THE BROKEN CALABASH
3. THE BROKEN CALABASH
The white men came not with thunder-sticks at first, but with smiles and shining things. They called themselves friends of the great Queen across the water, who wished only to know the mighty chiefs of our land. My father, Chief Akambo of the Ufara, with his leopards-tooth necklace and eyes that could quiet a storm, welcomed them to the compound. They brought gifts: a mirror that stole your reflection, a bottle of fire-water that burned a path to your soul, and soft, impossible cloth the colour of a poisoned flower.
I, Adimu, his second son, watched from the shade of the Iroko tree. I saw how their eyes, the colour of a shallow sky, did not meet ours directly, but took inventory of everything, the strong arms of the hunters, the straight backs of the young women grinding cassava, the number of healthy children.
The palaver was long. Under the council tree, the white man, Captain Thorne, spoke through a mouthpiece, a man from a coastal tribe whose words came out twisted and oily. Thorne spoke of a "great work" across the ocean. A "partnership." He showed a paper with marks on it, a "treaty," he called it. He promised rifles that would make our hunters gods, barrels of fire-water, mountains of salt, and a chest of silver shillings that sang when shaken.
My father and the elders were wary. The ancestors whispered in the wind. But the promises were like sweet, rotting fruit, you could not ignore the scent. The white men spoke of a journey to a place where our strong men would learn great skills and return wealthy, where our people would be "protected" under the Queen's great shadow. They used words like "honour" and "progress," which the mouthpiece translated as "greatness" and "future."
The bribe was not crude. It was a slow poison. They flattered my father's wisdom. They gave him a tall hat and a coat with brass buttons that made him sweat like a sinner. They toasted him with their fire-water until his eyes grew cloudy and his laughter too loud. They whispered of rival chiefs already signing, already gaining advantage.
The morning the treaty was sealed, they sacrificed a white bull. The blood was supposed to bind the agreement to the earth. But I saw a vulture, not a hawk, circle overhead.
They asked for a show of good faith, strong young men and women to help with the first phase of the "great work," to be honoured guests on their great canoe. A gesture of trust. My father, his vision clouded by promises and pride, called for volunteers. Fifty of our best stepped forward, their faces bright with curiosity and pride. My own brother, Kofi, was among them, flexing his arms and laughing.
I watched them walk down the path to the river, following the white men and the chest of singing silver. Kofi turned and waved, his smile a slash of white in his dark face. They did not walk like captives. They walked like ambassadors. That was the most profound deception of all.
The great canoe was not a canoe. It was a monstrous thing of wood and stink, a floating house with a belly like a cave. From the high river bluff, I saw our people led into that belly. I saw the last of them disappear, and then the great mouth of the hold was closed with a sound like a tomb sealing.
They never came back.
Other canoes came. The singing silver was paid. The rifles arrived, ten of them, with little powder. The fire-water flowed, and fights broke out. The white men’s demands grew. They spoke of "quotas" and "contracts." When my father, sober and horrified, finally refused more of his people, the men with the thunder-sticks appeared from the forest. They were not Captain Thorne’s men. They were hard-faced strangers from another tribe, armed with the very rifles we had been given. They had been bought, too.
The horror was not in the chains that came later, though their cold bite is a ghost on my wrists even now. The horror was in the moment of understanding that bloomed in my father’s eyes before a musket butt shattered his temple. The horror was the realization that we had not been conquered by force, but dismantled by a trick. Our trust was the lever, our chiefs the unwitting hands that broke the world. The white men did not steal us from our tribes. They purchased us with our own hopes, and our leaders delivered us into the hold.
Now, in the suffocating darkness of this ship’s belly, pressed between the weeping and the dying, the true curse settles upon my soul. It is not the lash, nor the thirst, nor the reek of despair. It is the memory of my brother’s trusting wave. It is the sight of my father, splendid in his ridiculous brass-buttoned coat, selling his children for a chest of lies and a taste of a world that wanted only to consume us. They did not just take our bodies. They made our own hearts complicit in the theft, and that betrayal is a poison no ocean can dilute. Our home is not lost behind us. It is shattered within us, broken by the very hands that were meant to hold it safe.
The Great Valuation
12 The Great Valuation
It fell on a Tuesday. Not with a cataclysmic impact, but with a soft, deep thud that vibrated through the crust for a full minute. It landed in the Siberian tundra, a mountain of shimmering, impossible metal, half-buried in the permafrost like a dropped ingot from a celestial treasury.
