Creative History

  “There may be visitors from Mars, fearful, at the least, of invading the planet that they have been seeking.”  -- St. Louis Post Dispatch April 1897 Gaslights flicker as a soft late Autumn rain descends to the ground in San Francisco California.  It is a few minutes past midnight on November 21, 1896. Suddenly, at about a thousand feet above ground just beneath the clouds, a bright light begins to move slowly across the sky.  The brightness of the light cuts through the overcast night sky with the intensity of a high powered searchlight. Trailing slowly behind the bright light is the shadow of an elongated cigar shaped craft.  The craft is moving so deliberately that it almost appears to be suspended, or hovering, in mid-air.  Those awake at this time of night gaze upwards in amazement and perplexity.  People on the ground start to point, murmur and to even gasp in wonder as this strange flying object drifts by over their heads. No one has ev...

   North of London in the county of Suffolk sits the medieval village of St.  Mary of the Wolf-pits.  The village is equi-distant from the Channel coast and from the town of Bury St. Edmunds which is home to an abbey and a thriving monastic community. St. Mary of the Wolf-pits could be described as rural; the type of place where nothing much has ever happened and where nothing much is likely to ever happen.  The village’s only claim to fame is the large “wolf-pits” for which it is named that ring the outskirts of the community.  The wolf-pits are six foot deep holes dug in fields around the town that are lined with stone and are designed to protect livestock and townspeople alike from the ferocious and marauding wolves who reside in the forest nearby and routinely venture near town looking for easy prey to devour. It is not uncommon for the villagers to awake in the morning and go out to find a helpless wolf trapped in the deep hole, howling and strug...

            It is just after sunrise and the heat is already stifling.  The mid-July sun beats down relentlessly on the medieval city of Strasbourg in the Alsace region of France. Strasbourg is a quaint old city with a vibrant market in the center of town, busy but not quite bustling, large enough to have wares from all over Europe, but still small enough for nearly everyone in the market this morning to know each other by name. It is the summer of the year 1518.  The previous year had been a difficult one for the citizens of Strasbourg.  Drought had come to the region in 1517 and the local harvest had nearly failed completely.  In addition to that, the Alsace region due to its central location, has for generations been trapped in a near perpetual state of warfare, with Strasbourg being at the epicenter of that conflict because of its location on the banks of the Rhine River.  Alsace, and by extension the city of Strasbou...

          Lanterns flicker in the chill March breeze.  An icy drizzle begins to fall.  The worn winter clothes of the three medical students shimmer as they’re covered by a dusting of ice crystals. “Come on, hurry,” one of the young men wearing a tri-corner hat says as the breath rises like steam from between his lips. “I am hurrying.  You want to dig?”  The one who is standing over the headstone says between clenched teeth as he shovels another spadeful of mud over the edge of the hole. The lanterns flash again casting shadows over the three men.   What was that sound? The lookout, who is standing with eyes darting left to right a few feet away, puts a finger to his lips, “Shhh,” he whispers. More muffled sounds of digging.  The night turns silent and even colder.  Frozen drizzle.  The men breathe into the palms of their hands to keep the bitter March chill from biting into their fingertips.  Tens...