Notes & re-editing to Voiced Scenes 17-21

         Late mid-morning. You are tired and need a nap but you and Carol have a couple errands to run. You changed ‘shadow’ to ‘shade’ in scene sixteen because it reminded you of Virgil’s work and you thought it would be funny. Not my cup of tea but what is a word here and there, now and then. > You compromised with ‘shadow’ first and ‘shade’ second. That’s better. Later, Dude. 

           Here are today's results. Tomorrow you should finish this chapter and post it. - Amorella. 

Scene 17

         This is how it was during the evening of the first day. Salaman is resting alone in his bed. He looks dead because is he isn’t breathing. He doesn’t appear to be dreaming yet either. The restlessness is between his heart and mind. His question is How do I know what the right thing is to do when I don’t know if my view on the demonstration, which is to take place in to more days, is objective and correct?

         Tomorrow we will learn what took place tonight with Aeneas’ meeting with the Supervisor. I cannot imagine it is easy for a human meeting a god face to face. Fortunately, I never have to.

            Let’s drift over to Kassandra’s stone privacy and peer down. She looks attractive enough in her settling after having just made love with Thales. Being dead and making love should not be equated with being alive and making love. Gently holding hands is rudimentary, the bare basics. Sex is really all in the mind just as it is with the Living, but it is not interrupted by biophysics and cultural conditioning. A sense of timelessness exists while hand-holding for the best of reasons. Their recent expectation-free ‘hand-holding snuggle’ helps them into a calm after the day’s events.

          Mario is staring right up at me but doesn’t know it. Sophia is asleep but she will have the first of many restless nights. Her heart is feeling the words, I know what is right. Ours is a good and just cause and the Supervisor should hear it from us directly. The Supervisor needs to see we are resolved and stand together in this thought on going home to Earth to rest and to listen to our children’s grandchildren when they ask questions and to answer the children the best we can. We know things, but we must be vigilant and constantly be ready to separate our wants from our needs in this demonstration. 

          That’s how it is at the end of the first night.

 Scene 18

 Morning, the second day.

          The Narrator sat on the northeast corner of Sophia’s privacy chamber listening to her heart while she waited for word from Aeneas. Whatever happens, she pondered, we will learn more about the Supervisor and her Station here. We want to go home to watch over our great-grand children. But is this truly a need? What happened to the Dead who never arrive here? Are they the fortunate ones who are allowed to sleep eternally while we continue on?

          The Narrator almost smiled hearing this and said to her-an-himself People expect to be told what to do, when deep down they understand the general expectations and should move on from those. Basically, Sophia's questions can be categorized into this: What can we hope for? and a level-headed response is: Our children should be able to live more humanely than we who are parents and citizens of this Place’. But listen, and I will recite some of what I hear from the humanity of the Dead.

          “We thought if we were not free in life then we would be free in death but that is not the case in this Place. We ruminate and find camaraderie through our personal identities, personalities and interests. The human center is Our Mother, the first who was allowed in this Place. She is our common point. We are equal citizens through our ancestry. We have become a hive of sensibly silhouetted questions searching for equally reasonable responses. What else can we do? The gods certainly don’t always help. We don’t know, really, if they ever helped.”

          Generally, more emotionally laden questions resolve themselves through a deeper conscious study. The question, Who am I? is more easily resolved after life than Why am I here? What shall I do here? How much can I know and understand of my role and responsibility in this Place of the Dead?

          These are the deeper questions. It is no wonder time is taken away so the Dead may socialize and think and resolve, first as a fully human individual consciousness with personality and memory from life, and second as a member of the group of the Dead who share a common first mother. These are the questions that concern these individuals and their small group of five in relationship to what they must do in this circumstance, what actions they must take once they confront the Supervisor who appears to be dressed as a god like no other. Necessity.          

Scene 19

         Aeneas lingered near the Stone Hill crevasse waiting patiently for the Supervisor as Apollo flew through the metaphorical hand of the Supervisor without realizing the fact. Apollo halted above the same crevasse where Aeneas stood as stone. Glancing through various directions at once, one of Apollo’s many quantum minds reported, Necessity holds us hostage. We are not alone. We are now never alone.

