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End of The Phoenix
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Still don't know your name,
- Missio
Bottom of the Deep Blue Sea
little honey
- The Cult
Fire Woman
Melissa
Fem. proper name, from Latin, from Greek (Ionic) Melissa
(Attic melitta) “honeybee,” also “one of the priestesses of Delphi,”
from PIE *melit-ya, suffixed form of *melit- “honey”
(source also of Greek meli, Latin mel “honey; sweetness;”
Albanian mjal’ “honey;” Old Irish milis “sweet;”
Old English mildeaw “nectar,” milisc “honeyed, sweet;”
Old High German milsken “to sweeten;” Gothic miliþ “honey”).
- www.etymonline.com/?search=melissa
mead (n.1)
"fermented honey drink," Old English medu,
from Proto-Germanic *meduz source also of Old Norse mjöðr,
Danish mjød, Old Frisian and Middle Dutch mede,
Old High German metu, German Met "mead"),
from PIE root *medhu- "honey, sweet drink"
(source also of Sanskrit madhu "sweet, sweet drink, wine, honey,"
Greek methy "wine," Old Church Slavonic medu, Lithuanian medus "honey,"
- www.etymonline.com/?search=mead
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Melissa Meade began her life at sea as the daughter of a Royal Navy Captain. Her father, unexpectedly widowed, had disguised his dearly departed wife’s most prized treasure as his cabin boy, and smuggled her aboard his own ship. The deception was made easier by the girl's olive-hued skin and dark hair, an inheritance from her mother's Spanish ancestry, which stood in stark contrast to her father's fair-haired, Nordic-Scot complexion. The obvious tenderness the captain showed to his "Spanish boy" soon fueled scuttlebutt, but no one dared do more than whisper rumors. Royal naval discipline was strict, and pedarasty was not all that uncommon in the fleet. Melissa’s secret remained safely hidden behind a veil woven of taboos.
She learned the ways of the Ocean by her father’s side. She was very bright, inquisitive by nature, with a sense of adventure honed by many experiences in exotic lands. Her father indulged her growing intelligence by turning his cabin into a small shipboard library. The countless hours practically imprisoned were spent happily reading technical journals, histories, classic texts, and poetry. It was not the normal life of a girl in her era; she was aware of this fact, and she loved it.
Her wonderful life ended when she was barely sixteen, when her father succumbed to a fiery tropical fever. Distraught, she slipped over the side and swam into the night – better to die, she believed, than to allow her secret to be discovered. She swam until she was exhausted, and then, she just let go and began to float on her back staring up at the sky. Her tears were swept away in the saline currents. Is this my destiny, to be flotsam adrift at the will of the current? Why can't I become a bird, she thought and stretched out her arms like wings. The sea could be her endless sky. Here she could fly free. She dreamed as she drifted in and out of consciousness.
Semi-conscious, she was carried to shore. She awoke on a beach and, with nothing else to do, she began her life again. She “rescued” a decrepit single-masted Bermuda sloop in the dead of night by simply slipping it from its mooring. She made the ship seaworthy again and, using a system of pulleys and levers, rigged the ship for sailing solo. She rechristened it The Phoenix. Her knowledge of the winds and seas allowed her to quickly build a trade shuttling supplies and goods between scattered settlements. Her business contacts were led to believe the The Phoenix was crewed by a brother and sister team, identical twins. She played both roles when necessary. She had, on occasion, been forced to outrun patrol ships of various crowns. And she had once taken a small fishing vessel as a prize after killing its three crewmen – purely in self-defense (all she would later say was that the fishermen were "vile"). But she was never a pirate or even a smuggler. She was simply a smart, strong woman trying to survive in a merciless world.
Her second life ended when pirates descended upon The Phoenix under the cover of darkness. En masse, the cutthroats stormed about the ship, clambering over her sloop's gunwales before she (dressed as her brother on this trip) could kill or wound more than a baker's dozen. The fact that he had even dared to oppose them, irritated the pirates' pride. A worse insult was The Phoenix's captain’s steadfast refusal to reveal where his crew was hiding. The debate over his fate was interrupted by a scurvy-mouthed pirate scurrying up from the hold, waving a piece of lace triumphantly in the air.
"Arrr! Tharrr be a woman aboard! We found 'er dresses ‘n’ whot-nots in ‘is cabin."
The mob tightened in on The Phoenix's captain while chanting a mocking taunt like some damned hymn’s hellish chorus.
“Keeelhaullll himmm! Keeellll himmm! Keeelhaullll himmm! Keeellll himmm!”
