the story

to N.V.

What is North? I don't mean geographically, but what is the mystery of the North? To me, it has always been marsh women. Imagine walking in the woods. It's just after sunrise. You are wearing your huge hip boots and a homemade solid-color turtleneck sweater borrowed from a fisherman from the lake below.

The forest is all warm suspense, even more so are the remains of the forest. Here and there you see weird stumps that are not scary. You are covered with spider webs and bits of trees. Your hand automatically caresses unknown grasses. You destroy unknown mushrooms just for the heck of the sound. You move like a moose. Your huge and heavy hip boots are making comforting, rhythmical noises.

And then you start noticing the marsh women. They stand out of a swamp and the khaki sky is in their eyes. Marsh women don't come out all of a sudden — they are just part of the nature, their colors being as close to natural as they can be — like a mutt's colors. But they are cats by behavior — always a mystery, never loyal, never around when you need them. The coolest thing about this world is that it has so much of non-sci-fi (meaning non-scary and not made up) mystery. And the marsh women are the warmest part of this mystery.

It's a mystery of the simple cobblestone streets of small Northern towns. So next time you are stuck in a hotel in let's say Brugge, listen to the sound of their clogs. It is a sound of a warm and quiet happiness. And even if you look out of your window and it is just a chariot running through early in the morning, don't panic — marsh women and horses are sisters. For the khaki sky is in their eyes.

One of the hidden treasures of Unix is it's support for system logging and kernel message trapping. Imagine messages from your UNIX server (or any networking devices that support remote logging e.g. routers) running through your PC screen tucked by oh so familiar GUI? It is a one small step to form a KINship between you and your UNIX server. And that's what we are here for. And who knows, when you'll sit in front of your computer long enough, maybe even marsh women will stand out of darkness?