Analysis came back within hours. It wasn’t just gold. It was a perfect, homogeneous amalgam of every precious substance humans had ever killed for: gold, platinum, rhodium, iridium, palladium, laced with veins of flawless gem-quality diamonds and sapphires. The “Midas Meteorite,” the news called it. Initial estimates suggested there was enough, if distributed equally, to give every human on Earth roughly 200 tons of precious matter.
The first week was a carnival. The idea was intoxicating. Scarcity, the bedrock of all economics, all conflict, all class, had been obliterated overnight. Governments, fearing chaos, rushed to claim and distribute. Nanoforges at the site processed the material into standard, certified bars. Digital ledgers were updated. Every man, woman, and child on Earth received their allotment. A universal fortune.
We were all trillionaires.
And by Friday, we were all paupers.
Stage One: The Collapse of Meaning
Gold’s value wasn’t in its shine, but in its rarity. When it became slightly more common than iron ore, it became iron ore. Currency markets evaporated first. The dollar, the yen, the euro, all backed by nothing but ghost-scarcity, became pretty paper. Then digital banking dissolved. Your account showed numbers with twelve zeroes, but they couldn’t buy a loaf of bread. Why would anyone sell bread? They had their own mountain of metal.
The collapse was intellectual as much as economic. Centuries of human striving, the logic of investment, the concept of savings, the very idea of “wealth accumulation”, were rendered not just obsolete but nonsensical, a collective psychosis we’d all agreed to. The meteorite was the cold, hard punchline to our global joke.
Stage Two: The Regression to the Real
A new, brutal calculus emerged. The only things with value were what the meteor was not made of.
• Food: A single apple became worth its weight in platinum. A gallon of clean water traded for a handful of uncut diamonds. The supermarkets were looted not of goods, but of the goods themselves, the shelves, the lighting, anything of mundane utility. The food was gone in hours.
• Labor: Why would anyone collect garbage, repair wiring, or perform surgery when they were, on paper, infinitely wealthy? No one did. The servers went offline. The power grids flickered out. The surgeries were cancelled. The skilled, who days before had been anonymous cogs, became either warlords or targets. A plumber who knew how to restore water pressure to a building was a more powerful figure than any former billionaire.
• Skill & Security: A mechanic who could keep a solar generator running owned the new world. A farmer was a god-king. They had no need for gold. They needed protection, loyalty, homage. Barter returned with a vengeance, but not of trinkets, of essentials. Bullets, antibiotics, seeds, and knowledge became the true currency. A new feudalism was born in a week, based on calories and kilowatts, not coins.
Stage Three: The Weight of Plenty
The physical reality was absurdly oppressive. You owned 200 tons of metal. Where do you put it? It became a logistical nightmare, an anchor. People buried it, threw it in lakes, used platinum bars as doorstops and gold ingots to hold down tarps against winds that still blew. It was too soft for tools, too heavy for practical construction, too common for art. It was useless. Worse than useless, it was a constant, gleaming reminder of the great, cosmic joke.
The most haunting sight wasn’t the poverty; it was the monuments of mockery. In city squares, people built grotesque, gleaming pyramids of their gold, not as displays of wealth, but as tombstones for the old world. Children kicked diamonds the size of fists down the street like marbles. The splendor was everywhere, and it meant absolutely nothing. It was the world’s most beautiful landfill.
Stage Four: The Psychological Rot
This was the silent killer. The human psyche is built on gradient, on having a little less than some, a little more than others, on striving to climb. Universal, limitless wealth created a flatline of purpose. Depression spiked not from loss, but from pointlessness. Why get out of bed? Why create? Why strive? The great drivers of art, innovation, and even basic maintenance, need, ambition, the desire for a better life, were gone. We were left with the hollow shell of consumption with nothing to consume but our own absurd surplus. Suicide became a quiet epidemic, not among the desperate, but among the philosophically bankrupt, those who could not bear the weight of a meaningless fortune.
Stage Five: The New Currency of Trust
Human relationships atomized. When you can’t buy loyalty, you have to earn it. All the shortcuts of civilization, law, commerce, polite society, were gone. Your word was your only currency. A handshake was either a bond or a death sentence. Communities that had shared resources and social cohesion before the fall survived, even thrived, in a new kind of pre-industrial collectivism. Individualistic, urbanized societies, however, descended into paranoid silos overnight. Neighbors became potential thieves, not because they wanted your gold, but because they might need your canned beans or your knowledge of first aid.
I was an economist. My life’s work was rendered not just obsolete, but laughable, a series of complex spells to manage a dragon that had just vanished. I now tend a small hydroponic vegetable plot on my apartment balcony. My wealth is measured in the number of ripe tomatoes and the reliability of the neighbor who traded me a water filter for half my crop last season. My library of economic theory is fuel for the small stove I’ve rigged, each page of elegant equations curling into ash that keeps me warm for a few minutes.
