Notes - it does not seem polite / Dead 15 completed

         Mid-morning. Breakfast and the paper. You are sitting in the bedroom lounge chair looking out the window at a natural blue background with various brown and gray mixed tubular structures in the foreground.

         Are all the colors defined as living?

         By whose definition, boy? - Amorella

         This brings up an interesting question (to me). How do the Dead define "living" as opposed the how do the Living define "living"?

         Let's ask Merlyn. - Amorella

         "The Dead define 'living' as merely extended; the Living, ironically are never completely sure of an unabridged definition." - Merlyn, the once Scottish Bard

         1016 hours. I fell asleep with the computer setting on my lap. Never have I done that before in my life.

         You did your exercises and worked on perusing material you might take on your trip West. One of the carry-on's contained a 'Wordworth's Lake District' post card from Laney dated 6 August 2005. The photograph is of "The daffodils at Gowbarrow, Ullswater".

         This post card is a pleasant surprise and with it I draw another connection with my character, Merlyn. He is thinking on the memory of Excalibur and the Lady of the Lake. The card, turning up as it does reminds me of the rare serendipitous-like connections one makes in a lifetime.

         1542 hours. I had to run an errand for Carol and since I was in town Carol asked me to stop and pick up our lunch from Marx's Bagels in Blue Ash so we had a late (excellent) lunch in the dining room.

         Carol is working on the computer for Kim as you did a few days earlier. You are sitting, facing west in your driveway. - Amorella

         I wanted some sun and fresh air. The car seat is more comfortable than outdoor furniture this time of year. (It's about 50 degrees out but I have the windows down and the sunroof up an inch. I have the Internet out here too but have no use for it presently.

         Now is a good time to post. It is better that you do so because you have already altered some of my words for fear of not being polite. How many more are you about to alter? You see, posting from time to time keeps you honest in the moment, no second or third thought. That's the best way to keep you honest. - Amorella

         Amorella, you wrote about what Laney had to say on the postcard and while it wasn't private (I mean it was on the back of a postcard) I had not asked her if I could put it on the blog and really didn't know how to ask her. Sometimes I feel that way about Doug's work, but we have an agreement, if he doesn't want what he has to say public he tells me so. Sometimes, I don't write it or (you write it and I edit) because it is personal.

         Good grief, Amorella, all this blog is personal. I give it up so that I might write better and/or have better insight into everyone's humanity, my own included. I am not asking my friends to give up anything so that I might hope to write better.

         This is not true, orndorff. - Amorella

         I ask them (silently) to put up with some of my idiosyncrasies. Let's say, I don't ask them, they just do.

         This bothers you doesn't it? - Amorella

         It bothers me that by being in existence I am likely however inadvertently step on someone's toes in the process. If I were not here I couldn't do that, or take up someone's time. People are busy. Who am I to get in their way? It doesn't seem right to interrupt people and their lives. It is not polite. (1607)

         I'm glad that's cleared up. Now, post. - Amorella

         You were about to pull in the garage when Carol came out wanted to go for a little ride (to get out of the house). You agree so you are off for a ride in a few minutes and perhaps drinks at McD's (if she wants her decafe coffee with three Splenda and three creams).

         If she brings her book for some reading I'll better know what's about in her head. She has been busy with tax info, putting it away for another year after we had to take in another document this afternoon as it was missing.

         You are home from McD's but you had a new small chicken sandwich to give it a try and in the process the inside half of a half way back bottom tooth on the right side fell off or that is what it looks and feels like. Dr. Erbeck will have make an observation and diagnosis. - Amorella

         I shouldn't have eaten that fish sandwich.

         Boy, if a fairly soft fish sandwich did your tooth in, it was going to happen fairly soon. At least you are not on your trip. - Amorella

         I told Carol no more McDonald's.

