The Quest for a Valkyrie, part 1
by CaptainCorc
Captain Corc sets off on his Quest



It is not as easy for a nut to wander around loose in the United States 
as a foreigner might think.  After all, we have a reputation for 
insanity and I would have thought I'd fit right in.  I guess it was a 
mistake to set out on my trek carrying a fine reproduction of a late 
eighteenth century Pennsylvania squirrel rifle. 

I should have known better.  After all, twenty five years ago, I had to 
wait seven days to pickup a flintlock horse pistol I purchased in San 
Bernardino, California.  I tried to convince the guy it would be an 
unlikely choice for a crime of passion, but he averred that laws are 
laws and I had to cool off for seven days even though the frizzen was 
too soft to throw sparks.  Much madness and violence has transpired 
since then, so I might have guessed that the situation for armed 
citizenry had not improved much. 

I should have gotten out more. 

Too late for that now.  I AM out.  Ill prepared and woozy with 
allergies, I'm staggering around the countryside in search of a 
Valkyrie.  In between stints in various jails, that is.  They rarely 
last long but they are a nuisance.  I'm just glad I didn't take along 
that .32 Barretta I was considering.  That would have assured my 
incarceration in every state except Alaska and that town in Florida or 
where ever with the mandatory carry law. 

Anyway, the real question is not so much why would a guy set out on 
Valkyrie search carrying a squirrel rifle as why would he set out on 
such a search at all.  Isn't life fraught with enough futility as it is? 

The answer is, what else could I do? 

It all started with a relatively innocent internet search for fetish 
material.  Never mind  what fetish, that will very likely come out in 
due course.  I found a site called "Diana the Valkyrie" and I thought 
"Well, how whimsical" and stopped for a visit.  I looked at her credo.  
It was wry, funny and, due to this curse of a fetish, deeply appealing.  
I looked at some pictures which fueled my interest in the place.  And 
then I made the mistake of emailing Diana to josh her a little about 
this Valkyrie thing.  To my astonishment, she replied and the nature of 
her answer caused me to question my notion that she was just being 
whimsical.  I found myself drawn to correspond with her and became 
rapidly enamored.  She was clever, kind, exacting, strong, self 
confident, extremely intelligent and just plain overwhelming, by and 
large. 

Soon I was in pitiable state, but no one seemed to see it that way.  
They just thought I had contracted cancer.  I lost weight rapidly, got 
no sleep and developed the hollow eyed, anguished look of a guy who was 
either on the verge of terminal collapse or a Seattle Mariners fan.  But 
there was no sympathy forthcoming.  Like most obsessive people whose 
obsession is not directly marketable, I became a subject of scorn and 
approbation.  Disciplinary letters began piling up in my personnel file.  
Friends shied from me like high strung horses confronted by a 
rattlesnake.  But there was nothing I could do about it.  Even my 
therapist was at a loss. 

"You want to find a Valkyrie," he would say to me in the dim, cool 
confines of his comfortable office.  "What are you, nuts?" 

"You shouldn't say nuts to a depressed person," I would answer. 

"You're telling me how to do my job now?" 

I grew to hate these confrontations.  

Soon I had done irretrievable damage to my "situation" as the British 
say.  I.E., my job was hanging by a thread.  The thread snapped.  I was 
fired.  In truth, I was pleased.  I had grown to resent even the rare 
intervals of time spent away from Diana's site.  Most days I couldn't 
tear myself away at all, sitting hunched over the keyboard like a gnome 
with belladonna in his eyes trying to establish a spiritual link with 
Diana the Valkyrie.