         Suddenly, Apollo envisioned his twin sister Artemis appearing two arms lengths away. Artemis’s coal black hair set stealthily woven above each of the Huntress’s four faces sublime, each visage compass set into the nine cardinal directions of Olympus, so her father Zeus is always targeted in her foresight. Her silver bow contains a Balance between Here and Elsewhere following her cerebral aim of sight. Two of her eyes immediately capture Apollo directly and say, “We are a translated sight of one ball inward and the other outward. You have my presence, Brother, by myself; not by Father Zeus or by the Supervisor.

Apollo thwarted her with, "What Good then, sister, do you serve here."

          "Brother, you cannot create Prophecy in this place."

Apollo growled, “Necessity is such a mother.”

         “I, Artemis, am the needed Healer.”

         “And, I am Apollo, who stands in the presence of Zeus. I give the Vision. I am the News. I dictate what is to be written on the wall.”

         Artemis stood defiant saying. “I, Artemis,  am the medicine of Zeus and I set the interventions between the affairs of human beings on Earth and Zeus on Olympus.”

         Apollo firmly asserted, “We are not on Earth. And, I do not see your intervention is written so.”

         “It is written in the milk of human kindness,” chastised his twin. “What is once done cannot be undone.”

         Apollo rebuked, “If this is secretly Father’s doing it can be undone.”

         “In this instance,” she admonished, “Our father, Zeus, has no choice.” Artemis dissolved into a vision most darkly framed.

         This shock of disappearance blasted Apollo into many a vacant mind. Thunder quickly reverberated throughout his very being without first a bolt forthcoming. His many minds quickly considered, and in one timeless moment concluded, “I saw Artemis my first born twin. She spoke. She was but a disguise. I, Apollo, once god of light now understand a quantized blindness as my many eyes freeze forever wide open in Necessity’s terrible wake.

Scene 20

         The Supervisor had spoken and Apollo would soon deliver his circumvented translation to Aeneas in the form of hindsight as it very much pleased the god's second nature.

Scene 21

         Disturbed, Aeneas sat. No sign of the Supervisor or Apollo. He smirked at the thought. What ever are the signs of any god Mother Earth? Aeneas shook his head. Mother Earth is long gone. I sit sulking on stone that isn’t stone and stare down into a crevasse that isn’t any more real than I am.

         “Then jump,” said an inner voice Aeneas had long ago learned not to listen to. He did fall asleep though, and dead he lay, safely wedged between two boulders in the morning light.

         The Dead dream much as the Living, and sometimes the interconnections are within others of the fold as well as within themselves, especially dreams bridging friends, sometimes even those friends still Living. This dream of Aeneas however was one like no other – and afterwards, fully awake, he committed the dream to memory through a focused center on setting, characters and the serendipitous plot, and he quickly reinforced the remembrance through an actual recitation.

***

Notes & re-editing to Voiced Scenes 11 -16

         Up at three, dozed in the living room chair listening to WCLV, the classic music station in Cleveland. You spent time thinking about the spine and how I used it as an antenna in the earlier stories.

          It was a connection, a way for the brain and mind to pick up intuitive information, vibes, if you will, from what I call Elsewhere, a dimensional aspect of thought from outside the species and planet.

         You have it wrong orndorff, which as you realize, is not out of the box in your mental environment. Intuition is a guide, it says to take this road or another in terms of logic. Vibes, in this context, means picking up cues from Mother Earth, if you will, from your gut. You came up with the antenna concept, not I. This comes from an earlier unpublished science fiction work in which the old Bethany Station (Voice of America broadcast station) on the northwest corner of Tylersville Road and Butler-Warren County Road west of Mason played a part as there were many varieties of antenna on what is now Voice of America Park.

         The whole idea has me wondering if it somehow is part of this story also as there remains the distant connection, eluded to once, that the alien species, the human appearing marsupials, are connected to this first Rebellion of the Dead, and also with the second Rebellion of the Dead in book six.

         The connection is correct. Human-like (in intelligence and behavior) are an important part of the Merlyn’s Mind series. Remember orndorff, this is an allegorical series not science fiction.

         It appears as science fiction to me. I mean it has aliens in the first three books.

         They are not so alien, if you remember, the connection with humans was a comet, same filtered seeds of life, same planetary environment for those seeds to grow on. Same higher consciousness, same humanity, if you will.

         I still don’t see how the Rebellion of the earthly Dead relates to the Marsupials.

         They have a similar Rebellion in their area of HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither.

         At the same time? I was not aware of this.

