Notes - 'The Dead' sec/ch2.sage / wkg. with Grandma / "Brothers - 2"

         Mid-morning. You are sitting up near the earth dam at Pine Hill Lakes Park while Carol walks. It is a cloudy humid morning that was supposed to see rain but has not. You had a strange dream. Doug was taking you to a special physics library at OSU back when he was working on his doctorate. He said, "See, here it is, the book I was telling you about." You both sat at a library table -- Doug turned to his right and was talking to a friend while you browsed through this small magazine styled book. It appeared there were mystical signs and numbers -- the color of the pages was bluish-green like Gulf of Mexico water. The print was in yellow that gave it a rather comic book flare without cartoon figures in strips. 'I need to understand what Doug has been saying,' was your thinking as you attempted to decipher the contents. 'I need to understand, to absorb this.' Doug turned to you and said, "I knew you would like this [as I do].' That was the conclusion. - Amorella

         What comes to mind as you were writing and I was reading is that the physics of light and the physics of thought have a commonality. I like to think of 'thought' (in waves or particles) more as metaphysics than physics. "To see the light," is metaphorical. We don't see the light we see the reflection of light. I don't know. This is what comes to mind, but so then does "a camp of concentration" - hunkering down in thought or thinking of the Dead. I am confused, Amorella. I am mixing metaphor and reality. I need to keep on task and work through "The Brothers-2".

         You aren't finished with "The Dead -2" yet. - Amorella

         You want me to clean it up now? I think I should have cleaned it up more before I put it online in the first place.

         Then do it now and keep that in mind from now on. - Amorella

*** ***

The Dead - 2 ©2012

         Merlyn sat on a mind-made stone stump wondering what thought balls were about to hit the table. I have witnessed much in having been dead since the late 600's. Anno Domini is what we were taught by the Church. "In the year of our Lord" 670 comes to mind. I suppose it was somewhere around my birth or death. I cannot remember. Druids learned Greek and Latin. We memorized vast tracks of folklore and wisdom. This is what society expected, and this is what we did. He noticed, rather unexpectedly, the white cue ball materialize on the billiard table beside him. I would rather enjoy these Scottish trees and the flowering meadow.

         Quite an eclectic setting I've nested I have here, smiled Merlyn -- the makings of a clearing and nineteenth century billiard table of oak and slate next to this old tree stump I'm sitting on; a small stream trickling nearby, just enough to please these ears that do not exist. No one sees my brooch of yellow sun, no such adornment cloths this place or HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither for that matter. A light blue tunic of sky with an occasional white fluffy pin or pale bone or two of cloud infiltrates the jacket. No one among the Dead can create a rain swept or snow-laden field that sheorhe had the pleasure of witnessing in life, no one, not even Merlyn. Beyond the garment or cloak of sky I can make out the transparency of chessboard walls holding my spirit. My heartansoulanmind are imprisoned within. Me in my solitary fortress is what it is like to be dead. The soul shell clams me in. I am not stuckinagray as the marsupial-humanoids thought they were. I have brushed such alien souls though. Highly conscious beings such as they and we humans are now together among the Dead. We two species may interact with heartsanminds in these modern days of the common era of the twenty-first century. I am in the nineteenth of your centuries presently, but I can see your present, my future, as if on a screen, a light reflecting metaphor.

         Out of the corner of his eye Merlyn witnessed the cue ball moving down the table, hit the rubber on the far end and come almost straight back to where it had been.

         You did not hear the cue ball tap one of your solids, switched the Supervisor.

         'I did not. I thought I was alone with my species.'

         'I put the orange in the far right pocket.'

         'What unconscious thought of mine did that you put away?'

         'The boatman.'

         Merlyn smiled in surprise. 'I don't have to pay the boatman?' proclaimed Merlyn's heart with more childhood energy than Merlyn realized he had.

         'You pay, boy,' snapped Merlyn's mind. ' Everybody pays the boatman, even the Supervisor.'

         Merlyn muttered, 'the pearly white Gate of Heaven sets on the very far side of this rubescent River Styx.'

         'The Styx is where you are,' commented the Supervisor dryly.        