         Like that is going to happen. - Amorella

        

         2148 hours. Wow. The writing took about fifty-five minutes. I have never seen anything like it in my lifetime. My fingers transcribed what Merlyn saw directly as he himself witnessed the event. I will need to clean it up but this is enough for tonight. What an experience. What a sight. What a vivid memory old Merlyn holds. (2151)

         Words cannot do justice to the sight, boy. You will come by a way to smooth the language to your content. Add and post. - Amorella

         2208 hours. I have it for now, Amorella. Perhaps it can be better done but by heartansoulanmind this is all I have for now.

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The Dead 15 © 2001-2013 rho, completed draft

            Merlyn has the taste of honey and sunflower seeds on his tongue that isn’t; glancing up he sees the sun is at mid-morning while a layer of fog sets about a foot off the stream to his right. He turns right again for a good time walking away from the water with the sun behind him, northwest from the hut out passed the Oak and the ruins of an ancient theatre towards the great granite boulder, more than half a grand Highland hill high by his estimation.    

            In life I used to love walking the Scottish hills and woods enjoying the nature of sounds along the path, thought Merlyn. The further from the stream he walked the more a silence filled his mind of this morning's earlier fog which hugged ever so close to the cool mountain running water rather than its soon dissipation into the sunlight of his spirit, his heartansoulanmind.

            A lone billiard ball lay centered on the far cue point. The cue ball sat on the nearer cue mark as Merlyn watched from the near end of the reduced green on table due to the new acquiring dense fog. "What ball is this?" mumbled Merlyn aloud. He comfortably sat down on a nearby stump, the closed to his present location, about half way to the high granite hill. "Hill between me and the Living," he grumbled, still talking between himself and an important memory.    

            Merlyn squinted his eyes, sifting through the now layering white mist in his mind and the ball centered on the far side of the table. He whispered, like he was hunting a "Solid red . . . 7 ball. Who might that be a-calling from my heart?"

            "It is but a first memory, Merlyn, no one but you," said a woman's voice though he fully understood it was his own. She continued quietly and assuredly, "The fog tapped it forward." 

            Merlyn's voice continued, "I see an almost perfectly round deep red, beautifully polished granite ball with a circular ivory inlay and a glossy black onyx number 7 centered and embedded within the ivory."

            Memory spoke automatically as if it knew the connection with the past sits in the present and future at once. The soul coils the transmission, the heart generates the energy and the mind is as nothing that nothing can be. Memory's silent picture - sharp and detailed - viewed a full eclipse of the sun. "I stand on solid ground and from between the boughs of an Oak and Birch my eyes see the flame on the pond. No, the flame is from the water. Fire and water. Slowly, so slowly my widened eyes and beating heart strain for the fire's lengthening blade of silent flames to provide an upward thrust into the invisible side of nature's air. The spritely mix of orange, yellow, and red flame with a flash or two of white the surrounding air glowed an eerie green when rose the handle as yellow as the sun. 

          The hand showed its natural clasp on the surreal object to make the think the white skin ice itself. Frozen it was and clasped to the sun, without a hint of power. And quiet froze my soul on the spot. It's eye accepting something akin to itself made visible only a short distance away. And, as I drew closer the calm waters edge of surrounding trees and foliage took on the imagery of dark gray lashes, such as I was seeing the single eye of a most unnatural being as one of its lashes. 

           It did not blink red or any other color and neither did I. In all the things I did unnaturally observe, in the minute and whole of the singular event my wonderfully fine eyes focused on the most natural thing I had ever seen birth, the slim, white hand, appearing as human and more delicately feminine than my own, I saw a once powerless woman's hand rise as a goddesses hand holding sun, water, and a thin fire pillar in multitudes of colors and imagination. Its owner is not a goddess, in fact and description, but rather, a naked human soul existing outright and in place with no need of anything but being flesh and blood. Such was my heart and soul and mind so re-conditioned that day. 

          The sword, the bone of the soul, I never did see it as others. The mightiest of swords ever held by human hands held no power whatsoever; yet Arthur and the populace thought that it did. And, in the end, the king and his country tried to make the sword, like love and the purest of gold, something it is not.

783 words

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