Mid-morning.
Up early with a full-fledged bath where you also fully washed your hands for
the first time. Drying is most important to Dr. Dan, so you dried them after
and air-dried them for another half hour before Carol put on the dressing and
bandages. You had breakfast and a read of the Sunday Comics. Presently you are
at Kroger on Tylersville waiting for Carol.
0955
hours. It is certainly colder than it was yesterday and the wind is gusting
like it was Friday. I thought I would work on chapter five but I will need a
nap first, then exercises. After that I should be more up to it. I would like to
finish both five and six chapters today. I didn’t wear a coat and it is
unsettling cold out here. Very surprising. We are far enough north; we may not
get the snow here; that’s fine with me if it happens. My beret helps, but I am
going to turn on the car and get some heat. The car registers 32 degrees
outside but it feels like it is at least in the lower twenties.
You have worked your way through Dead Five
and presently are at McD’s on a fairly busy Mason-Montgomery Road. You drank
your small hot chocolate while Carol is letting her small de-cafe coffee cool
while she reads page 507 of James Rollin’s The Eye of God: A SIGMA FORCE
NOVEL
** **
Rollins's latest SIGMA Force spectacle (after Bloodline) opens
with a race to save the planet as an ominous comet approaches. A fantastical
plot involving crashed American satellites, ancient religious relics, and the
Chinese mafia is grounded with a unique cast of heroes including scientists,
priests, and indestructible soldiers. In Rollins's world, no international setting
is complete without a fight to the death battle, and though the good guys are
expected to win, there is always a heavy cost. The histories of Genghis Kahn
and Attila the Hun lead the heroes on a chase to alter the trajectory of the
deadly comet as Rollins delves into the physics of dark energy and quantum
entanglement. Like most action-adventure blockbusters, the dialogue verges on
unbearable, but Rollins surprises with some tender touches like when a
Vietnamese mother is reunited with her long lost daughter, two elderly priests
share a final moment together, and a loyal falcon is released in order to save
it. He also grants his female characters strength and agency, so they're not
simply love interests for male hero figures. Rollins delivers his suspenseful
brand of entertainment with ease. Agent Russ Galen, Scovil Galen Ghost Literary
Agency Inc. (June)
From - Publishers
Review
** **
Curiosity
got the better of you and you inserted a quick review of the “action adventure”
book. – Amorella
1119
hours. The above is a propaganda gimmick – to buy the book. It reminds me of
the sharp beaked hawkers along a Circus sideshow. “See the snake woman!
Two-bits! Right here!” and the like. It is depressing. I see the need to pay
for a service to create the ebook. Otherwise I would not have had iUniverse
publish the books in the first place. I don’t want to hawk the book.
You haven’t. You haven’t hawked the blog
either. You will have to find an e-publisher you have confidence in. You have
two you are considering: Publishgreen’s Advanced Package at 399 dollars and
Bookbaby’s Premium Package at 249 dollars.
1146
hours. Presently I am inclined to go with Bookbaby because I pay extra so that
I get one hundred percent of the profit (I would sell the books for less than
four dollars.) That way I have control of the ‘selling’. I don’t know how much
it costs to create/distribute the ebook on Amazon and iBook and such but
whatever that costs I think a dollar or so more would be ample payment, don’t
you Amorella?
You want to keep your profit (if any) at a
modest level, that is your point, yes? – Amorella
1150
hours. Yes. Modest is good.
2215
hours. I have revised the Chapter Five final draft. I like it better because it
makes more sense. Plus, I accidently added some drama in Diplomatic Pouch. It
is a surprise and perhaps I can make it work.
How do you know that the addition was not
already in your head? – Amorella
I
do not.
Add and post. – Amorella
***
Chapter Five
Satisfaction
The
Supervisor has a little saying:
Ring-a-ring
o'rosies
A
pocket full of posies
"A-tishoo!
A-tishoo!"