Non-nautically inclined readers may be unaware of the exact nature of the act of keelhauling. The keel is the wooden beam at the bottom-center of a ship's hull. It runs the length of the ship, from bow to stern. "Keelhauling" involves tying ropes to a person and dragging them along the keel from end to end. Most victims do not survive. Those lucky enough to live through the experience are often rewarded with having the process repeated until they are dead.
“Keeelhaullll himmm… keeelhaullll himmm… keeelhaullll himmm….”
The captain of The Phoenix was roughly seized, bound with rope, and hauled to the bowsprit.
“Last chance, man! Tell us wharrr tha wench be hidden, or ya be kissin' tha keel soon enuff!”
The captain remained resolutely silent as she looked out from the bow of her beloved vessel one last time. She smiled wistfully. Her moment of near reverent reflection was rudely interrupted by the sole of a boot on the cheek of her ass. She felt a push, and then she was falling beneath the waves. The pirates at the stern hauled on the lines. The ropes remained taut, unmoving. Grumbles and looks of confusion crept swept through the pirate ranks. A whip cracked.
“Heave ho!! Heave, damn ye!!”
The pirates set their feet and gripped harder. They gritted their rotting teeth as tight as they dared and on the count of three - most could count no higher – they yelled mightily and jerked on the ropes.
“YAAAARRRGGGHHH!!!!”
The pirates all fell down, arms and legs flailing for balance as the ropes they held went slack. The pirate with the whip barked for the lines to be hauled in, then spent a few seconds staring, perplexed and uncomprehending, at the severed ends. He smacked the nearest pirate upside the back of his head.
"Ye checked him fer a blade befer ye bound him, roight?"
"Wasn't.... Ow!"
The pirate with the whip smacked the other pirate in the back of his head again to shut him up. The rest of the crew shuffled their feet nervously as they waited to be told what to do next. A particularly disgusting example of the scurfilous and scurrilous piratical-type sniffed the air with a flaring crooked nose, haphazardly set above a handful of rotten teeth.
“Doos inny o’ ya arseholes smells dat? Ah fookin’ smells a faggot.”
Behind the cutthroats’, black smoke rose from the ship’s cargo hold. The Phoenix was alight. Tongues of fire licked out from below. Panic washed over the crew of filthy marauders as they raced back to their ship, the pirate with the whip in the lead.
“Abandon ship!!”
Once again, Melissa let the ocean current carry her away. This time, she shed no tears. She knew who she was. Melissa spread her wings. She was The Phoenix aflame. She would be borne by the starry sea until she was no more, and then be reborn again and again.
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like a phoenix
- Fallout Boy
The Phoenix
she is a rising
- The Cult
Fire Woman
play with me,
you're playing with fire
- The Interrupters
She's Kerosene
he took it as a warning
- The Interrupters
She's Kerosene
hit the hive
now the bees are swarming
- The Interrupters
She's Kerosene
mad (adj.)
late 13c., "disordered in intellect, demented, crazy, insane,"
from Old English gemædde "out of one's mind"
(usually implying also violent excitement),
also "foolish, extremely stupid," earlier gemæded "rendered insane,"
past participle of a lost verb *gemædan "to make insane or foolish,"
from Proto-Germanic *gamaidjan, demonstrative form of *gamaidaz
"changed (for the worse), abnormal"
(source also of Old Saxon gimed "foolish,"
Old High German gimeit "foolish, vain, boastful,"
Gothic gamaiþs "crippled, wounded,"
Old Norse meiða "to hurt, maim").
This apparently is from the Germanic intensive prefix *ga-
+ PIE *moito-, past participle of root *mei- (1) "to change, go, move"
(source also of Latin mutare "to change,"
- www.etymonline.com/?search=mad
He played the victim
- The Interrupters
She's Kerosene
she gets started
- The Interrupters
She's Kerosene
the spell was cast
- Etta James
At Last
Let’s go up in flames
- Missio
Bottom of the Deep Blue Sea
burn down everything
- The Interrupters
She's Kerosene
until
at last
they subside into silence
as a new deep
voice is heard,
that of the ship,
who has found her identity
at last.
- Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend
Hamlet’s Mill
And the shadow ship started to emerge from its shadow.
And there was ever so tiny time distortion.
And reality twisted... slightly.
- A.E. Von Vogt
Earth Factor X
And here we are in heaven
For you are mine
At last
- Etta James
At Last
For now,
the dangerously sweet syrup
will retain its old-world mystery,
tucked away in shops that are difficult to find.
- https://modernfarmer.com/2014/09/strange-history-hallucinogenic-mad-honey/
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