         A ferry, flashed through Merlyn, Captain Lamar has a ferry. I can return to earth by the ferry once I find the boatman. ['Which Richard?' asked the unseen elephant in the room.] Merlyn who was not fully reading the writing on the wall, grumbled, 'Who is this Richard?'

         Gloama secretly appeared, this time caught like tiny, naked and a faery white princess seed caught in Merlyn's left third fingernail. 'Prick this fingerless finger,' she suggested to Merlyn's ear that is not while caressing and seducing his fleshy induced finger into a more feminine comfort.

         'Whoa,' whispered Merlyn thinking Vivian was at the very least kissing or even sucking slowly on his third left finger that didn't really exist.

         On the green covered slate of mind, Merlyn observed the eight ball set at the very center of the green field. I have no other balls, shuttered Merlyn, not even the cue ball to knock this mother of an eight ball off center.

*** ***

         This is much better.

         Impatience is not a virtue, boy. This work is not based on clock hours. You are as Merlyn, half a man living, and half a man dead while in the creative and writing mode. It's a two way street in this the most existential of realities, consciousness and unconsciousness.

         I do not have the time the Dead have, Amorella.

         But you have the imagination. Here you are having been writing on the street in the center of Rose Hill Cemetery after Carol completed her walk. You are stopped at the crossroad. Carol is reading page 19 of The Litigators by John Grisham. Once over twenty years ago while in a 'fit' you thought you saw the Dead rise like a yellow greenish light from the far west side of this cemetery.

         It was a fit, a flash of imagination as I drove by the cemetery. You are making this spooky, Amorella

         Seems appropriate enough. . .  Now that you are home, post. - Amorella

          1214 hours. I did my exercises, worked up sweat unusual for me (it must be the humidity), had a relaxing bath and feel much better. Carol is on the phone with my sister Cathy then we are heading out to Chipotle/Panera for lunch. The street appears wet so it has sprinkled.

         You are wondering about "The Brothers" - we can work on it after lunch. Your passion appears to ebb before writing. This is not the Olympics, young man. Relax. - Amorella

         Well, in ancient times they ran naked too. I'm not such a handsome fellow, never have been. I think the words are a clothing of sort. There is more in here between the lines than I expect when the writing is actually occurring. The brackets work well for the unseen elephant in the room too.

         All for now. Post. - Amorella

         1407 hours. A stop at Kroger's on Tylersville on the way home.

         You saw a former student in Panera, she was waiting for her take out order. When she had come in the door she smiled slightly and you thought, 'I know her.' She remembered you of course and mentioned that she had worked at Kidd's Coffee for several years. She asked how you were and you were going to mention that you had been in Cleveland taking care of a grandson only you couldn't remember what you were up there for because you couldn't think of the word you wanted. She said, "Baby!" and called you Grandpa then before you could ask what she was doing her food was ready so you said your good-byes for now and that was that. - Amorella

         You didn't need to put in the details, Amorella. I knew it was a baby but he's not really a baby any more. I don't know what they call a six month old. I am happy I saw her but I can't remember her name. She looked very fresh and pleasant in a black slinky kind of dress you can wear a bathing suit under (only more stylish). She is a grown up woman in her late twenties I would suppose. I always like to see a former student and say hello even if I can't remember herorhis name. I do miss seeing all those new faces each year and wondering how it was going to be. . . are we going to get-along, that kind of thing. I was rarely disappointed and I am ever thankful for that. I had forgotten she worked at Kidd's but then at Kidd's she was never wearing a long body-clinging fabulous black summer dress.

         2138 hours. I have been spending some time working through "Grandma's Story - 2". I have not completed it, perhaps tomorrow. It is interesting to drop and add and edit. I read a line and a thought pops up, a consideration I had not realized before. This is the way it was in creating the first trilogy. It is no wonder it only took me three years, I was on a marvelous imaginary adventure the whole time. It was not well written though; I can more easily see that now.

       2147 hours. I forgot to include "The Brothers -2".

         By all means, include it. - Amorella

***

The Brothers - 2

         “I see we are at your house again today. What are you watching?” asked Robert.

Richard had not stirred from his comfortable easy chair. “National Geographic. It's on DNA. An genetics researcher named Wells showing that we men are all genetic sons of a man who lived fifty-six thousand years ago in East Africa.”

