You had your usual breakfast of crunchy
peanut butter, honey and raisins on a single multigrain piece of bread, skim
milk, and a banana while reading the Sunday paper, almost always beginning with
the Comic section. A relaxing bath will follow and then your exercises. Carol
is still reading the paper and doing the Sunday sudoku at her leisure. Such is
a typical morning for two retired Ohio public school teachers.
I am a bit jolted by your style this morning, Amorella.
Jolted is not the word you want here, boy. -
Amorella
Surprised, is the word. You are right - 'surprised by your style' even
sounds better. I like the alliteration. I don't know why I wrote 'jolted'.
I wrote with a detached objectivity, as if
the wall had eyes. Amorella
And this is a prelude to what?
To what's being worked into Dead 11. -
Amorella
I like Merlyn as 'Stage Manager'. I like it very much.
We will use that from time to time. He was a
Bard, let him talk to the reader. I don't think Wilder would mind, do you? -
Amorella
I have no idea, Amorella. When I taught I talked as if those writers in
the textbooks were my friends. I thought of them as friends because I enjoyed
(and still do) the pleasures of their writings.
Post, dear boy. Amorella
This was rather awkward to write.
You hesitated, but finally succumbed because
those are my words not yours. - Amorella
They are embarrassing to me. It makes it seem like some sort of self-praise.
I would never say 'dear boy' in reference to most anyone but my grandchildren, let alone myself.
1112 hours. Feeling better.
But you have not done your exercises. -
Amorella
1203 hours. I have completed my exercises and read some emails. I think
we are going to Outback for lunch but one never knows these things that are in
the mind of life partner Carol.
You
were writing in Dead 11 and Merlyn mentions individual shelters such Thoreau's
cabin at Walden. You checked online and found a photo to drop in here as a
reminder of how it was in those days.
** **
Interior of Thoreau's Cabin
Image from talkingtree.com
** **
We
have visited this replicated cabin at Walden's Pond at least twice, once just a
couple of years ago with our friends Craig and Alta. I can easily see this
converted into about any human culture past or present. I like it as it reminds
me of my bedroom while we lived in Minerva Park. My sisters shared the larger
room. I liked my own private space and made good use of it.
1319
hours. Carol is getting ready for lunch at Outback. I just completed the draft
of Dead 11 at 818 words. I am sure I can cut it down.
1350 hours. I have it completed The Dead 11 to 795 words.
Add and post. - Amorella
***
The Dead 11 ©2013, rho,
Merlyn
sat near the theatre ruins at his sanctuary, admiring the yellow sun that has
only recently been a part of HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither. During my recent tenure
on Earth, thought Merlyn, during the time of heartanmind sharing with the identical
twins Richard and Robert though Robert didn't appear to know it at the time. He
did buy his brother two books on Merlyn though. Surprised Richard, yes it did. We
never had rain here either until after the Second Rebellion. It began, so it's
said, the Earth night after President Eisenhower's Farewell Address, televised
on 17 January 1961. Those who were watching or listening at the time mostly
remember it for Eisenhower's warning on too much deficit spending and on the
growing military-industrial complex. Those already dead did not hear of it at
the time, but many of the recent Dead in those days knew about Eisenhower. It
wasn't long before word began to get around. Wars and plagues had passed many
people on in the first fifty years of the twentieth century. Now days there are
plenty more living but they do not make up for the loss. All the new technology
and weaponry, all kinds of weaponry never dreamed of before. The Dead of many
cultures got together and said to the
Supervisor; "Somebody's got to go back and say some things about how it is
here in this Place of the Dead.
As
I died in the latter seventh century I immediately slept and when I awoke I
found myself in Avalon whose topography is similar to the Isles. The earlier
Dead of Avalon have slightly different scenes than my own. People wake up where
they will be most welcome. Most assume the
Supervisor, as SheanHe is titled, understands how these things work. I haven't
seen any errors but some say there have been and were correctable. Peoples'
spirits need to feel comfortable so individuals choose their own level of
personal ease with one's self. This is mostly completed before arrival.
Communication
among the Dead is not difficult as long as one is polite first and honest
second. For some this is a difficult undertaking. You have no tongue to slip
on. The individual spirit is a personality with selected memory and fully
spirited. The words are driven from the heartanmind and in that order. If you
do not connect to the singular humor of this you miss half the fun of being
Dead. Those who discover problems with this arrangement feel more at home in
their private sanctuary. The heartansoul is more of a social issue and home is
a good place to resolve the mind on these internal conflicts as they arise.
