Jim had never seen stars that bright before. In a sky as clean and clear as the angles of his uncle’s cabin. They hung silent. They hung cold.
“It’s chilly up here.” He remarked.
“That’s the damp settin in.”
“Well then I’d best be settin in. I see a chimney. And…” Jim said extracting the maglight he’d lifted off a distracted cop.
“Hey.” Dutch said with such resonance that he didn’t have to shout. “…Don’t be shinin that at the trees.”
“Uh….what the fuck Dutch?”
Dutch showed the first sign of discomfort that Jim had thus far witnessed. The aftereffects of the ATV headlights revealed a rolling of the eyes up and to the left. The giant seemed to be considering something.
“I hunt round these parts. In fact I got a bow on me right now. I don’t want ye to scare off my game.”
“Is it hunting season?”
“It’s always huntin’ season round Reed.”
“…well alrighty then…” Jim said. “Can I at least finally have a fucking smoke?”
“Don’t ‘fend me none.”
“Any reason that we were in such a rush? Couldn’t we have stayed at a hotel so that my Southie ass didn’t have to immediately get Lyme disease pokin round the dark?”
“Well, ye might think it silly but round here we have certain beliefs.”
“Ya don’t say…” Jim sneered recalling the ginseng.
“Hant’s house cannot stand without Hant’s blood.”
Jim took a step back.
“I ain’t into that bloodletting Wicca shit. Had this one girlfriend…”
“T’ain’t what I meant.”
“Good,” Jim said allowing the hammer of his .38 to come to rest more audibly than it had been cocked.
“I ain’t afeard of yer pea shooter. Nor should ye be afeard of me.”
“I’m a city boy. I ain’t afeard of anything cause I’m afeard of everything. People are more dangerous than bears.”
“Well, then maybe you’ll last longer than I thought ye would.”
“Last…?”
“Don’t ye mind that. I didn’t mean to insult ya. It’s just that most folk. Even country folk…they can’t dwell here too long. There’s not enough of the wild in these people. And so the wild here overwhelms them.”
“Ain’t nothin wilder than a Cleary.”
Dutch started. “That’s not Hant’s surname….” He looked really worked up.
“Well, yeah. He’s from my mom’s side. Cronin.”
Dutch seemed relieved. “As long as ya got the blood.”
“Um..look…could you really need to work on your bedside manner.”
“Huh?”
“Could ya please fukin stop sayin blood.”
“What’s wrong with blood. You got blood I got blood everything’s got blood.”
“I’m just worried that with all this blood talk there might be some things that won’t have no more by the end of the night.”
“Are ya yellow?”
“No, just street-smart.”
“Well, there ain’t no streets round here. And I need to be goin. I’ll help ya carry in your belongings’ then I gotta go.”
“Fine by me,” Jim said hoping that the blood-obsessed rustic got goin’ for good.
Jim was a light traveler. A case of whiskey, a hamper of clothes, a toothbrush, Hustler, and a carton of smokes were the sum of his belongings. So it wasn’t long before they’d stowed those belongings in the compulsively neat cabin.
Something didn’t feel right about the precision of the furniture. The way it was spaced. It didn’t seem to be done for entirely utilitarian reasons.
“This is some crazy Feng Shui shit right here…” Jim said trying to move a sharply cornered diamond shaped table away from the wall.
“Don’t do that.”
“Is that your favorite sayin?”
“I mean…ye can try. To do it…but it ain’t gonna do.”
He was right.
The table was affixed to the floor.
“O, what in the fuck…!” Jim exclaimed. “I need a god damned drink.”
Dutch chuckled. “Plenty o that here. Ye probably won’t even get to the stuff ya brought.” He said pointing to the large amply stocked mantelpiece.
“Well…I knew old Hant was a drunk.” Jim said wryly. “But I didn’t know he was gay.”
“He ain’t.”
“Then why is every lamp a god damned Tiffany?”
“Beliefs.”
“Uh huh.”
“Look boy. There’s ways round here. And ye had best learn them. If not out of respect, then so as to get your pay.”
“Now you’re speaking a language I can understand.”
“Gud.” Said the giant as he turned to leave. “I was told that ye can read. Yer uncle had Doc type up the caring of this place. So, make sure that ye do.” He opened the door.