         Time does not exist in these Places. It makes no difference.

         How will the reader come to understand this aspect?

         The same way you will.

         Time for me to go back to bed.

         I suppose. Paul just received a call and has a surgery to attend to this morning. Carol, Kim and baby want to go out to breakfast –  another hour or so of sleep seems reasonable old man, it is almost six. Later, dude. – Amorella.


        It is near twenty-three hundred hours and you have completed revising scenes eleven through sixteen. Place them here and that will make it a day. 

Scene 11  

On the southeast corner of Lyceum and Eleusis, catty-cornered from the café, The Mikroikia, sets the library.  The large chamber is ragged with boxes of rolled scrolls piled along the walls and on three high wooden shelves centered in the middle and back. Mario and Thales sat at one of twelve tables in somber contemplation.

  “Are we still staunch friends?” smiled Mario. “The others avoid us here too, yet wait anxiously for their orders.”

“They consider this only a protest, an act of solidarity.”    

      

Mario raised his right eyebrow, “And you consider it more, Thales?” 

“I don’t know. I saw a goddess on the path today on the way to our morning meeting. Her eyes were devastatingly black to wide brown with a thin black surrounding the division of brown to the white of her eyes. She appeared from a distance as an old lady with a cane. But, when she grew close and looked up from the path she was Beautiful and Captivating. She was a goddess I am sure of it. I have told no one but I take it as a sign.”

           “Or an omen,” interrupted Mario somberly.

          Thales’ blue eyes grew, “Why would a goddess walk by as I was on the way to the meeting? I take it as a sign Mt. Olympus is more involved than we suspect. Why, would the gods become involved if this only remains a peaceful protest? There is no way we could win a war against Zeus.” 

         “Perhaps he would enjoy such a battle,” smirked Mario who then added somberly, “Only the Fates know.”          

Thales responded, “You think the Supervisor is less powerful than Hades?”           

“According to our Mother he has always been known as the Supervisor,” said Mario.     

 “No one has seen him, true. But there is an order beyond us in this Place. Our heartsansoulsanminds are intact. This was built for our Being, for whatever the reasons. The Supervisor has always shown himself to be a Custodian. He holds this Place together as Mother Earth holds our Home.” Mario sat quietly for a moment and then continued, “I would accept a path, a single path that one of us might follow to Home so that sheorhe might rest in peace in the earth below the sun and moon and stars for a time. We could take turns and everyone have an equal time in one small piece of ground. The place where any one of us might be closer to our great-grandchildren. Is this too much to ask?”

Thales countered, “But one of Sophia’s demands, one voted on, is for us to return to Earth to speak to the Living.           

Mario concluded, “I would take the compromise.”          

“How is that a compromise, Mario? One of the ten thousand to go Home to rest?”          

“Thales, the rest of the Dead will follow our ten thousand for necessities sake if nothing else.”          

“We could all be thrown in the pit with the Titans,” reminded Thales. 

“I doubt it,” responded Mario. “If that were true we would already be there. Do you think the All-Knowing Zeus would put up with this when with a bolt we would be nothing but our souls’ ash?”          

Again Thales countered, “I don’t think he knows everything. Too many stories. If he knew in advance he was going to be caught in his affairs why would he get involved in the first place? If he knew and understood everything why did he create Earth flawed, as he did?” Then Thales grumbled, “This Place of the Dead is not so perfect either.”

Scene 12

The boulder strewn mound called Stone Hill is no more than a thousand feet high, and it assumes the shape of Mt. Vesuvius but with only a quarter of Vesuvius' height. This setting is near where Aeneas is to meet the Supervisor. The rocky rise basically serves as a stone pit in reverse.         

The newly arrived Dead along with friends and family take a few one by two foot stones off the near lower side of the hill to build a new privacy room for the recent initiate to the Place. Carts exist as someone has taken the time to make them. The newly Dead and immediate visitors pull the cart, load it with cut stone, and return to where a foundation is set.

The next day the Dead return and more cut stones are waiting to be delivered.

            Once the small room is built and the newly Dead is inside and closes the door sheorhe is as personally quiet as the physical body is under the ground or at the bottom of a deep blue sea, or floating as ash in sea or air. It is not the same though because one cannot get wind of the Living in their personal abode. Not a sound to be heard as one is essentially shelled within herorhis own soul unless one decides to allow friends and/or family within.