At
the beginning of the Rebellion, sanctuaries were culturally oriented individual
shelters about the size of Henry David Thoreau's cabin at Walden's Pond. The
contents would be a bed and a chair for guests, perhaps two chairs as well as a
cupboard or two for imaginary cultural essentials such as food and drink for
one or two friendly occupants. The Dead don't need things. Memories shared and
otherwise will do. Those who know American theatre might think on the
minimalist set in Thorton Wilder's play, "Our Town". I'm sure there
are examples online in this modern world you presently live in. No need for
clutter scattered about when Dead, no matter in what culture and earthy stage
you dropped yourself into.
Let
me tell you how it was when I discovered I could visit an earlier place and
time to help me with storytelling in dreamtime. In Avalon I was crossing a
castle moat and walking through a stone framed doorway to the surrounding
gardens. I remember the dark blue sky and seeing those green leaf vines growing
up the wall and the top of the yellowish brown stone castle within. Beyond the doorway
were two large weeping willows and assorted well-trimmed bushes with the grass
in its natural state. This was a very pleasant scene indeed. I walked the path
down the hill toward the trees. Beyond and to the left were two gray shaded
monoliths and being myself I had to walk between them for the satisfactory
pleasure of doing so. One stone whispered in my mother's voice,
"Merlyn." The second stone whispered in my father's voice, "Time
to visit the birth of the Rebellion." I became as a note of music between
strings being plucked by the
Supervisor, at least that is my supposition.
Suddenly
I found myself soaring eagle-like between hugely shaped clouds mostly of the
high rising Cumulus and Cumulonimbus variety. I looked forward towards a
moon-like light at the end of this domed cave filled with multitudes of clouds
as I soared outward toward the cultural cloud of Ancient Greece. 797 words
***
Mid-afternoon. You
had very good steak lunches at Outback, plus you split and piece of carrot cake
for dessert. Presently you are near the center of Rose Hill Cemetery looking
west to the large bare trees and tall evergreens within and the trees beyond
that rise up from the small Muddy Creek valley, a few houses within your MI
development can be seen to the southwest. A gray day of sky domes above. It is
rather bleak among the winter dusting of white partially covering browned
dormant grasses plagued with orderly sculpted rectangled granite pieces of
various colors and heights.
1542 hours. I am ready to work on Brothers 11 but I will have to scan
Brothers 10 to remind myself where we are: Taco Bell and a poetry reading. --
The original Brothers 11 is only 544 words.
We'll have to add some but I don't want
sawdust as stuffing. - Amorella
Can we somehow relate it to Grandma's next story? Or to the Dead in the
previous story?
Let's go with Grandma's. - Amorella
I will have to check and see what it is about. -- Grandma's Story is a
fictional story about David and Bathsheba with 1118 words, so it will have to
be cut down. I forget what happens.
That's the reason it is written. - Amorella
You
and Carol, who was also washing a couple loads of clothes, have spent time
watching a couple more DVRed shows plus the national news and the first segment
of Sixty Minutes.
2045 hours. Brothers 11 is going to take a major revision.
Take
a break. You'll get it cleaned up.
I
am using a copied draft of book one. If the published Braided Dreams version is
like this it is a sad day. There are too many insignificant details.
So, you have published drafts of what you
are presently revising, things could be worse. Besides, you said in book two
that when they were completed you were going to spend time cleaning them up. Water
over the dam, boy. - Amorella
Okay, I'm not even going to check. I don't want to know. Time to move on
upstairs and sit in the more comfortable black bedroom lounger.
You have five hundred and some words. Enough
for tonight. Drop what you have of Brothers 11 in and post. - Amorella
***
The Brothers 11 (first re-drafting)
Richard is driving north on
State Street in his red 2005 Volkswagen GTI and sees Rob stopping on South
Staten in front of the old stage coach line's Stoner Inn, a place rich in the
history of the Underground Railroad. Richard pulls over and parks directly
across the street in front of the Riverton Mason Temple whose membership began
in Riverton in the second year of Lincoln's presidency, rolls the window down
and shouts, “Hey!”
“Hey!” echoes Rob. Meet you at
your house.” Rich nods and turns left at the next street. Within three minutes,
they are parked in the driveway.
“You've got Connie's old jag!
Awesome. Surprised she lets you drive it."
“She and Cyndi like cruising.
Figure they go out picking up the young men,” laughed Robert.
“We’re way too old,” gibed
Richard.
“What’s up?”
“Want to go for a ride?”
“Why not. Where are you
heading?”
“Hardware.”
“Speak for yourself, kid,”
goaded Rob. “Get in."
“Awesome!” said Richard with a
big grin. "You never get to drive this."