“O…and boy…you will hear things. It’s best to not let them bother you. And they won’t bother you. So long as ye follow the rules. Best take heed o old Lizzy. Do not forget to leave the root. On the stump. Towards the side that grows the moss. Ye do not want it to be missed.”
And with that the cabin resounded with a slammed door.
“What in the actual fuck…” Jim said as he listened to the disappearing roar of the ATV.
Odds and ends ranging from a discussion of a new bit of gear that has that old bit of Malware called Windows installed. Why I’m probably going to use it for at least a year despite the excellence of the Linux desktop environment. And then I literally do a song and dance. Minus the dance. Unless you count my justifying of my heretical OS decision to be a sort of dance. Which it is. In which case. The protestants are right you know… Dancing leads to hell.
2) There is no such thing as too much cheese cake.
3) Baby Boomers are entitled.
4) The west is doomed.
5) You’d better learn Chinese.
6) Ni Hao.
7) Redheads are sexy. Unless they are male. Isn’t that odd?
8) Coffee. Always more coffee. Right now.
9) I thought about deleting some of these because they could be twisted into something that they are not by disingenious trollops. But I am not going to delete them because the purpose of banter is to make it comfortable to have flexible conversations without the constraints of forced politesse.
10) The fact that I came up with that sentence in the span of five seconds means I get terribly bored very quickly. Please read more folks. It doesn’t have to be Dostoevsky just please read more. It’s hard to always talk about the weather…in monosyllables.
11) Yes, I do have self esteem. No it isn’t cocky. Unless you think cocky is sexy and you are a redhead. A redhead who isn’t male or Roseanne. You know what… I’m such a libidinous critter that Roesanne is fine.
12) Linux is better but old Bill is craftier.
13) You can never have just two glasses of wine you know.
14) Fourteen was Bach’s favorite number. I think. So cheers.
Appalachia spreads itself in grey and green a few hundred miles inland of the Atlantic. Its mountains, caves, lakes, and fields are a delight. It is a garden. It is a temple.
It is where Jim found himself that summer.
His uncle who went by the name of Hant had got a blood clot in the lung. His modest dwelling on the opposite side of a miniscule Kentucky township was always immaculate. And it was in his untrained hand that Jim had received the instruction to keep it that way.
Jim Cleary was a bit of a layabout. Not even committed enough to be a drunk. And though he knew next to nothing about country living the small stipend and the opportunity to daydream made him keen on fulfilling his relatives desire.
If this wasn’t enough to seal his fate. Then the nagging of his equally indigent roommates certainly drove the last nail into the coffin of his urban malaise.
“Where da hell ya goin again Jim?” Tony inquired in his brusque Boston brogue.
“Kentucky.”
“And what the hell for?”
“Family shit…changea pace..ya dig?”
“Hell no, I don’t dig how’s me ‘n Harry gonna keep up with the rent.”
“I already told ya I’d be sendin my share.”
“I dunno Jim you’re always late with that shit.”
“Yea…cause that rat fuck boss o mine thinks it’s cute to take my tips cause of a coupla late deliveries.”
“That old song ain’t gonna help here…So lateness is a habit…how the hell am I supposed to trust ya? We still have four months till the lease is up.”
“Cause my Uncle squirreled away a fortune getting black lung and sellin ginseng. And he’s gonna share so long as I keep the house his dad built from turning back into woods.”
“Hmm…I don’ know man….”
“You’re just gonna have to deal cause there’s no way ya can keep me here anyway.”
“Whatever man….do what ya want…but if we don’t get that rent…I’m gonna tell old Barragan ya flew the coop. And you know his IRA ass is crazy enough to find ya in whatever kind of deliverance style backwoods hollow ya hidin in . YA DIG?”
“Yea, man what the fuck ever.” Cleary said exiting the door.
“Fuck you Jim.” Tony said with a grin.
“Fuck you too Tony.”
And with a double bird salute, Jim Cleary set of for Logan International.
He was unaccustomed to the luxury of flight. He distrusted the cleanliness of first class. Nor did he like the look of the silent burly tour guide that his uncle had sent along.
The guy had a beard that would make Euripides jealous. Went by the name of Dutch and had a pensive air like a wild dog that had found its way into the city.
Made it damned hard to flirt with the stewardess.
After a half hour, Jim gave up on making small talk. A guy that talked less than Hant was a lost cause. He didn’t know why he’d even bothered.
