Notes - (final) Dead 11 / between the lines / slipper / (final) Brothers 11

         Mid-morning. Carol is at her eye appointment and you are waiting at the nearby McDonald’s across from the Kenwood Centre on Montgomery Road. Presently you are charging your phone as it had near zero charge (a thin red line) when you picked it up. Driving into town it now has twenty-five percent. Wait until thirty-five, boy and you’ll be fine. Carol will not be finished until a quarter of twelve. Why don’t we work on Dead Eleven after you check your email? – Amorella

         0954 hours. That sounds fine with me. – 1120 hours. I have completed Dead 11. Made some unexpected changes. This segment is more Merlyn as Stage Manager. That’s my take. 1122 hours. – Carol just called. Nice coincidence.

         You are home and a snow shower has begun. Drop in Dead Eleven and post. – Amorella

***

The Dead 11 ©2014, rho, (final) GMG.One

            Merlyn sits on his theatrical ruins admiring his yellow sun that has only recently been a part of HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither. He turned towards the large granite hill in the direction of the Living beyond the stone and speaks as if the Living could listen.

            “During this recent tenure, while on Earth and Here I am embedded in identical twins Richard and Robert.” Merlyn paused to capture his heart. “We never had rain Here either until after the Second Rebellion.”

            “The Second Rebellion began the Earth night after a live televised political event by President of the United States, Dwight David Eisenhower's Farewell Address on 17 January 1961."

            "Those already dead did not hear of it at that time but many of the recent Dead in those days knew the name Eisenhower. It wasn't long before word of the broadcast got to we Dead via those who died shortly after."

            "Wars and plagues had helped pass many people on in the first fifty years of the twentieth century. The Dead knew and understand. Many ancestors from around the world had lost a descendant during the first sixty years of the twentieth century. Technology and weaponry came into existence that had never been dreamed in the world. The majority of the Earthly Dead of the many cultures came together and declared to the invisible Supervisor; "’Somebody has to return to the Living to tell or show the Living how it is Here.’”           

            "I, Merlyn, a Bard of Scotland, died in the latter half of the seventh century. I fell into a non-existing sleep and when I awoke I found myself in my native culture’s Avalon. One begins her or his sleep with his friends and family, with those whose culture is similar. The earlier Dead of Avalon understand slightly different memories of topographical scenes than my own. All Earthly Dead share the vision of the same moon and stars though from our own cultural regions. There was no sun before but a fair blue sky and white fluffy clouds were shared in a common daylight."

            “After the Second Rebellion, we shared the same yellow sun and the separate cultural regions were boarder-less by a new common attitude jolted by our neighbor from afar, the marsupial-humanoid Dead from ThreePlanets on our galaxy’s far side.” Merlyn glanced over to the forest on the right side of the granite. “This was the Supervisor’s price for our demand – to be forever assured that we Homo sapiens were not alone then or now. I think of this as bit of wrist slapping. We have a gift of like enough common friends of heartansoulanmind.”

            Merlyn glanced down at his own naked feet that didn’t really exist. “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 they 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 Here at HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither, as these foreign Dead call it. Nothing is more disheartening to many than to find there are spirits that retain more humanity than we Homo sapiens. Everyone pays the Boatman. What a shock from them to discover us Here. Those who knew of our Earth never suspected we would survive physical death. How could this be, some wondered, that such a uncultured tribe of beings had the wherewithal of heartansoulanmind to survive the transfer to the same Place as us.”

            Another pregnant pause and Merlyn continued, “Communication among the Dead is not difficult as long as one is polite first and honest second. For some this is a difficult undertaking. The Dead have no tongue to slip on. The individual spirit is a personality with selected memory at the moment. The words are driven from the heartanmind and in that order. If one does not connect to this singular humor sheorhe misses half the irony in being Dead. Those with enlightened problems in this arrangement of heart first and mind second tend to be more at home in herorhis private sanctuary.”

            Merlyn looked about his own heartansoulanmind in contemplation; I have this granite stone, woods, meadows, flowers and a river for fishing swimming thoughts from far mountains unseen, as well as a common sun, moon and stars. My lean-to shelter for stony rest is little comfort without the witness of a parade of souls filled with other heartanmind. To cross into the living is to string a line from one soul to another, from Mother to a newly born babe on Earth and ThreePlanets. What is the difference? It appears to me that the Supervisor sees none. Why remain blind to what one is?

***

         You were ‘between the lines’ so to speak when revising Dead Eleven, for example, what is ‘stringing a line from one soul to another’? – Amorella

         1227 hours. This is a ‘threading’ I suppose. ‘String theory’ popped into mind at first but that is not what I envisioned. I could see the string but not the hearts. In context I do not have an analogy. My fingers hit the keys. I was not completely aware. The experience, at times, was as if I were literally between the lines. Words formed, other words followed as if snow were falling and it turned to black ink upon landing. Ink flowed into form and form into letters, letters in turn formed into words and words formed into sentences and sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs in turn formed into the Dead 11 segment. Movement frozen, captured in a question mark.