No one climbs the thousand foot Stone Hill to the other side because there isn’t any other side as far as the Dead know. This is the place, on the other side of Stone Hill, where Aeneas is to meet the Supervisor for a one on One, as it were.

This is any easier task for Aeneas than it might be for most others in the nearby vicinity of Elysium. During life he believed his mother was Aphrodite, the goddess of love. He had acted as though he was goddess born, and since everyone else had heard the same story they also believed it and acted accordingly. This bit of fiction had helped Aeneas survive many trials and adventures in life and now the same would help him in Elysium. This is what one side of Aeneas thought. The other side knew better. Here is why.

When Aeneas was newly Dead and arriving in Elysium he was met at the pool by his father, Anchises, who upon seeing his son, appeared amused but said nothing. Aeneas immediately understood the silence behind the smile as he realized he was not also being greeted by his mother on Mt. Olympus. Aeneas, happy to see his father, good-humored asserted, “I see the story of my birth was but a misconception, my true mother was not Aphrodite the goddess of love as I was lead to believe. I was a true love child instead.”

This primary fact weathered well and both laughed in a deeply personal level. The goddess fiction had crept stealthily into a fact for child and neighbors alike. Within a day of his arrival to the Place of the Dead Aeneas set out on his first new adventure; to discover his real earthly mother.

Scene 13

I see Stone Hill, said Aeneas to himself. It does appear larger, as does the rising of the spring and fall moon in life. Without a daily sun we are constantly reminded, thought Aeneas, that this setting is not for the living. Stone Hill in the distance is a large and lonely lump of fiction that we are built to ever endure;  or so it seems.

Aeneas stood as grave as the distant stone and felt his large heart say, “I miss the bright light and heat of the  daily yellow sun of Home more than almost anything other than my son, Ascanius. Immediately dropping from his hesitantly conscious mind into his sincere and good heart were the words, Apollo, will you help me here.”

Scene 14

Apollo could not help but hear through the utter silence in Aeneas heart. Eyes like full moonlight registered inwardly. So deep is this need he asks for my help not Aphrodite’s. It is Zeus’ Will that I stand a shield between Her-an-Him who is the Supervisor of all the Galactic Dead with heartsansoulsanminds.

Meaningful Purpose radiates behind and beyond the thought of sunlight. It is impossible for me to see through the design and clothing of Necessity or her-or-his personification, who originally gave the three Fates their due. This then may be the wardrobe of the Supervisor – or such are the rumors throughout Olympus.

Strange is it that such the tiniest of what can be called a thing – a step before and  beyond the particle and wave of light, of such a singular quantum-like nature could be the original cause of human-like heartsansoulsanminds.

 Could this original Purpose move Necessity to change Her-an-His bright multicolored toga of Meaning?

             Free Will, that horse only Love can attempt to ride and break is nothing to Necessity’s beckoning. No one, not even I, Apollo, can prophecy the dangers in such hauntingly spiritual depths. Such is it that Necessity can cause Zeus himself to tremble. So, who does great Zeus send but  his son, me, Apollo, born second to my twin sister, Artemis. I am still the only god known to announce my own birth while also foretelling the births of several benefactors of humankind.

He gathered himself to sweep into the Underworld, whose god opening gate is composed of a dark and black insect-like hole with nine downward spiral steps, each the depth of three times the distance from the galactic center to the outer universe wall. Each step, the copy of a  rising human mind, each remembering a single separate humbling human virtue as if it were a dressing of the gods. Each virtue, a necessity, if one is to be born and raised up with soul as well as mind and heart.

The heartanmindansoul is rumored to be one of the first of Necessity’s great conscious inventions that on occasion comes to rattle the wise and other-wise all powerful king of the gods, Zeus.

Scene 15 

         Evening of the first day and Mario walked into the privacy chamber and shut the dark oak door. “You wanted to talk?”

         “I do,” answered Sophia succinctly. “Let’s lay down on the bed with our eyes staring at the lack of ceiling and wonder this play of ours out.”

         Mario casually walked to the edge of the bed, turned and sat, then he said, “It is pleasant not having insects, rodents, snakes and other such creatures interrupt a nighttime of sleep.” But for the dreams, he thought, dreams are a plague or bouquet. One never knows.

         “I agree. But look who I invited here tonight.”