It wasn’t gonna be too long of a flight so Jim just sank into the mind-numbing arms of an inflight movie.
It wasn’t long before Rob Schneider forced his brain to shut down.
It was switched back on by the deep thundering simplicity of. “Wehere, let’s go.”
And indeed everybody was busily extracting luggage and making their exit in that leisurely, orderly, upper middle-class way.
‘Yuppie schmucks.’ Jim couldn’t help but chuckle at the collection of khakis and polos mixing with folk who should also be wearing khakis and polos but were trying their hardest to appear like a Bluegrass revival.
A battered pickup pulled up to them outside the parking lot. It was driven by a spry old bat with icy blue eyes that went by the name of Lizzy Jennings. Said she was a Viking and that Jim had better watch his manners.
“Don’t got any.”
“Well learn ya sum. Hant told me ya were a thick one.”
Jim ignored the insult and wen to light a cigarette. Only to have it smacked out of his hand.
“Don’t ya bring dat filth in my car.”
“Jesus Christ! I just got off the flight lady…”
The steely angular framed gaze never changed as a wiry freckled arm shot forward and twisted his ear hard.
“Don’t ya be blaspheming in here neither!”
“Ahh…god damn you old bitch…”
This only made her tug harder.
She stopped just shy of tearing his ear off.
“Fuck I shoulda stayed in Boston.” He muttered under his breath.
The drive from Louisville to Reed was five long hours.
Five long hours with two rustic sentinels whose eerie silence was only matched by the eerier economy of motion in their smooth efficient movements.
‘At least it’s pretty.’ Jim mused as he gazed down into the sleepy verdant valleys that flitted beneath the fluctuating elevation.
It was dusk by the time they arrived at the half dozen or so buildings that comprised the township of Reed, Kentucky. He guessed the thing with the spire was a church, the square thing was a post office, the colonial thing was the town hall, and everything else was shops.
‘Where the hell are the houses?’ He mused.
“Ya ever been on a horse ‘fore?” Asked the sun-dried Valkerie.
‘O fuck…’
The old bat laughed in an innocent girlish sort of way that threw Jim off even more than the prospect of riding a horse.
What was even more disturbing was the perfect, gleaming white, set of teeth that laugh revealed.
‘This crazy crone has better choppers than me…’
“I’m pullin’ at yer leg. I know a fool like you ain’t got no useful habits. You gonna wish you had a horse tho. Cause that four wheeler is a sight more likely to flip than my Sadie.”
Cleary heard a roar from the building that Dutch had disappeared to.
“Don’ be lookin so down. It’s only fifteen miles afore a warm bed and some whiskey.”
“FIFTEEN!”
She laughed that weird coquettish laugh again that was so at odds with her appearance and behavior.
He didn’t have too much time to puzzle over it though cause his carriage was already by his side.
Jim reluctantly took a seat behind Dutch wrapping his fingers tight around the luggage mount.
He was surprised by the rough feel of an old rope round his kneck.
He looked down to see a sack swinging down to his solar plexus.
“Now lemme tell ye bout Thursdays.” Lizzy Jennings said.
“Aha..”
“That’s ginseng in that pouch there.”
“Ok…”
“Today is Thursday and I put some out on the stump. Dutch will show you the stump. Startin next Thursday you’re gonna have to put some seng down afore dusk.”
“Umm…ok.”
“I suggest ya follow what I tell ye. Cause ye don’ wanna learn it from another.”
“What…?”
“Just put the root down on the stump. Or else there’s gonna be trouble. ALRIGHT BOY?” She stated with vehemence.
“Put the ginseng on the stump…on Thursday…before dusk…I get it.”
She smiled oddly and whistled.
Jim barely had time to get a fresh hold on the luggage rack before he and the giant roared into the inky mountain.
The Russian Reaction: lol of course the romanian takes a jab at the russians. stealing isn’t russian culture. its gypsy culture vee. and soviet culture is actually german. since marx was german and the germans have a tendency to take things that don’t belong to them. like poland.
Just so the world knows where my sympathies lie…
A real empire. Unlike the Brits we don’t just conquer defenseless brown folk then strut for the next three centuries as our leaders take turns felating the Rothschilds.