         Post. – Amorella

         1237 hours. I don’t understand where this is going. The white on the page becomes as a blizzard. It is time to stop and observe the colors, shapes and meanings that surround me in the real world. Enough for now. 

         2155 hours. I completed Brothers 11.

         You had Penn Station food for lunch, ran errands, Carol’s chili for supper; you watched “Intelligence” and “CSI” as well as ABC News, read the morning paper and played with the cats. Carol is up watching a show and you are ready to relax before bed. Such has been the day. – Amorella

         I have been thinking on how to begin the Silver Slipper Project.

         Give it to Diplomat. It’s her research not yours. Start that new document, a seven hundred and fifty some word introduction that includes mother and both fathers. A nearly invisible alien is afoot as far as Diplomat is concerned, and it is neither marsupial humanoid nor Homo sapiens in origin. Richard the Writer could have imagined it to life or it is an outsider. She is attempting to decide how to attack this question. She considers herself real but recognizes she is a character in a book by Richard Greystone. As she ‘lives’ in part, within the mind of Graystone, she feels she can discover how this work began before the first Merlyn books were created. She never fully realizes you and Richard Greystone are one in the same. – Amorella

         2209 hours. I will set this up in a separate document and let Diplomat work.

         Good. Drop in Brothers Eleven and post. – Amorella

***

The Brothers 11 ©2014, rho, (final) GMG.One

Driving north on State Street in his red 2005 Volkswagen GTI Richard and sees Rob stopping on South State in front of Stoner Inn, a place rich in Riverton’s Underground Railroad history. Richard pulls over and parks directly across the street, rolls down the window and shouts.

“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.

Excited, Richard says, “You've got Connie's 1998 Jag! Awesome. Hmm. Surprised she lets you drive it."

“She and Cyndi like cruising. Figure they go out picking up the young prickly fellows,” laughed Robert. “Want to go for a ride?”

“Why not. Where are you heading?”

“Hardware.”

“Get in."

“Awesome!” said Richard as he climbed in. "You never get to drive this."

They stopped at Ace Hardware for a package of small screws, drove a block to McDonalds for drinks then down by the river.

“No one is fishing today Richie,” remarked Robert.

“Nature’s a conspiracy,” said Richard.

“How’s that?”

“I think it’s a trick, a deception.”

“That's your definition of reality?” responds Rob in sarcastic tones.

“Yeah. Reality is not what it appears to be.”

“It sure is when you are performing surgery,” voiced Robert.

“That’s the problem. Reality is what you bleed in.”

“You mean reality what you imagine in, don’t you Richie?”

Richard put his head back and looked up into the late summer blue sky, “You're right, Robbie.”

“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."

***

            Once back home Cyndi asks, "Where have you boys been?"

            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 in the basement?" asked Cyndi.

            "Yep."

            Richard commented, "I love that old table."

            "You don't have room for it, Richie,” noted Cyndi.

            Glumly Richard remarked, "I know, Cyndi."

            Rob stated, "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," lauded Richard. How things were in old Riverton rushed through his mind. "The peace and calm of growing up in the fifties."

           

            "Hardly. The Korean War, the hydrogen bomb, the Cold War, color prejudice."

           

            "The Beats," injected Richard, I loved the Beats – and cheap gas. I remember buying it once for 19 cents a gallon." 

            "I think that is as cheap as we ever saw it."

           

            Richard smiled at Cyndi, "I see your paperback on the table, what are you reading?"

           

            Cyndi responded in a deliciously warm and spontaneous smile, "The House on the Strand."

            "I loved that book."

           

            Richard added, "By Du Maurier. Daphne du Maurier, is probably best known for Rebecca."

            "The House on the Strand was very cool, a Twilight Zone type of story about a man who was in love with two women, one in the fourteenth century and one in the twentieth."

            Richard added, "Rebecca was better. It begins with: 'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.' Hitchcock made it into a movie. The first line is an iambic hexameter. The last line is almost an anapestic tetrameter: 'And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea.'"

           

            "House on the Strand was better because . . .."

           

            "Don't tell me Robbie. I haven't finished it yet." Cyndi’s smile lingered. "You boys want some crackers and cheese?"

            "Good for me," said Robert and he automatically sat down at the head of the dining room table.

            "I usually sit there," commented Richard dryly.

            "You always sit here. You can sit at the head of the table at our house if you want. I don't care, and I'm pretty sure Connie won't."

            Richard muses it doesn't make much difference to Cyndi either. I remember how reality is depicted in The House on the Strand. The house, where a drug was used to induce the main character into choosing between two realities, one in the fourteenth century and one in the twentieth. He, like the Merlyn in my books, would rather return to his seventh century dead than stay in my present living. I wonder how the word ‘freedom’ is defined by those who are really Dead?

***