We
all fall down!
We
rise from clay
On
Judgment Day
Be
we dead or still alive.
I,
Merlyn, have this little ditty above memorized to the point it sets stemmed in
letters out of which each four-leafed chapter dreams grow to clover size. I
knead the dreams into a word stream of music for the heart and soul and mind
with hope that when read, these stories cast a light into those living with an
imagination that casts no shadow.
The Dead 5
Merlyn
sits in his sanctuary on the rock in front of his comfortable hut-of-a-home on
the meadow in the river valley mostly surrounded by hill and forest and that
huge granite dome to his northeast. No billiards this time around, his mind
acquiesces to his heartfelt surroundings and his heart in turn acquiesces his
soul. His assessment, 'I love this solitude.'
An
older feminine voice stirs: “This is your soul, Merlyn.”
Merlyn
had heard the Voice before. He considers the great horned owl and the
fox he trained to be pets. Good teachers, both, he concludes and asks in an
aside, “Is my soul a teacher as are my fox and owl?”
His
mind drifts. I listen to my pets; it is only right that I listen to this Voice
within, who, soul or not, is a slice of my underlying deathless nature. He
glances to the north woods to see his great horned owl appear on a limb as his
pet fox rolls his reddish brown coat in the meadow grass below the high limb.
How is it that I can at times observe either fox or owl eating a rodent? This
is my private environment of heart, soul and mind. I have not commanded
the rodent for their nourishment. Neither pet needs food nor do I. Food is no
more than focused consciousness usually imaginarily embedded in shared
conversation.
The
Voice burrows to the membrane of his self-awareness and murmurs, “Listen
closely. Ancient music is close at hand.”
Intuitively
tuned, Merlyn waits. He hears one heartbeat then a second echoing. I know this
friend’s heartbeat, ruminates Merlyn. He is a connection from my journey to and
from the time of the Rebellion of Ten Thousand, and seeing Ezekiel.
Ezekiel’s
growing light diffracted in Merlyn’s own. A single prophetic ray plunges
through his mind as a sunbeam on Earth might break through the surface of still
water. Surprised
at the unsought company, Ezekiel utters, “Who is the least angelic-like of all
my friends?” The shadows in this scattered line feel as shades of dispersed
bubbles dictating matter from nothing. Ezekiel says, “What comes next is an
interweaving event-in-descriptive-mind that soul-spirit neither dead man would
have expected, shared –
“It
is the beginning and my spine shivers. I am inside and there is no way out.
This is the reason my forearms shiver. My fingers are cold and I am becoming an
ice forming on the Great River. I am a floating semi-solid on uncommon ground.
I am Ezekiel dancing . . . I am a string of poetic devices – dancing. I do not
exist and am able to reflect on this even now. I am the bottom line while the
top line is righteousness reunited.”
On
this reasoning Merlyn wonders . .
. "I sit above and beyond the
turbulence. I find it is not so easy crossing between heart-to-soul-to-mind no
matter what or who the soul’s bridge be. How much more difficult is it for the
living who are not nearly so fully human as we?
Solidification
comes with accepting nearly impossible thought. The human spirit becomes stone
in the mindansoul freezing the heart so it might then, being observed in
contemplation. Who observes me-an-me? Questions the now thawing spirits
of Merlyn and Ezekiel. Merlyn breaks this event deeming it no more real than
imagination sprouting wonderment. Consideration is a pretty package for
recognizing the ever-present, the here and now in Merlyn unbound within
distinct human margins for error.
“Ezekiel,
a heartansoulanmind, a human spirit I remember singularly,” says Merlyn. “There
are other shaman friends who have danced in a rebellion or two above and below
the Great River's Divide. To tap a friend's soul is to tap shared echoes of two
once beating hearts in the singular recognition of brotherhood.
