Mid-morning. Noise problems with the
clothes washer (spin cycle) this morning but it appears to have corrected
itself with the last load. You both spent time observing the event for the
problem and you spent time checking on new washers after discovering that with
the age of the machine it is not worth repairing. So, you both were excited for
a new washer to find you don't need one after all. - Amorella
1007 hours. There is a life lesson in
here somewhere. ;-)
1250 hours. I have a near final draft of “The Brothers 1” ready.
It works much better. – Amorella
I would rather you judge it, Amorella, on a five or ten point scale.
I don’t judge, boy. I comment. You judge yourself. – Amorella
***
The Brothers 1 ©2013,rho
Robert Greystone sat down at his desk and gave a swift glance at his younger brother and asked, “Richie, what the world are you talking about?”
Richard Greystone continued his spiel, “The brain and the mind are separate entities. As such it is possible to be in two places at once."
“And, who is it that writes these books for you?”
“My imaginary Captain Lamar brings me slave stories on his ferry across the Ohio River in my head. Lamar is my writing persona.”
“Right. Lamar’s small ferry travels from Mason County, Kentucky to Ripley, Ohio in your head.
“You are being too literal, Robbie. Captain Lamar follows the famous route of the historic Underground Railroad in my head. The words travel through the underground in my head.”
“Richie, why conjure up such a literary devise? You don’t do this when you write poetry.”
“The underground in my head surpasses the cultural slavery too long held in modern times.”
Robert quipped, “We are all cultural slaves, Dickie. This is the way the world is, this is the way the world works." Society is not slavery, he thought, it is the way things get done. How else would things get done? “Why don’t you sit down and quite pacing.”
Richard sat in the only available chair facing his brother behind the desk. “My stories are corded in the spine first then to the brain and then on to the mind," responded Richard, “from concept through word order and grammar – that’s Captain Lamar’s underground.” Secret words come from secret places, thought Richard. I know I am right.
“Why don’t you stick to writing the poetry?”
Richard’s eyes narrowed, “Why? You’re the better poet.”
Robert smiled, “True. I am.”
“Your poetry is clear and concise with no nonsense.”
Robert expressed his amusement with the ‘yes, of course’ chuckle he knew his brother hated. He remarked, “That’s because my brain and my mind are in the same place. I don’t have an imaginary old Captain Leo and his whimsical ferry, Johnny Sprout, creating me poems hot from the northern hills of the Kentucky my mind.”
“It’s Jonathan Sprout not Johnny,” grumbled Richard, “Captain Lamar just delivers the stories, Rob.
“Johnny Sprout the musician. It’s all in your head, Richie.”
A spot of anger rose, “Of course it’s in my head. I know where it’s from, Robert, but the mind is not the brain.”
“Is this what floats your boat, Dickie? I mean we’re retired, you should know better. ”
Richard continued his verbiage, “Neurologists argue on the definition of mind. Here’s the first revised Merlyn chapter, read it over.”
“Why didn’t your grand Captain Leo deliver the final Merlyn goods the first time?”
Richard truthfully responded, “It’s Lamar not Leo, Robbie;” somberly he added, “I have a better understanding of Merlyn’s circumstance today.” We are all slaves, thought Richard, but the Dead aren’t slaves to anyone.
Robert reckoned, I know where this is from, then he drew the mirror of a waggish smile, “Do you remember when we first went to Ripley to see the Underground Railroad?”
Richard sat in some frustration drumming his fingers on the soft chair arms, “Sure, I was about eight. Grandma and Grandpa took and showed us where John Rankin lived, the setting in Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Richard chuckled, “I thought there was going to be a real railroad.”
Rob softened, “So your stories float up from the underground railroad in your head.”
“Look Robbie, people still want freedom from slavery,” from themselves, surmised Richard but he dared not say it without further consideration from the Captain.
“We live in America. We have freedom,” said Robert. “You liberal thinkers are all alike.”
Richard retorted, “This is not about politics, Robbie. God, don’t you ever get away from politics?” You are an old fart just like always, a conservative cardio surgeon, once and always. He fussed up, “I hate politics and religion too, what’s the goddamn difference?”
Seeing a win on the horizon, Robert taunted in reasonableness and control, “Too many years being slave mastering to your students has gotten to you, Prof Dickie.”
“I wasn’t a slave master. I never had a student do anything I hadn’t done myself.”
“The way I remember it, you enjoyed whipping the college freshman in your expository writing classes every year for thirty five years, man."
Richard scoffed, “Bull,” and remembered when his students told him that some called his class Suppository Writing 101. One student had even told him in private that the few who failed the class called him, Professor Dick. What humor he thought. I heard wonderful college humor interspersed with wonderful years of teaching. How I miss it.
Robert skimmed the first half page of manuscript in the nondescript blue folder and said, “Is this a final draft?”
“Near final. One chapter at a time.”
“I’ll read it,” said Robert abruptly, but who's to say this will be any better than your first self published attempt?"
“You are,” smarted Richard. “Surely, you, the significant poet, can understand how novel writing is.” Wrong word choice, he realized.