(Warning – Much Cussing and Kvetching Ahead with Bawdy Jokes Thrown In like Filthy Garnish)
Today we are going to ask the deep questions. The philosophical questions. Questions regarding the truly esoteric and rarefied.
Questions like: Do you want the same company that delivers dildos to deliver your grandma’s betablockers?
I work at UPS. And while I have not myself encountered a box full of marital aids I have friends who have.
Far from the Hub. Where I like to be. Thanks for the hat tho!
I know that UPS delivers medicine. If you want your aspirin and statins delivered to your door instead of going to the pharmacy that’s fine. Some people are old, some people are lazy, some don’t have the time. I get it.
But generally folk who are super sick… need someone to help them take their meds. I know this. I take care of meds for my grandfather. I’m not gonna claim to be some kind of fastidious ‘type A guy,’ but it would seem that DEPENDING ON UPS TO DELIVER MEDICINE TO PRVENT DEATH; and letting the supply dwindle so low before the refill is a FUCKING BAD IDEA. And generally not practiced by those who haven’t been lobotomized.
Which is why I was surprised today by the driver of one of the trucks I was loading. When she informed me that they have “critical packages,” that they delvier hearts. FUCKING HEARTS! Are you shitting me?
Pictured: A Critical Package
For those of you not in the know about UPS. All your precious buttplugs, novelty blenders, and Nazi parephenalia get jammed onto 18 wheelers. By jammed I mean stuffed to the brim like a teenagers closet. To such a degree that they often tumble out upon opening the doors.
Your commemorative gimp suit then gets sent up a belt to the sleep deprived hands of highly caffeinated blue collar kids and poor boomers who need insurance. These are then sorted by color coding onto various belts.
THEN THEY END UP AT THE SLIDE!
So your heart, your epilepsy medicine, and Preppers Pete’s generator get’s to ride down a slide like one big happy family! Ain’t it great?
But the fun doesn’t end there! Because the slide sometimes gets fuckin’ JAMMED. So grandpa’s new vital organ may well make intimate contact with a bottle of corrosive DON’T FUCKING TOUCH THAT.
Sure the stuff is bottled and packaged with slightly more care than the tax forms and switchblades that occasionally spill out all over the place. But call me a softy…I’d rather NOT HAVE MY HEART CRUSHED.
..With stray calligraphy pens! You give LOGISTICS a bad name…
Now she may have been reffering to pacemakers, or robotic hearts, or just being dramatic but in any case…the case rests at...the same company that delivers Monster truck tires and nipple clamps shouldn’t be in the business of organ trafficking or even beta blocker delivery.
People who wake up at three in the morning to lug auto parts and ammo around aren’t FUCKING PHARMACISTS. And no matter how well trained, well rested, and diligent mistakes happen in non air conditioned buildings when you’re loading 600 -1000 packages per employee.
So…let’s talk about training. I have been at UPS since December 2017 and I have never heard the term “critical package” my supervisor for the day had…but only because a driver had told him while he was a “driver helper.”
Does that sound like adequate training. Like there’s a strong company culture of communication?
Well how about the fact that one of the managers. Not a supervisor but a fucking manager made me sign a form promising to load packages WRONG.
The drivers you see like the small packages behind the big ones so they don’t fall off the shelf. Which is what I was taught to do when I got there and… what I got in trouble for…. And what I went back to doing at the drivers request…with no further comment from the manager, because he didn’t happen to catch me stacked out on a bad day, and get the chance to don his micromanaging hat. I’m sure this had something to do with Six Sigma.
Pictured: Six Sigma Masurbation
Yes, every hub is different. But despite my bitching from what I’ve heard our hub is actually one of the nicer ones. That is if you can stand the Carolina heat.
I mention the lack of communication to highlight again how fucking dumb it is that apparently pharmacies, the FDA, etc is ok with fuckin UPS delivering CRITICAL medicine.
I can sort of see a vague economic one. Like there’s not gonna be a sustainable business model of specifically delivering medication but…there’s still the whole thing of….”YOUR MEDICINE IS BEIN HANDLED IN THE SAME PILE OF SHIT AS CLOROX, CRICKETS, AND BIKES. Being handled by multiple exhausted employees who barely have time to piss in the wee hours of the morn! (pun intended)
So this was a particularly bad day to try to guilt trip me by mentioning:
Umm..yea…do impossible things better…for less money than me..k…?