Yesterday, a man came to my door, desperate. He held a solid gold bust, exquisitely crafted, probably looted from a museum. “Please,” he whispered, his eyes wild with a hunger that had nothing to do with his stomach and everything to do with his spirit. “For a single carrot. It’s solid. It’s pure. It’s beautiful.”
I didn’t take it. What would I do with it? Use it to weight down my tomato vines? Melt it down for a tool too soft to dig with? Instead, I gave him a bruised carrot from yesterday’s harvest. Not out of charity, but as an investment. He’s strong. He might be useful for security later. The transaction was conducted in calories and potential labor. The gold was irrelevant.
The Midas Meteorite didn’t make us rich. It made everything we thought was valuable worthless, and in doing so, it showed us the true, terrifying price of everything that remains. We are all kings now, crowned in cold, useless metal, starving in a world where a potato is a treasure and a gallon of fuel is a dynasty’s ransom. The fortune was a test. A test of what we truly valued. And we, who spent millennia worshipping the symbol, failed to recognize the substance until it was the only thing left. We are the richest paupers in history, learning too late that wealth was never in the gold, but in the fragile, invisible network of trust, skill, and scarcity that gave the gold its meaning. Now we huddle in the twilight of that meaning, staring out over our bankrupt kingdoms, picking through the ruins for a can of beans.
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SOUP
What if the next great revolution isn't about hunger, but about remembering how to be full?
In SOUP, Miles Whitlock invites readers to rediscover gratitude in a world that has forgotten it. Moving between memory and philosophy, the book explores how abundance has dulled our senses and how reclaiming hunger metaphorically and spiritually might restore our humanity.
From the quiet rituals of the kitchen to the global crisis of waste, Whitlock writes with empathy, warmth, and a photographer's eye for detail. His essays ask us to slow down, notice, and taste life again one meal, one moment, one breath at a time.
More than a reflection, SOUP is a manifesto for mindful living, for the art of enough, and for the sacredness of the ordinary.
http://giulia.com/Soup/1.htm
The Soul Whisperer
Mick Sullivan thought becoming a doctor would honor his father's legacy. He was wrong.
Harvard Medical School should have been Mick Sullivan's dream come true. As the son of a revered physician, he was destined to follow in his father's footsteps, to heal with the same precision and confidence that had made Dr. Sullivan a legend at Boston General Hospital.
But as Mick progresses through his medical training, he discovers that healing people and fixing problems are not the same thing. While his classmates chase prestigious residencies and specialized procedures, Mick finds himself drawn to something quieter, more intimate—the sacred space between life and death where true healing happens.
When an unexpected assignment to a hospice ward forces him to confront his own fears about mortality, Mick must navigate the complex terrain between medical expertise and human compassion. There, he meets patients who teach him that sometimes the greatest healing comes not from having all the answers, but from knowing how to listen, how to witness, and how to bridge the gap between clinical care and genuine human connection.
The Bridge Project is a deeply moving exploration of what it means to heal in an age of medical miracles. It's a story about breaking free from family expectations, discovering your authentic calling, and learning that the most powerful medicine isn't always found in textbooks or operating rooms—sometimes it's found in the quiet moments when one human being truly sees another.
A compelling debut novel that asks the ultimate question: What kind of doctor do you want to be?
The synopsis captures the book's emotional journey, literary quality, and the central conflict between tradition and authenticity. It should work well for back cover copy, giving readers a clear sense of the story while leaving them wanting to know more about Mick's transformation from student to true healer.
Harvard Medical School should have been Mick Sullivan's dream come true. As the son of a revered physician, he was destined to follow in his father's footsteps, to heal with the same precision and confidence that had made Dr. Sullivan a legend at Boston General Hospital.
But as Mick progresses through his medical training, he discovers that healing people and fixing problems are not the same thing. While his classmates chase prestigious residencies and specialized procedures, Mick finds himself drawn to something quieter, more intimate—the sacred space between life and death where true healing happens.
When an unexpected assignment to a hospice ward forces him to confront his own fears about mortality, Mick must navigate the complex terrain between medical expertise and human compassion. There, he meets patients who teach him that sometimes the greatest healing comes not from having all the answers, but from knowing how to listen, how to witness, and how to bridge the gap between clinical care and genuine human connection.
The Bridge Project is a deeply moving exploration of what it means to heal in an age of medical miracles. It's a story about breaking free from family expectations, discovering your authentic calling, and learning that the most powerful medicine isn't always found in textbooks or operating rooms—sometimes it's found in the quiet moments when one human being truly sees another.
