had been with his friends, he said, and they all swore he had been with them. They had gone out fishing, not returning until the early hours of the next morning. The police could do nothing and the boss was beside himself with anger. Poor Martin became the butt of his wrath.

The boss sent for him in the air-conditioned, tastefully decorated office. He was not asked to sit. He was merely bombarded with endless questions. Where were you? Did you report for work? Were you asleep? Were you under the influence of alcohol? And so on and so forth. Finally, he was fined a week’s pay.

So now he was always extra careful lest something out of the ordinary occurred. He could never be sure. So his sharp eyes were always on the look out. Those were his assets, his eyes. He could spot a movement in the fields even in the dark. He had to be alert, watchful, the protector of tiles.
to be continued…