Resetting his tone Rob commented, “I don’t know why you can’t just stick with poetry. We could publish a good book of poems together. This is what we were going to do when we retired, write books of poetry together and have them published.”
“It appears golf is more important than getting any of “The Brothers Poetry” published.”
“A different vocation. I have room for both. I have been working on a couple poems.”
Richard smiled nonchalantly, “Balls and words both cut and slice.”
Robert looked over his glasses after a quick skim of the chapter. “There are four segments in each chapter? Why? You had three segments.”
"Old Merlyn is dreaming four stories simultaneously, one with the Dead, one in the present, one in the past, and one in the future. The Dead dream like this,” declared Richard with an air of unconscious authority.
Rob smiled, “Where’s more of “The Brothers” segment?”
"Read what you have, carefully please. I'll get that to you. I'm reworking it,” stated Richard who left Robert to read his draft more closely while he headed downstairs to see Cyndi and Connie. Of all things, he fancied while traveling the stairs, here we are, two at-odds, lone wolf identical twin brothers, each married to the most compatible and popular of sisters, Connie and Cyndi Bleacher, who were born a year apart but who are otherwise almost identical twins themselves. Who would have thought?
***
You added a bit of realistic language. – Amorella
I don’t like it. This is for my grandchildren.
You added a bit of realistic language.
– Amorella
I don’t like it. This is for my
grandchildren.
They will know the words sooner than you
think, boy. Human words have to be taken in context and circumstance, as these
are. Post. – Amorella
1751 hours. I have “Grandma 1” ready.
Add and post, boy. Take a break. – Amorella
***
Grandma’s
Story 1 ©2013, rho
This
is Grandma Earth. I am here to show selected examples of human character going
back almost eighteen thousand years in the direct genetic lines, of the
Greystone and Bleacher families. Some of the human spirits in these stories you
are connected to also. That’s both the lighter and the darker humor resting in
the margins. Homo sapiens come into the earth whole and selection of that whole
return. The species provides the ancestors of Robert and Richard and their
chosen life partners Connie and Cyndi. Grandma’s old dark eyes glance off the
page to view the reader as a representative of the species, with clarity she
says, “You forget your ancestors, and you forget what you are, don’t you think?
***
I have a long ago story for you, remarked
Grandma. This dead man is stuck.
“It is dawn and my shoulders shiver.
This is the way it is. I hear the crickets and other small creatures around the
swamp. I am in a hole on a wall and there is no way out. This is the way it is.
I am stuck. Let me out. My fingers are cold and ice. It is winter in spring.
The birds sing. I am no bird. It is cold, and I am ice forming on the river. I
am floating and cold but I am not the river. I am the common ground frozen,”
asserted the dead man.
He turned to better face his audience.
“I had a dream last night, and it was a whopper. It was about people who live
out among the stars, and how it is that they are stuck too like I am. I
remember my own cold dawn. I am almost eighteen thousand years old by Earth’s
gauge, and I am stuck flat in the ice near the surrounding the pond of stars. I
am the first shaman still dancing.”
A
much later shaman, Panagiotakis, while alive on Earth also looked to his
audience and in a dancing memory pointed to a not so bright northern star in
the night and revealed, “We are from there,” then he pointed to the soil
beneath his feet, “to here.” Panagiotakis declared this shivering from an
unknown cause. None of those who saw this shaman point and speak those simple
words slept well that night.
One
of those attentive listeners was Glevema, his granddaughter. She tossed and
turned in the darkness and a question unexpectedly brightened her mind, ‘How
can we be here and there at the same time?’
Later
in life, she died and found herself waiting for members of her tribe to join
her once they died and discovered they did not completely die. People had
become respecting of the Dead by the time of Panagiotakis and his granddaughter
Glevema. People had begun burying the Dead with rites and passages to
accommodate both at the same time. The Living had made a conscious decision, to
be in two places at once, to be with their living friends and to be with the
memories of their dead friends. In this story Glevema became the first human
consciousness-in-spirit to enter the Place of the Dead.
*
Glevema
knows Grandma Earth with her white teeth gleaning as a white screen usually
unsoiled with wordy shadows. Grandma looked out on her listeners, the Living
and Dead staring at the passing wordy shadows on the whitest of walls. “Child,”
she said, “I’m gonna sit on this here stump and hope it won’t stain my pretty
blue and white dress floating along in a gentle breeze.” Grandma Earth sat down
and expounded, “You may not like
it but I am your Nature inside and
out. The kerchief on my head ain’t nothin' but the stars and beyond.”
Grandma
glanced up beyond the dark sky of her head and continued, “I got me this chant to
take us from the Dead and past to a human story future set. I am the heart on
which the old shamans like Merlyn dance. He don’t dance alone though. Nobody
dances alone. Everyone has a love to dance with and Merlyn’s no exception.
From these two ancient
hearts by soul made one
Show these stories where
passions are begun.
Our well-known druidess and
druid will do,
They are in the same like-spirits
that make up you.
In a timeless corridor
where musing memories rightly tie
Our Vivien and Merlyn do
consciously lie.
From romance and Grandma's
red, tooth-filled gums
Our narrative from past to
future story comes.
***
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