         Mario stood and turned towards her smiling face and joked, “Are we making this a threesome? Who is your other guest?”

         “I hope it is Hera,” asserted Sophia. “I requested her presence in our minds tonight.”        

         He edged a warning, “I would not wish to cross her Sophia.”

         “That is the idea, Mario,” she declared. “You don’t want to cross with either of us.”

         “I’d have to believe in Hera first” he challenged, and I don’t have to believe in you.” He paused studying her reaction. “You called me to share your bed for discussion but what is there to discuss? Messenger Aeneas is on his way. The Supervisor could be anywhere. Sleep is but a deception of death and death a deception of sleep in this stony privacy of yours. The god’s ear is no doubt your nightly ceiling.”

         “You waste your intelligence on philosophy and useless debates” muttered Sophia, “and why you were chosen our number two, I will never know.”

         “To keep you in check” he badgered, “I almost arrived too late. You wanted Charon, your imaginary Ferryman, to be the currier.”

         Sophia rebutted, “Just because he’s unseen doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist. And, he has an interest in us, the Dead.”

         “Compounding interest, no doubt,” railed Mario. “Do you not remember how we arrived? No boatman to ask for coins. He was a paltry tale to keep our interest in the Hereafter.”

         “I do not remember,” claimed Sophia. “I awoke to my dear mother’s voice. I had ears before I had eyes. And, such lively tales of death’s survival are true; as indeed, we are here.”

         Mario momentarily succumbed to her voice, “I fear our deeds are out of us. I fear there is more to this than meets our dead eyes.” Theatre then ensued, “Why do we have our lashes and lids to protect such eyes here? These things are not necessary in our present wisp of clothing. Deception comes from within as well as without. At least life had an end. Deception has moved on with us.”

         She lamented, “You must watch our rear. According to Mother that is your reason here, but I don’t have to like it.”

         He interjected, “We wage our Mother’s demonstration. It can move us to a war with Zeus himself. The odds are not in our favor.”

         “All the more reason to court Hera,” smiled Sophia in a swelled sense of womanly satisfaction.
  

Scene 16

Time for a few facts about this Place. So far there are two ways into Hades and no way out unless you are or have been consummated by one of the beloved gods or goddesses. By most accounts there are still the major twelve on Mt. Olympus.

As this is many years later and people are more prone to science fact than fiction, the real Place of the Dead, if there is one, need be no more than a thought in size. How large would one make such a Place? A person may think she-or-he can feel a heart or soul or mind from time to time, but as a human being cannot actually observe any of the three properties of humanity materially, and as the heartansoulanmind have no physical weight, at least from my perspective, then proof of existence is relatively difficult to come by even if one is categorized as a ‘gifted’ person in any modern field of human endeavor. It is difficult to define and empirically prove the seeds of one’s own self, the goodies that survive physical death if you will, the seeds of one’s own personal heartansoulanmind.

Over the millenniums things haven’t changed that much in the Place of the Dead, though now the Living have added different dynamic dimensions to the concept. Over the long centuries people have done some thinking relative to religions, the sciences, philosophies and even the presentation of concepts by the cultural media, especially in the early twenty-first century.

It is time new ideas are thrown into the mix of metaphorical and/or spiritual stories. That’s the reason I’m the narrator, and while I am only a shadow of the Supervisor, it is still better to be a shade than to be nothing at all. That’s the butt-end of a joke among most of the Dead since, well, a long, long time ago, just about the time this first rebellion between the Dead and their gods and goddesses erupted.

Since the conclusion of this battle at the end of book five the Dead continue to be treated equally as always, but also they are treated differently than the reader observes in this book. If one lives long enough, that is, if the author lives long enough to complete the fifth and sixth books the reader can glean how it is to be among the modern Dead and their reason for beginning their second rebellion in the Place of the Dead in the middle of the last century.

                                                       ***

Notes & re-editing to Voiced Scenes 8 - 10

          You edited and created an audio for scenes eight, nine, and ten. It is night time and before one of your favorite shows, ‘Numb3rs’. Everyone else has gone to bed.

         I did not do as much as I thought I would. Several interruptions and errands then son-in-law, Paul, and I watched a film he just got from Netflick called City of Ember. We both enjoyed it but Carol and Kim and Owen had already gone to bed.

