You are sitting in Westerville south end’s Bob Evans without, alas, wireless, as theirs is down presently. You arrived early but Fritz should be here within a half hour or so. Why don’t we go ahead with scene six?
Fine with me. Been a long time since I actually worked on the book in a public space.
Mid-afternoon. You and Fritz had a good lunch and always good conversation over a variety of topics. The one most intriguing to you was when Fritz mentioned how his father was a great public speaker – he ‘read’ his audience as he spoke and use this to his benefit by ‘secretly anticipate’ what his audience wanted to hear and then knead his talk to what Mr. Milligan needed to say. Then you moved into a discussion on what ‘brings’ the audience (be it sports or politics or whatever) together in a common feeling or intensity. – Amorella
Yes, I think some of this connection is bio-chemical, that somehow the bodies in the room make it known they are bonded in the moment. Somewhat like how ants communicate. Emerson might say it is the ‘Oversoul’ at work but I think it is bio-chemical along with being caught up the intensities of emotions at the moment. I was reminded of the rerun of “Modern Family” the other night when Dad sensed that wife and both daughters were in the same menstrual cycle (which science shows what can happen when women live together). We talked about other things too, but that was a new slice of conversation that allows one to wonder on other possible bio-chemical or unknown (unconscious) connections among people.
Earlier you worked on scene six. Post what you have, then take a break. You stopped to see Aunt Patsy and Uncle Ernie but no one was home, you want to swing by Cathy and Tod’s too before you drive up to Jimmy V’s. - Amorella
Scene 6
Arthur conjured up his first memory of a young naked woman of fourteen who was not a mother or aunt or in any way related. Innocence, he thought, my own and hers. She was bathing in the deeper water of south pond alone. I had never seen her before – slender, long dark hair lightly formed breasts and a puff of hair below her belly modestly shadowing her newly prized womanhood. I drew myself closer still unseen – I was as a young hunter, myself stalking a carefree half-child rather than the fun of fair game. Her body moved with an awkward grace that was mystifying to me. I watched her through the rest of her private swim and bathing. She climbed out of the pond on a shallow of flat rocks and with collected wits – straight to the grass where she lay that warm afternoon away until after a bread baking of sun when she picked up, drew on her grey chemise and casually walked around the border of the pond to the path through a small woods. She never knew I watched.
I saw her later that summer in the village and she returned my quick smile with a longer one as if she had known me before; but we had never met as far as I knew. Eleanor was her name, Eleanor of the Railing. Were I not so good a young man I would have lusted after her for several of the next years. She was too casual, too innocent for me to remember her in any other way. What a beautifully natural young woman of the forest. I kept her dressed as freely naked in her movements for years – and even now – but out of self-respect I surrounded her with the clothing of a young Melusine, a feminine sprite, a fae in freshwater, who had not yet grown her wings. Such is my picture of this queen who is my good Merlyn’s Heaven and who was a prerequisite to my once Queen Guenevere. Ah, such is the turnabout, the once reality image of a wee fae now beyond the earthly sky and all the Beyond in Merlyn’s wise eyes.
Such are my thoughts but with glancing up at Merlyn – how is this, surmised Arthur, that we two who are similar in height, find myself shrunk half a head shorter? Mind trickery, no doubt, but is it my trickery or his? This place, Avalon, is not so readily personally experienced without the usual casual cloaking within my heartanmind. Merlyn is finding himself ready to speak on the Beyond that encases the Land of the Dead and I find myself afraid to listen without the imaginative memory of that young beauty – this sorcerer’s voice will be more penetrating and candid without Earth’s missing air to carry his unconstrained cadence to my ears. No doubt there are an enchanter’s experiences that I should not know.
With the flicker of a schoolmaster’s glance Merlyn stated, “Arthur, you are afraid I will speak a truth about our Lady’s navel.”
“A once king is not a sorcerer, Merlyn. I kept royal secrets from you and you should keep certain truths from me.”
“In Avalon you are always king, my lord. It is the common Celtic wish that should be respected.”
“Is this, our last placement, the only navel our Lady of the Common Beyond has?” asked Arthur awkwardly.
“Each human culture believes its culture is the navel of the worlds beyond.”
“Belief is not a truth. We dead believe and it is therefore real?”
“No,” suggested Merlyn, “but common social convictions and behaviors are real enough to comfort we who, Here and Dead, are bodily little more than analogous articles of faith ourselves.”
“I fear I shall not understand your words, Merlyn as we are as mist and no longer subjects becoming passionate predicates.”
“Grammar is a decent fault, even Here among we, the philosophical Dead.”
Arthur uneasily enabled Merlyn with the question, “You are not being literal?”
“Where do you see the literal, Arthur? Here, self-begotten forms of heartansoulanmind dance fantastical – it is so with your and my words too. We present but a novel reality and can do no more.”
“I am reminded of this Rebellion, Merlyn. Is this too a Berserker’s imagination.”
“The Rebellion is real enough, more real than ourselves. That is the crux of our circumstance. A body of wonton disease fires the mind and cools the heart which in turn fires the heart and cools the mind.”
Arthur summarized, “The Beyond is not well.”
“Well put, my king,” smiled Merlyn.
***
It is coming along, not as I expected, but then there is nothing unusual in that. I find it interesting but I am not sure others will.
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