Born of Man and Woman

 Given the nature of evil in our world, the monsters among us — with power over us — I sometimes feel rage at the injustice, at the horrors that beset us. I understand how, when the law fails, why vigilantes arise.

Batman is damaged, but effective.

I am reminded of the late, great writer Richard Matheson, and his story, “Born of Man and Woman.” Hereunder, the last paragraph in the tale. This was told from an eight-year-old child’s viewpoint, published in F&SF, July, 1950, Matheson's first fiction sale, written when he was twenty-two years old. Twelve hundred and fifty words that chilled me when I first read them at the age of fourteen, as part of his reprinted collection, Third from the Sun.

“X—This is another time. Father chained me tight. I hurt because he beat me. This time I hit the stick out of his hands and made noise. He went away and his face was white. He ran out of my bed place and locked the door. I am not so glad. All day it is cold in here. The chain comes slow out of the wall. And I have a bad anger with mother and father. I will show them. I will do what I did that once. I will screech and laugh loud. I will run on the walls. Last I will hang head down by all my legs and laugh and drip green all over until they are sorry they didn’t be nice to me. If they try to beat me again I’ll hurt them. I will.”

Old Jock Speaks

Most of my resistance workouts — weights, bodyweight, core stuff, I do in the late afternoons/early evenings before dinner, six or seven days a week. I run a four-day cycle for various muscle groups. Walking the dog and martial arts forms aren’t part of the equation here. 

Not a morning person, my biorhythms flow better later in the day.

Too, when I am working, sitting in the chair, I have a timer set every forty-five minutes, whereupon I get up, stretch, do some toe-touches and -raises, air- or wall-squats, like that, mostly for circulation. Sitting too much is a killer.

Here of late, to shake things up a bit when the gong goes off to get out the chair, I have been doing a single set of reps with a kettlebell or dumbbells, or chins and dips, like that. 

Work is force through a distance, and spread out over the course of a day, one set every forty-five minutes, I’m doing more sets and reps of whichever exercise I’m electing, so more work, but easier, because I’m doing only one set at a time. Not getting the pump as with three sets.

Now, I’m still doing my regular workout before dinner, but that focuses on a different exercise than the one I’m doing every forty-five minutes. 

For instance, if I do light dumbbells in a compound movement — curls and Ahnahl presses during the day, then I’ll do squats/deadlifts/back stuff in the evening. 

This is not a new concept, just the first time I’ve played with it, and I’ve only just started, so it’ll be interesting to see what, if anything, it does after a few weeks or months. Assuming I keep my diet the same, I would expect to drop a couple pounds of fat and maybe add a little muscle. 

Stand by, I’ll report back in a few weeks.