         Keep working and you will soon finish this chapter, then we work on chapter three while you are editing chapter two. As we go along the story will make more conscious sense to you though I will always be one step ahead as far as the plot goes. Don’t worry, it will have some twists and turns that you do not expect. – Amorella.

         It was full of those from the get-go. Nothing is coming into my head on chapter three at all. I can’t do two things at once.

         No, that is mostly true, but I can do one thing and you can do another in your head. As with yesterday, so you will feel more like you accomplished something, let’s add today’s work here and call it a day.

Scene 8

The Supervisor shook her-an-his head thinking;  like I need a currier. Love is a mysterious rider on the back of the wild stallion, Free Will. Aeneas will play his part in this I have no doubt.

  Do the Dead presume I will show myself and be a subject of their demands? I am built to allow them dignity and I have promised myself they can keep it through death, but living and dead, human beings have to provide the dignity themselves. Do they think they can rest in peace without it? What did human beings suppose life was? Even though the Dead know better they continue on as if they were still living. Such is their lot. They better get used to being dead because it is going to be a long time before they are anything else.

   The reader can see how it is from both sides of the fence. That’s the way it is going to be throughout these three books. People can have a hard time with concepts like heaven and hell or war and peace because they are rarely ever completely one or the other. The same is true for love and hate. Compassion and empathy take their toll just as revenge, boredom and even whimsy do. 

 Living people talk about the weather and how it will change. It is easier to talk about than people changing, ever. They will sort through this though, if they live long enough, and as you will see, so will the Dead, who will consciously live on much longer than they can imagine.

Scene 9

Sophia brooded on Aeneas as she sat alone staring at the north window in her room. The myths say Aeneas was made a god when Aphrodite requested it of Zeus, but it is plain to see the story is not true. He may have been favored by Aphrodite, but she is not his real mother. Aeneas’ mother was a descendant of our human Mother, the first woman with whom all on Earth are also descendants, Sophia considered. Aeneas is one of us. All we can do is hope Aphrodite still favors him. I hope she favors our species in particular, though I don’t know why she should.

The goddess of love would let us rest in our Home within the womb of Mother Earth. She would let us sleep under ground on which our great grandchildren play. An interruption in her mulling. A knock on her privacy door. “Who is it?” asked Sophia.

“It is I, Aeneas he announced. “I am ready to meet with the Supervisor if that is your will.”

           Sophia opened the oak door and appeared sincerely. “Good to see you,” she said. She surmised, he is in his twenties and beardless, then added aloud, “You are looking quite handsome, my young man.”

Tall and handsome, she deduced, lanky and soldier-like with thin dark brows and a cute wide curl running along his right parted hair. She smiled provocatively while noting his hands, no doubt this young Aeneas is a scrumptious lover also.

         “And you are looking as beautiful as our natural Mother herself. You could be her twin.”

         She humbly reacted, “So I’ve been told; but I don’t think we look that closely alike.”

         Aeneas chuckled with surprise, “We are all cousins and bound to have similarities with Mother.

         She pointedly asked, “Are you ready to meet the Supervisor? Do you feel up to it?”

         “Yes, why do you ask, Sophia? Of course I am. I would have respectfully declined your request otherwise.” He paused then queried, “Is it true Supervisor has never been seen?”

          She quipped, “Rumor has it so.”

          “They say such rumors even run Home to Earth.” Both laughed cautiously at the curiosity of the thought. “In any case,” added Aeneas, “I trust Aphrodite is with me as I assume it is Hades that I will formally meet.” He quietly fancied, whether it is Hades or the Supervisor in disguise, is another question.

Scene 10

         Mid-afternoon. Salaman relaxed with Kassandra in the public bath. “How does that feel?” he asked suggestively while slowly massaging her upper spine and shoulder blades.

         “Comfortable Salaman,” stated Kassandra in a low voice. “You always have comfortable and private hands even in a public place like this. “Will you do my neck please.” As she turned her head to the left for his firm hands, she caught a glimpse of her childhood friend, Agathia at the other end of the pool. Kassandra immediately turned and gave Salaman a quick peck on the cheek for private fun and the public innuendo it might cause. She said to herself, I am never outside who I am inside.

***

Notes & re-editing to Voiced Scenes 1 - 5

         Yesterday you worked your way through the middle of scene four and are feeling better about it.