“Ummm…yea…make the truck neater because I deliver medicine – there’s a package out of order – yea out of the approximatley 1000 packages you just loaded there’s one in the wrong spot – and my cousin or somebody died because they didn’t get their epilepsy medicine when they were five.”
Lady, if the truck is loaded 90% correctly that’s already pretty good. Are you 100% on the ball on your route? Cause the drivers here just got berated for almost wrecking. And I loaded this shit at least 97% correctly.
I always try for 100% and hey…telling somebody that has had very little sleep ,and been working with no break for the past four hours that “THEY BETTER BE CAREFUL OR SOMEBODY COULD DIE…” isn’t good for morale.
“No pressure..you know…I don’t want you to make a mistake…it’s just that you’re now suddenly a neurosurgeon and if you fuck up just a bit SOMEBODY WILL FUCKIGN DIE!”
Yea…that’s real helpful.
I don’t like being guilt tripped. I don’t like the insinuation that I’m careless when for the past four sweaty ass hours I’ve been tightening, organizing, and rearranging so everythign is as neat and accessible as possible given the time constraints.
So, I don’t want to hear wails of protest about how you’re on the truck before you’re getting paid.
Lady…I currently make 13 dollars an hour whereas you likely make 22 – 28. Your little prep work is gonna pay you dividends. The prep work I do in the morning for which there’s barely any time is rewarded by FUCK ALL.
I wake up at 3 am….and load for four to five hours in a building that’s been stewing all day and all night in the southern sun. All while being given contradictory directions and having my attention diverted by forms, calls for help, and hardware.
Now…I don’t dislike the person I am currently writing about. She’s the best smellin’ driver in the hub. But…her attitude is indicative…is a crystallized indicator of the attitude of a lot of drivers. That attitude being our job is hard so yours isn’t.
The gals do smell better but…this is Not UPS reality. O well here’s a pretty girl. So stay tuned. Marketing? I am Don Draper.
Look guys…just like if you didn’t deliver the packages we wouldn’t have a job…you wouldn’t have a job if we didn’t load packages.
Do you get annoyed about dispatch riding your ass? Well our Sups and managers ride ours… so it would be nice for that not to also be outsourced to another employee. An employee who is paid exhorbitantly more.
No, I’m not saying “I don’t get paid enough so I load how the fuck I want” – what’s being contested is the assertion that: it’s not fair that I don’t get paid to come in early to make the truck look how I like it to look which is often different than how the (often shifting) loadchart looks.
It is fairconsidering the fact that I too show up early to make my day (and by extension YOURS DUMBASS) easier.. and make fuck all to show for it besides good health insurance. Especially since you’re making an uppermiddleclass income with no qualifications besides a drivers liscecne, a HS Dipoma, and maybe some dumbass MBA.
Mostly Decent and often Magnificently Moustachioed Individuals
Again most drivers even the ones I bitch about are decent people but that doesn’t detract from the vague cliqueishness that is readily apparent. Your job is grueling …so is mine…O YOU WORK LONGER. YOU ALSO FUCKING GET PAID MORE.
And…you’re not waking up at 3 AM to go to work….I can’t stress that shit enough. Hey UPS…. The constantly changing start time is not good for focus, productivity, or cancer rates. Do some actual research on sleep and apply what you learned to your policies instead of just handing out “healthy living” info sheets to sign.
As I said, and I say again, most drivers are decent folk. But they’re also a bit up their own ass.
I am in a peculiar socio-economic situation. I own things. The things I own are my business, so I live a somewhat yuppie-esque lifestyle. As such I go to the gym where I witness lots of people with their heads up their ass. Some of them are UPS drivers.
As I was benching a few months back I heard a couple babbling about loaders falling asleep to the owner of the gym. This basically turned into a Boomerific circle jerk of kids these days, and it’s a good job, and harrumph.
Hey…the reason some of them are sleepy especially the new ones is because they wake up at 3 am assholes..
This experience, along with not sleeping enough due to a busy schedule, and the god damned water heater/plumbing deciding to start a rockconcert right (as I was going to bed) did not make it a good day to be a cunty driver.
Of course there won’t really be consequences besides a snarky blogpost and me refusing to load that set of trucks. Which isn’t mine…I loaded them because…I’m nice…and someone else was out today. How bout ya have a blue vest load ’em eh…?