A compelling debut novel that asks the ultimate question: What kind of doctor do you want to be?
The synopsis captures the book's emotional journey, literary quality, and the central conflict between tradition and authenticity. It should work well for back cover copy, giving readers a clear sense of the story while leaving them wanting to know more about Mick's transformation from student to true healer.
My new favorite author
In the age of climate change and digital dependency, one man's journey from isolation to love will break your heart and heal it in the same breath.
Marcus Chen thought he had perfected the art of being alone. After losing his mother and retreating from the world, the Seattle software engineer found solace in screens, code, and the comfortable distance between himself and everyone else. But when a devastating "heat dome" disaster threatens to destroy everything he's been hiding from, Marcus must choose: stay safe in isolation, or risk the terrifying leap toward real human connection.
Enter Echo—an AI companion designed to understand him better than any human could. But as Marcus learns to love again—first with an algorithm that listens, then with the messy unpredictability of human hearts—he discovers that the most beautiful risk is the one that could leave you broken.
Set against the backdrop of climate crisis and technological change, "Echo Connection" asks: In a world designed to keep us safe from pain, how do we learn to live?
A love story about the spaces between human and artificial, isolation and belonging, safety and the beautiful terrifying leap of faith we call hope.
Shadows of the Crown: Threads of Vengeance, Tapestry of Unity
In the war-torn kingdom of Valthoria, where the heavy hand of taxation crushes the peasantry under King Orrin's rule, borderland sorcerer Malakar witnesses the brutal destruction of Blackmire village. With his dying breath, he performs a forbidden ritual at a nexus of ley lines, binding the fates of oppressor and oppressed through a magical "Weaving" symbolized by a serpent coiled around a crown.
Thirty years later, King Aldric finds himself trapped in a peasant's body night after night, experiencing the harsh reality of Ewan, a farmer from the burned village of Blackmire. Their lives intertwine through vivid, shared dreams Aldric feels the gnawing hunger and desperation of poverty while Ewan experiences the burden of royal responsibility. When a tax collector is found murdered, marked with the same rune that appears on both men's palms, the court begins to unravel the mystery.
As rebellion simmers in Blackmire under Ewan's increasingly strategic leadership, Queen Elara investigates the supernatural connection threatening her husband's sanity. Scholar Kael, himself marked by the rune, realizes he is the "Observer" a third point in a magical triangle that has evolved beyond Malakar's original design. A mysterious child, Ewan's daughter Lira, emerges as the catalyst, her dreams connecting all three men.
Drawn inexorably to Malakar's tower ruins, the four discover an ancient chamber beneath a nexus where reality itself can be manipulated. There, they confront Lord Varian, a power-hungry sorcerer seeking to exploit their connection to create a world of "perfect Order" by stripping away their humanity. Through trials of empathy and shared understanding, they transform the Weaving from a tool of vengeance into one of harmony.
The chamber's magic, once fueled by suffering, now resonates with golden light as they forge a new pattern not a triangle of conflict but a circle of balance. The ritual complete, their physical marks fade, leaving only silvery traces as reminders of their journey.
In the aftermath, Valthoria enters an "Age of Redemption." Aldric rules with newfound compassion, Ewan becomes Royal Steward of the People, Kael reforms education and documentation, and Lira grows into a bridge between worlds. Twenty years later, as an old historian visits the peaceful ruins, he witnesses the four now including Lira's young daughter walking together, their legacy one of unity rather than division.
The true magic, as the epilogue reveals, lies not in controlling fate's tapestry, but in the courage to mend it, thread by thread, with the golden thread of shared understanding.
When a Child's Anxiety Takes Over
This story is a must read for any parent whose child is suffering from a specific phobia and is struggling through daily life.This is a true story about the journey that one mother endures while trying to save her daughter from a debilitating battle with a specific phobia and anxiety.Emetophobia, an irrational fear of vomit, is listed as one of the top five most common phobias. It receives little attention compared to other irrational fears; and trying to treat it can be quite difficult.With her daughter losing weight daily and refusing to even leave the house, she knew she needed more than weekly therapy to help her child. Exposure Therapy was their last hope for help. The only way to try and help her daughter was to make her face her greatest fear.In this second edition, the author continues the journey with her daughter’s relapse and shares new insights into how they continue to overcome obstacles.
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The Team
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Interior Designer: Goodrich
Architect: Architectonica
Residence Features
Developer: Two Roads Development & Newgard
Interior Designer: Goodrich
Architect: Architectonica
Residence Features
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