         It flows better and I am getting into listening to the words really closely, much more so than reading. The problem is my  pre-programmed built in speed reading. I can’t turn it off, but I don’t have that problem listening. What bothers me the most right now is that I realize I should have done this with the first three books, the narratives would flow better and I would have caught more errors before publication. Fortunately I mentioned this in book two, and said that if and when the series is complete I would re-do the first three to make them better.

         You were working on my schedule of a book a year. I wanted them out there because they were your agenda while these last three are my idea. Besides, as I have mentioned, you did not have access to these programs several years ago. You told me you had nothing to do and were willing to work with me. You have your three published as I said you would. So, now it the time to drop the subject and move on. It is a waste of time to debate what you already once debated and accepted.

         I am not debating. I was on my mind, that’s all. I am enjoying this new process and after this first chapter is redone it will be easier to work on the newer ones.

         Before supper and you finished redoing scenes three, four and five. Why don’t you include the edited work in this post to give a sense of what you have done.

Chapter One

(© 2009 Richard H. Orndorff)

Scene 1

Late morning, the first day and unrest exists among the Dead.

“Something needs to be done. The Living do not realize the connection between them and us,” said Thales.

Salaman stood looking out at the endless horizon beyond the stone wall, flowers and trees. I need to watch this man, he thought, we all have our scruples here but top down this Underworld, this Elysium, is an uneasy place. The comfort of the breeze is too considerate of our station. Oh, to be Home where we might rot in the earthly fields and be of some natural use. Our common denominator floats us higher than I was used to in life. It is one thing to accept our present condition, it is another to like it much.

His old friend, Thales piped, “You stand here dour, Salaman. What do you think we should do?”

“We can do nothing about our election, Thales. What is done is done.”

“You are still a fatalist.”

Salaman replied, “The Supervisor know about our impending demonstration. If he doesn’t then Zeus does.”

“Zeus is not the end all be all,” grumbled Salaman.

“Hera will put him in his place,” smirked Thales. “I see her siding with us against Zeus. This is an honorable protest. We only seek to see our children’s grandchildren and show them what we know.”

“At Home even an understanding of how it is here will do,” asserted Salaman. Life had its advantages, but then so does death. We know things.”

“We have one less fear. Without death what can the Supervisor do to us? The gods cannot punish us here.”

“I have heard that was is Zeus’ original command,” noted Salaman. “He can always change his mind.”

Thales grittily replied, “He gave us Free Will and kept some for himself. We are cursed to be surrounded by our own rumors.”

“And we are never given reasons,” added Salaman.

Scene 2

         Kassandra sat at Marios’ side toying with his chest hair. “Who would have ever thought we could be so close here,” she whispered.

         He grinned with his lips closed. She leaned down and kissed his nose. “It is strange,” he said quietly, “how dead we are, and yet we snuggle as one in a common thought.”

         “We deserve our reward,” she replied, “we were faithful in life.”

         “Hope or Temperance, which of the two was more important in life?”

         Her smile seemed to drift within, “Hope is always a stronger virtue than moderation. Besides, we are here. Nothing can harm us from our lovemaking.”

         In more seriousness than she expected, Marios said, “I still have a sense of temperance. I think we should not confront the Supervisor directly. We need a runner to send him a message.”

         Now wide-eyed, Kassandra insisted, “The Supervisor is female, I am sure of it.”

         “Why do you insist this when no one knows?”

         “It could be Hera herself, or Hades’ wife, Persephone. This I know, the Supervisor thinks like a woman.”

         Frowning, he toyed, “How does a woman think differently than a man? Our minds are one in the same.”

         “Only in love, my dear Marios, only in love.”

Scene 3

         You see how it is at the beginning of this old story. Here we are in the twenty-first century and the second rebellion beginning in the middle of the last century continues, how shall I say, “Underground.”

         I am a nameless character like no other. An observer if you will, and as such, the Past is changed just by my arrival, and yours is too, by this reading. Some think of me a true ‘Betweener’ but that isn’t the half of it. After all, how can you have half when you have no idea what full is?

         These resourceful characters you have just met know where they are. Call it Heaven or Hell, Both or Neither. These dead people call it Elysium or the Elysian Fields as they are ancient Greek from the same time of the Storyteller, Homer, about 800 BCE or 2700 years ago. I say about because you really have no idea. You set the arbitrary dates, not me. Human beings seem lordly that way, setting dates like they know the beginning and the end of things.

