#age 90

THE EXORCIST AND SEVENTH SEAL ACTOR

Born: April 10, 1929, Lund, Sweden

Died: March 8, 2020, Paris, France

Actor Max Von Sydow, who appeared in films and TV series including The Exorcist, Flash Gordon and Game of Thrones, has died at the age of 90.

His family announced “with a broken heart and infinite sadness” that the Swedish-born actor died on Sunday.

Von Sydow’s other…

For Fidel – Guerrilla, Comrade, Polemist.

    Fare the well, Comrade talker, Fidel.

On Batista’s ashes you ruled and reigned.

Cahoots with Ernesto ‘Che’, you branded

Cuba, for ninety decades, in your image.

So effective were thee, that the Gringo

neighbor to the north, millions spent to

upend la revolution. Yet, your island remain.

Fashioned still in your image, oh yes!

    In Havana, in Miami, residents or exiles

in equal measure mourn…

[                                               ” THEM ”

It takes her a while to remember, Raven’s face a soft smudge as dark blue lids lower over eyes in thought.

The names come to her first;

             AlexDarwinSean

               JakobLogan

                  LuzLornaElliot

                    AngelAzazelJanosEmma

                     KurtIreneAnna

                       ToddVictorJohnCain

                         Erik

                           Charles.

The names are easy, but it’s been so long that she struggles, for a second, tongue twisted and the bottom of her stomach falls out with dread. She can’t remember which smile belonged to who, whose laughter whooped out and rang clear and who laughed softly, shoulder shaking and who didn’t laugh at all, face a messy line of hardship and loss and fear.

It’s so difficult for her to drag up stories they’d laughed over, stories she could tell someone, some day, maybe; though a few come to mind. Tough for her to place where she’d been, with who and when, stories remembered only through a second-hand retelling with someone else, through someone else’s eyes.

Raven struggles to remember who had been buried where, which funerals she had been there for and which she hadn’t, if any were still alive and shakes her head.

She could always ask Logan, once they bump into each other again. ]

Maybe not as much as I used to.