“So what? Smiled Rob as he sat down next to a tall brass stick lamp their parents had bought a year before they died. Turn us males inside out anywhere in the world and we look pretty much alike; you don’t need DNA evidence to show you that.”

“That’s true,” replied Richard. “But it's interesting that sailing moved the brotherhood around pretty fast. The genetic Eve existed one hundred and fifty thousand years ago; the one all we living are supposedly descendant from.”

“Men are faster than women,” chuckled Rob. “You got anything to read? Where’s your latest Harper’s?”

“I hid it before you got here,” said Richard. "I pay for it so you'll get it when I'm done."

“I give you my poetry mags.” You are such an ass, judged Rob. “What did you think of my latest poem?”

“What’d you think of my first chapter?” snapped Richard.

Robert got up and headed to the refrigerator, “Where’s the high test Coke?"

“In the back on the right side second shelf from the top.” Where it always is.

“Golf's on ESPN,” said Rob coming into the room.

“You got it,” said Richard as he pushed the remote.

“Where’s Lady?”

Richard spoke lazily, “She’s sleeping on the living room couch. When Jean's gone and Lady heads for the couch. She can see the driveway and when Jean drives in, off she goes.”

While watching a terrific put both snickered imperiously. When the golfing crowd clapped rewardingly, Robert said, “Where's Lady? Wake the old girl up for company.”

         “Lady!” shouted Richard, “Come here, girl!” A commercial later, he shouted again, “Lady!” Still she slept. “She’s got junk in her ears again,” said Richard brooding on how, Rob’s terrier Jack is always obedient. He added, "Cockers have ear problems.”

         “So do you,” parried Rob.

         “Damn dog,” grumbled Richard as he rolled out of the couch.

         Robert heard the growl then the, “Damn!” He got up to see the comedy. “What happened?”

         “She bit me on the hand. Look at this!”

         “I see the marks but she didn’t draw blood. You must have startled her, Dickie. He looked down to see Lady under the coffee table. “Come on out, girl. It’s okay,” coaxed Rob in a soft voice. Lady crept out with her ears down. My terrier Jack would never bite me, thought Rob with a slight smirk.

         Robert pulled up the right ear. “You’re right. Look at the wax and crude in here. Get some tweezers and swabs,” then he added, “and scissors, she’s got hair tangles in there. I’ll clean this out.” Rob gently petted her, “It’ll be okay girl. You are such a pretty Lady. Pretty Lady,” he continued, stroking the venerable tan and white spaniel until Richard arrived with the small box of ear cleaning material.

         Lady soon found herself with cleaned ears and quickly leaped up on Rob for a wonderland of a belly scratch.  Richard hit the remote during the next commercial and caught the tail end of a broadcast asking for donations."

         “Everyone wants a donation,” said Robert.

         “I agree,” responded Richard as he flipped the channel back to ESPN. “I'm tired of all of it, charity, religion, politics - all of it."

         Rob added, “Lady and Jack have a better life than either of us.”

         “True,” said Richard as he reached and stroked Lady, “but she cares for us as only a mother can do.”

         Rob responded on cue, “We have to take care of ourselves. No one is going to do it for us. Nothing's free on this planet.” He groused, “It's a miracle our species has survived at all.”

         That’s true, thought Richard. The fifties and sixties, how did we survive that? No one thought we would live to be thirty and here we are in our seventies. “It is worse now than it was before.”

         “No,” countered Robert, “it was worse with the arsenal the Soviets and Americans had pointed at each other.”

         “One day some crazy group will explode a nuclear weapon somewhere in the remote Pacific and then say they have another, that's all it would take, even if they didn't have another.”

         “Why didn’t Truman do that?” said Robert. “Why couldn’t we have dropped the bomb near Japan so the power could not be hidden from the general population?”

         “War is not humane,” commented Richard.

         Robert countered, “But it’s human enough.”

“War dogs take care of their own,” said Richard.

“But they hardly ever bite the hand that feeds them,” snickered Robert.

         “Remember Rob," jibed Richard as he stuck his right forefinger in the air, "a bone in the hand is worth meat in the bush. Cheer up, old man, the world's bound to get worse."

***

           I hope this is better than the first "The Dead". I am sure I will see corrections to be made though.