         The Dead measure Time like water. From their point of view, back some 2700 years ago by modern culture, time was half full. The Dead know things like that, they know when time will fill the bucket. The Living don’t much of a clue but they think they do. Now, let’s move to the fabled Mt. Olympus and see it more from the gods’ point of view.

Scene 4

         Mt. Olympus is a pleasant enough name but the top of a mountain does not do justice for this Place, the size of which is broader and deeper than the known human universe, or even knowable universe, or multiple dimensional crannies holding exotic unnamable universes of built of matter and lack of matter. Humans, dead or alive, have a small vocabulary because, well, they are smaller than they think, infinitely smaller than ego dictates.

This is the Supervisor who rests on the other side of this coming Rebellion of the Dead. I lift the shade here because this is a story that needs to be presently told if indeed Justice is definable in the modern world.

For my part in this book I play the older brother of Zeus, known as Hades in ancient Greek times. I am femaleanmale as are the others up on the old Olympus. Female always first. Gender has little meaning here. Gender is a destiny of sorts, but a changeable one.  Among the Dead it has meaning but it is of little use except in one’s personal identity. One’s birth day is not changeable, and this is true for us gods on the conceptual Olympus too.

Three beginning strategies or positions will be played out in this first revolution; dead humans versus gods. While chess had not yet been invented on Earth, it was a board game played among the Dead. This is a more dangerous and challenging sport, particularly in these allegorical circumstances. If you are not into chess, do not be concerned. This game of strategy is an added dimension representing an inner warfare between the Invisible and the Unperceivable.

The Rebellion in a higher dimensional plane of  Allegorical Chess

The odd numbered moves are always White. The even numbered moves are always Black. Three sequential moves exist per chapter and the ongoing game is perceived by the Dead and the gods unconsciously.

1.   White pawn  moves to square Queen 4

2.   Black pawn  moves  to square Queen's Bishop 3

3.   White pawn  moves to square Queen's Bishop 4

         I prefer the term ‘the Supervisor’ to the proper noun, Hades, because unforeseen complications can arise. This Place, Olympus, is built first on Reason, a noun, also in use as the linking verb: to be.

         I serve as one of several intermediaries for Zeus and beyond. As Marios said a few moments ago, “We need a runner to send him a message.” Today, people use the Internet for communication, but then, the Greeks used runners because the vocabulary culturally understandable.

For those who are thoughtful in a slightly different orientation, think of us lesser gods as fingertips personified and feel your way through the paragraphs. Mainly, we are five. Number One plays my younger brother Zeus. Be careful which digit you make him when finger counting. He gives the birds in here, not the reader. The Dead take responsibility as in life.

Next highest in rank is Athena, a warrior guardian who sprang from the head of Zeus fully mature and in battle armor. Rumor has it she blows the final trumpet through the Dead, but in here Zeus has not made up herorhis mind. In here, rumor daunts the countryside. A drawback with too much imagination and not enough fact.

Some believe in books as if they were a personification of Zeus. Words don’t throw thunderbolts though. And, in here, Zeus is not bound as long as sheanhe has Free Will.

         The third god in this adventure is Apollo, a son of Zeus. Even the god of prophecy is sometimes humanly misunderstood or mistranslated amidst a storm of wishful thinking and self-deception. Apollo’s foreshadowing may be true but sometimes it is misread due to a lack of clear focus. Reality, visible and/or invisible, does not exist in perfection.

         The fourth goddess is Apollo’s twin, Artemis, the huntress of goodness and justice. She is also a great healer of the human psyche. As Artemis enters the Place of the Dead she appears to have four directional faces so she may never lift her own gaze from her father, Zeus as she focuses on the commonplace. I have heard her speak these words more than once, “I provide a horizontal balance for the good of humanity.”

          Appearing old, upright and astute with unflinching eyes is number five, Hera, wife of Zeus, who beacons souls forth by whispering, “I am the other First, the Female. My civilized and greater family finger is Intuition and it is pointed your way in life as well as in death.”

         These are gods and goddess, who are more likely to appear in these stories than the others of this ancient pantheon.

Scene 5

         Shortly below on Fields of Green the four Dead gathered bouquet-like to meet with the One elected among the Dead, the leader of the First Ten Thousand, to stand ready for battle if need be, with others of Olympus and the likes of Me.

***