Patrick M. Ohana
Bio
A medical writer who reads and writes fiction and some nonfiction, although the latter may appear at times like the former. Most of my pieces (over 2,200) are or will be available on Shakespeare's Shoes.
Stories (477/0)
The “Katastrophe”
How do you avenge a certain murder, a given genocide, or a so-called holocaust on such a grand scale that to name the slaughtered, just two seconds each, would take almost 139 days with no breaks or intermissions during those long hours, let alone pity or shame? Do you begin by asking why before carrying out the retribution, or do you retaliate and ask the question after enough people are eliminated to satisfy your a-head-for-a-head brand of justice? Do you also take vengeance for all those that could have been born? Do the children pay for the crimes committed by the adults, or do you strike with the same measure and eradicate everyone fitting the profile? Do you kill them all in the same way, or do you devise more efficient methods of doing away with them? Do you show some mercy and spare exceptional ones, or do you lacerate every one of them until you face their last Mohican? Do you mark them to facilitate their identification? Do you break them up according to age, sex and what not? Do you take possession of all their assets, including those that define their humanity? Do you use selected ones for scientific experiments? Do you tell them they are going to die, or do you surprise them with skillful deception? Do you turn their lifeless bodies into ashes? Do you try to erase any other sign of their existence?
By Patrick M. Ohana3 months ago in Fiction
Athenian Snow
She did not tell me—she may have said it in Greek—that it will be snowing in Athens. I dislike snow, no matter that I have lived most of my life in Canada—gone now informally but salvageable with the right fate. I have no faith or belief in anything except for love, and I mean the Anthi-and-M kind, not the dead Romeo and Juliet at the end, both. I never felt it to be romantic. There is nothing romantic about dying. It was a tragedy, of course, but Anthi and M is a tragedy too, except that nothing tragic has occurred yet. Someone must die or disappear, especially in reality; I mean, fiction. Actually, one of the narrators disappeared. It was expected by the writer, but it was sad. Eléni was loved, even by Goddess Athena, who had renamed her so. At least, I can bring Eléni back, whereas reality is much more complicated. Free will is a poor game, even worse than true or false. The human condition speaks volumes along its bloody history and uncertain future. The weather condition, on the other hand, also a poor game, relies on models and trends, and the amount of snow that a city can receive from the skies before it metamorphoses to white piss or pissy ice. But Athenian snow was different. It was almost welcomed; serene with the white houses and blue accents all the way to the sea. She did not tell me, but I knew. How could I not?
By Patrick M. Ohana3 months ago in Fiction
Forever Misplaced
We are part of a tree. We are linked to a stem. It is symbolic, of course, unless it is fiction. It is. We are rings. We look the same, at least on the outside. Inside, we are different; one espouses humanity's feminine side and the other engulfs humanity's masculine one.
By Patrick M. Ohana3 months ago in Fiction
Snowy Hawai'i
It was snowing to the sound of my wife’s voice and a few of her words when I leapt for the first time. I had just turned 44 and my wife was giving me a taste of my birthday gift over the phone as a result of my being away on business in an afflicted place and thus unable to be home to receive it in vivo. To tell you the truth, any other place would have been an afflicted one for my wife and I. Hawai'i had finally become our permanent home. We cherished it like most people adore their god and or love their children having ourselves neither by choice. There were too many gods and enough children in the world for us to opt for a different kind of belongingness. Yet ours was not even a bit nationalistic. We simply fell in love with the Hawaiian Islands and its people. Their hang-loose gesture coupled with their contagious Polynesian hospitality appealed to us when we discovered that it was practiced for real, especially after having been charmed by their music. Mellow, cheerful and rarely melancholic, it soothed us, not that all the rest was not enough to appease us, be it the green-blue ocean, the welcoming sun, the pineapple-sweet wind, the colourful sandy beaches, the caressing foliage, Hawaiian history, snow, and each island in its special and unique way. Honolulu was home and Hawai'i was our homeland—our Mainland—even if we were both born in an afflicted snowy place.
By Patrick M. Ohana3 months ago in Fiction
A Love Misplaced
I feel out of place. Something is missing. Much is missing. The way he looked at me, at her, with love in his eyes. His tender touch of every centimetre of my skin, her skin, including folds and deeper places. He even felt my love for him via my feet, her feet. But there is nothing I can do. I am not in control. She is. Anthi Papageorgis. Yes; she is Greek. I sometimes feel Athena in her veins. I am just her love for him. But I can think for myself. I disagreed when she let him go. But I am only her love for him. She moved me aside. She had better things to do. What is better than love? Anthi did not love him anymore or not as much as at the beginning.
By Patrick M. Ohana3 months ago in Fiction