They stopped at the south end
hardware store for a package of small screws. A block to McDonalds for drinks
then down to Alum Park by the river.
“No one fishing today Richie,”
said Robert.
“I never caught anything here
at the park.”
“Neither did I,” grinned
Robert. Both broke out laughing then sat in silence enjoying the immediate
environment for half an hour or so.
“Nature’s a conspiracy,” said
Richard.
“How’s that?”
“I think it’s a trick.”
“That's your definition of reality?”
“Yeah. Reality is not what it
appears to be.”
“It sure is when you are
performing surgery,” voiced Robert.
“Yeah, I know. That’s the
problem with my theory. Reality is what you bleed in.”
“You mean what you imagine in, don’t you Richie?”
He put his head back and
looked up into the late summer blue sky, “You're right.”
“You reason with the brain,”
jabbed Robert, “imagination is in your mind, Richie.”
Richard
suddenly laughed and turned to face his brother. “You want reality? Remember
the old lines, ‘The worms go in, the worms go out, the worms play pinochle in
your snout?’” Both grinned while breaking into old boyish humor. Tears laughed
right down their eyes as they sang, "The worms go in, the worm go out, the
worms play pinochle in your snout."
**
"Where have you boys been with
Connie's car?" asked Cyndi.
Robert
replied, "We went to the hardware store. I had to get some screws for
Grandpa Bleacher's the old train set."
"Is
it still on that antique table?"
"Yep."
"I
love that old table."
"You
don't have room for it."
"I
know."
"I
like the train set. I'm reworking the scenery for Uptown Riverton in the late
fifties when we were in high school."
"That's
a good idea," agreed Richard. How things were in old Riverton rushed
through his mind. "The peace and calm of the fifties."
"Hardly.
The Korean War, the hydrogen bomb, the Cold War, color prejudice."
"The Beats," injected Richard, "and
cheap gas. I remember as a junior buying it once for 19 cents a gallon." 515 words
***
I
want to keep the underground railway theme on track. Here is an online photo of
the Stoner House.
Stoner Inn
It started as a natural spring,
bubbling up just outside town near the dusty old post road. Travelers came for
its water as it was thought to have medicinal properties. George Stoner was
born in Maryland in 1798 he moved to Finley Ohio in 1820 and then made Westerville
his home.
The Stoner House was built in
1852. George Stoner was an enterprising man who used this building as a tavern,
an inn and a spa. To insure business Mr. Stoner created a stagecoach line
connecting Columbus and Westerville insuring he had plenty of customers for his
business with the delivery of passengers, patrons and goods.
George Stoner also carried runaway slaves from Columbus to
Westerville on their flight to freedom on the Underground Railroad. Sometimes Stoner hid
the runaways in his coach’s luggage compartment. Other times, he disguised them
as regular passengers. Mr. Stoner would bring the fleeing slaves to his Inn
where he fed them and kept them safe in the basement. When they were ready,
they would set off for the next leg of their journey, on the Underground
Railroad.
From: http://www.touring-ohio.com/central/westerville/stoner-house.html
** **
I
wanted to make a point with the Mason Temple too, as the Masons came to
Westerville during the Lincoln administration. Here is a photo of the Temple built much later and as
it is today when the two see each other on State Street. The two building are directly across from each other. I like to thing there may be 'spirit lines' between the two buildings. Connections we may not see, but might be there anyway. I like to think there are such markings in the world from time to time, a kind of sacred space unknown to the living, like in the cemeteries. Same sort of thing.
Westerville Mason Temple
Orndorff, no one will see these connections.
This is too much irrelevant detail. - Amorella
No, it isn't. Slavery is a major theme in the Merlyn
books. A free mind is easily enslaved. Look at my own. These books are about
freeing my own slavery, freeing my own mind. Our humanity should not be so
easily tied down to who and where we are now. Humanity should focus on where
the world's grandchildren and their grandchildren will be. Well, my humanity
does. It is not so easy thinking different. What do you think my marsupial
humanoids are for?
Leave them in, orndorff. Relax. You get too
high on your horse sometimes. I consider that the world may become enslaved to the
point the humanity is drained out of it, and the same for ThreePlanets too, not
yourself, not your own humanity. The books may be by you but they are not about you, boy. - Amorella
I'm preaching, aren't I?
No preaching, boy. Enough of that already.
We are keeping this to storytelling. If you think the Stoner House and the
Masonic Temple add to the story we'll leave it in, at least for now. But when
it comes to the final draft some things are going to have to go. - Amorella
I understand, and agree. Too much attachment. Too much me.
Post.
Time for bed. Carol's already turned out the light. - Amorella
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