He had a dream last night that he was flying in the passenger seat in an open cockpit plane. A young woman shared the seat with him. He sat at th edge of the seat, leaning back against her chest, while she clutched him and put her face before his, both of them staring forward. All he could see was a dim sky ahead of him, and some errant locks of hair from the girl's head behind him. Just as it was starting to feel really exhilirating, he could hear the alarm going, and so ended his trip back in time.

*******

A history of Transylvania...the book could never be written, not in any semi-objective or official context. It would only be tainted with sentimentalism, bias and, prejudices, depending on who writes the book, where they come from, what their interests might be, but perhaps more importantly, when they wrote it. All that can be measured is how much investment in that book each writer has. But perspectives change over time, so what one person thinks in one era might be totally aligned with thoughts of the future, but terribly out of place in their own time.

Like any region, it had been inhabited by numerous peoples. Each little subsection of Transylvania could, in all possibility, be claimed by at least a few groups, supposing all of these groups still existed, and had a forum to communicate. But such is not the case, and beyond that, what constitutes a "people" remains unclear. What became of the Dacians, who settled there before the Romans? There are also the Huns, who spread their genes into the Magyars (or Hungarians as the English call them), yet one cannot say that Transylvania is an Asiatic place. There are Germans who inhabit whole communities, and then there are the Csángó, who, in popular wisdom, "have German blood, speak Hungarian, and dress like Romanians." The Szekely, who live a traditional life beyond towns and cities, have similarly intertwined roots and customs. There are the Macedonians, and Greeks, who are now referred to in obscure linguistic journals as Aromanians. Finally, we have the Ruthenians, so few in number, who can only be some combination of Romanian and Russian, with perhaps some Serb in there as well? Who knows, really.

By the turn of the 19th century, where our story more or less begins, Transylvania had become a strong and independent slice of Austro-Hungary, known for its localized justice system, and the relative prosperity and respectability of its noble classes. The several provinces that made up Transylvania proper weren't exactly typical places, but they were not altogether foreign in the larger context of the Empire. In that period, Braham Stoker would steal an old legend about bats, and with little thought, picked a name from bloodier times, and thus came about the ridiculous Dracula story. Vlad the Impaler had nothing to do with bats. He did have a lot to do with impaling, however. There are tales of him having impaled 30,000 victims in one go, after a battle. No woman, child or breathing soul was spared in the vicinity of victory.

Blood has always flown by violence in Transylvania, but not a lot of it was visible, not in an en masse fashion. Under Communsim, for instance, most murder was committed behind closed doors, usually by the hand of a well trained, hardened officer of the security services. By and large, the region lived in peace and prosperity. But there was no lack of cruelty when blows were stricken. The Turks committed atrocities that killed thousands in days. One cannot forget the Jews, who took the brunt of their fate towards the end of the war, but took it no less harder than any of Hitler's enemies. The number of battles and clashes that took place there are almost too many to count. To tally every incident involving mass slaughter or acts of war would only confirm the obvious.

The enduring conflict, in modern times, concerned until recently only two groups of people. Hungarians and Romanians both held a special regard for "the place beyond the forest", both claiming it homeland, and neither relenting at any point.

It was afternoon and the clothes on the line hung peacefully in the back yard garden. Little Miki, for the first time in his life, saw the sun dry a wet piece of garment. It was then that his brother was brought back home on a carriage by a man from the country.

"Why has he come home like this?" asked his mother as a carriage rolled through the front gate. Little Miki then saw his brother, from a distance, haggard and barely awake, lying on a flat wagon with large wooden wheels. His mother had torn her shawl from her head and tears streamed down her screaming face like Miki had never seen before. One of his older sisters quickly shoed him inside, and he hid under a bed until it was dark.

The first few days were quiet. Miki's returning brother was placed by the woodstove. The sisters all took turns taking care of him at night, while Miki was excused on account of his young age. But during the day, his mother took care of the returning son. He had left because of a spat with his father, who had since set out to find him.

Upon first appearance he had lost a great deal of weight and his body was covered in bruises, as if he had been beaten or mugged. He carried no bag and was dressed without shoes, covered in mud head to toe. After he was bathed and fed, he fell asleep and woke up only intermittently for a week, eventually developing a pattern of sleeping in shifts of several hours, waking to eat, and then sleeping again.

It was some time later, perhaps weeks or months, that Miki's brother had started to cough blood. His mother immediately called a doctor, who tentatively diagnosed TB and told her not to handle any blood without wearing leather gloves and cleaning it with hard soap.

At first, Miki's brother would spit his discharge into a bowl provided by one of the sisters, but his hostility towards the situation was such that he began spitting it onto the wall instead, more than likely out of spite.

His mother did not take kindly to this blood spitting, and immediately began scolding him. Yet everyday, without saying a word, Miki's brother continued to spit his blood onto the wall.

When Miki's father returned, he immediately barred any of the children from entering the central room of the house where Miki's brother slept and spat. He took out his kit but realized that if it were TB, as his wife had told him, he wouldn't be able to take the risk of touching the boy if he didn’t have to. He would have his wife continue to clean the blood, under his supervision, and he would make sure she cleaned it thoroughly.

The children were sent by their father to stay with their aunt a few days later, and were told to say goodbye to their brother through the window into the central room on the day they left. He was asleep, and fresh blood trickled down the wall beside the bed, but the siblings all said their goodbyes to him through the window as told.

Miki's brother died not too long after, and the family burned the house down, contents and all, and built a new one a few acres off.

He sometimes feels that he's on the verge of witnessing large, seizmic things, yet every passing day grows stiller and quieter than the last. The more alienated he imagines himself from the ways of others, the more confidence he finds in his own ideas. He's not clear about his values and often thinks he has none, but he knows that deep down, something will change in him, something that will allow him the benefit of hindsight, which he has yet to accrue.

*******



Under the lantern, he could see the dark water drip slowly into the bucket. It had been seven weeks since he'd run away, and three days now without proper food or water. His lips had cracked hours ago and his stomach had more or less shrank to the size of a small pouch.

But there it was, this beautiful bucket under the light, in a back alley in Segesvár, or Sighisoara as the Rumanians called it, where Vlad the Impaler, Dracula, had been born and raised. It's difficult to say whether or not he noticed the discordant colours of the water in the bucket, or the material floating in it, but in his unyielding thirst, he might have simply ignored the hazards. He drank of the bucket, sticking his face straight into the cesspool as if searching for apples at a county fair contest.

He slumped to the ground and lay for what might have been hours before he heard a sound, which turned out to be a carriage stopping in the near distance.

SPRING UND DRANG

HARDCORE MAN by
Perennial Machete (Dan Hildebrand /Steve Birek /Matt Thompson)
Never to be Released

He's a hardcore, hardcore man

Lives his life by a hardcore plan
(He's a hardcore, hardcore man)
Drives around in a hardcore van
(He's a hardcore, hardcore man)
Has a brother named Hardcore Dan
(He's a hardcore, hardcore man)
Eats his lunch from a hardcore can
(He's a hardcore, hardcore man)



He's a hardcore, hardcore man

Lives his life by a hardcore plan
(He's a hardcore, hardcore man)
Cools his room with a hardcore fan
(He's a hardcore, hardcore man)



He's a hardcore, hardcore man