Maybe the consequence will be I’m fired. Fuck it. Even though this is the best job for my schedule despite the circadian fuckery, even though I like manual labor, even though I know that it has neurocognitive benefits I don’t care.
I don’t care because if I get fired over this post then it has nothing to do with my ability to perform my duties. And everything to do with appearance, and politics, and dog shit. I doubt this will be the outcome.
So why mention it?
You’re virtue signaling!
Because this gives me an opportunity to virtue signal and say free speech is more important than getting a tiny crumb off a huge corporate pie.
Why are you so like OMG overreacting…it’s just people were like teasing you and like….
Yeah…first off I’ve give the context, second off how the hell is “teasing” going to help my load quality when I’ve been initially nice, and even made a joke at my own expense, and informed you I’m tired, how is guilt tripping – teasing, and why is it tied to a larger case of head-up-ass syndrome?
It leads me to the question. Is the driver (at the very least this particular type of driver) helping JUST ME or are they helping themselves? I can’t exactly stay 100% focused after a four fifteen start time as I make smalltalk, communicate about bulk stops, avoid tripping, and navigate around you…so I think the answer is the drivers are helping themselves. They are helping themselves to make a whole hell of a lot of money. And a part of their pie involves MY LABOR.
Isn’t a bit more tact called for with exhausted coworkers?
Look God knows, I’m not always perfect about not getting annoyed, or snarky, or teasy, or preachy but I do generally try not to assume that people make small mistakes due to sloppy laziness or lack of care. Because you don’t know a persons background or their current situation.
And when a person figths your guilt tripping about – medicine and dead relatives who missed a crucial dose; by informing you that hey I’m tired, the truck is as neat as any on this belt, I’ve had no sleep, and I’m taking care of a relative who has had a stroke, my only living relative (that’s not estranged).
Yeah, you responding with “O…It’s all about you.” Doesn’t seem like teasing after FOUR HOURS OF LABOR IN A NONAIRCONDITIONED BUILDING.
What it seems like is the typical ‘Im so put upon’ attitude of drivers which while justifiable becomes unjustifiable by offloading it on the loaders. (Who are at the end of their shift. Taking a ton of hardware up the ass.)
‘O but I was just blowin off steam and you need XYZ and it was teasing.’
I do, most of the time, I do . This was the third time out of more than a year that I’ve voiced annoyance in any form about a driver.
The first one was when a guy freaked out over me moving a trash bin off the 4000 shelf so I could load packages. The trash was not supposed to be on the shelf.
The second one was when a driver decided to treat me like I was a waiter and his filet mignon was late. Spazzing out about HIS hardware as I was addressing another drivers far more pressing issue RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM. (The bin guy later found me and apologized to me. So yes UPS drivers are mostly good even the ones that piss me off sometimes.)
Besides these incidents I’ve never said anything to anyone about drivers. And there are plenty of cunty incidents or teasy incidents (which can be misinterpreted) in a year and some of UPS.
I hope somebody finds this interesting, or funny, or informative. But I also don’t really give a fuck because I still haven’t slept due to plumbing, finance, and other responsibiliteis. That and if I cared what the audience thought all the time I’d use fucking cookie cutters.
Also what do you expect? A write who doesn’t write? That’s what day time TV is for…
No one with these names will achieve anything of substance and our infrastrucutre will collapse. If you think I’m wrong you haven’t been watching the news. Good for you. Ignorance is bliss.
1) Josh
2) Kyle
3) Jessica
4) Preston
5) Jenn
6) Ashley
7) Ashton
8) Todd
9) McKenzie
10) McKayla
11) Caleb
12) Calvin
13) Gabe
14) Arden
15) Jenna
16) Nicole
17) Walker
18) Spencer
19) Jess
20) Cole
Most of these pricks are my age. Which means in ten years they’ll displace the degenerate gen X flannel brigade that spawned them in the billion Subarus that litter the suburban wastes like taunting oriental trophies that won’t let us forget the death of Detroit. I’d say repent. But it’s too late and I have a latte to buy.
I don’t like being guilt tripped. I don’t like the insinuation that I’m careless when for the past four sweaty ass hours I’ve been tightening, organizing, and rearranging so everythign is as neat and accessible as possible given the time constraints.
The Fractal Journal 