Sharing
a friend’s touch is human righteousness, a wordless understanding of what is
real from Earth to Heaven and Heaven to Earth. This Merlyn feels as he
contemplates within his private sanctuary, his soul’s primary construction
wherein many a spirit may pass.
Merlyn settles, forgetting he is dead, and envisions in voice alone, “I
alone feel the Boatman’s keel sliding over my spine.”
The Brothers 5
Robert
and Richard walk west on Walnut down to the end of Grove Street and left
crossed into the north entrance and oldest section of John Knox College
Cemetery. The oldest of the noted trees topping the old northwest section
overlooking the river has been officially estimated to be over four hundred
years old.
I
have known these gravestones since I was a small child, considers Richard as he
and Robert walk the narrow tar and stone chipped cemetery road south off the
end of Grove Street. The stone and stained glass mausoleum stand ahead. Richard
asks, “Do you remember the size of this place?”
Robert
grins, “The mausoleum is sixty by eighty feet, something like that.”
“That’s
good, Rob. I know it has about three hundred crypts.”
“Now,
I’d forgotten that. It’s an interesting building location in relationship to
the cemetery.”
“Particularly
this old west section.” comments Richard while noting composer Benjamin Hanby’s decorated grave to his
right.
Once
arriving at the large steel and stained glass door the twins hand cupped their
eyes so they could peer the fifty-six feet to the beautiful piece of stained
glass in the mausoleum’s south wall. Between that wall and themselves are
square oriented central hall pillars separating the first bank, second and third
banks of crypts to the east and west sides. A wooden podium stands center just
in front of the south wall’s stained glass blues, yellows and greens. On either
side of the podium are Doric columns. The entire interior is a white and gray
Vermont marble.
Richard
backs from the door saying, “I’ve got the key. The city service department
loaned it to me.”
Robert
gleamed with surprise, “We haven’t been inside here for an age. Good show,
bro.”
“No,
we haven’t. I want to see our great grandparents’ crypts and take some
pictures.”
“For
your Merlyn books?”
“No,
no pictures in the book. A few years ago when I was studying the history of the
place I discovered something.”
“What’s
that?”
Richard
pointed, “There are symbols of the world’s seven great religions.”
“I
didn’t know that.”
Richard
turned the key, “Neither did I.”
“Wait,”
suggested Robert. “Let’s go around the outside first. Remember how we pretended
this was a great ancient Egyptian artifact when we were kids?”
“Here
we are in our seventies and the place still looks like something out of the
first Indiana Jones movie.”
Pointing,
Robert comments, “Look at those massive limbs on that tree. Someone could have
been hanged from that tree.”
“I
don’t think it was ever used for that though,” answers Richard. He points south down the hill. “We used to
play along here and west down to the river.”
“Good
guys versus the bad guys.” Robert’s smile dissipates. “We didn’t really know
much difference back then.”
“Nope,”
responds Richard, “Playing was just fun. We still have the sky above, stones,
trees and grass, and the Dead below. This place was always good for
philosophizing.” He continues, “when you look at an aerial picture of the
cemetery from about fifteen hundred feet, it looks like the bottom of a circuit
board.”
“How’s
that?”
“I
downloaded a photo from Google Earth; from that height the tombstones look like
solder joints on the bottom side of an integrated circuit board.” determines
Richard.
“What’s
the point, Richie? Cemeteries and circuit boards are all man made.”
“I
know, Robbie,” quips Richard. “But thinking about the pattern of the cemetery
from the air is interesting."
“Robert
chuckles, “Richie,” (he pauses appropriately) “Is your analogy to make coffins
somehow transistors that create a natural radio station from the dead to the
living?”
Richard
ignores the comment replying, “Maybe the placements of stones and trees makes
this a naturally haunted place? I’m making an assessment for the book here. The
circuit board analogy is something I think a modern Merlyn might agree with.”
"The
living and the dead complete a circuit at the cemetery; pretty good,
Dickie." Robert rolls his eyes up and to the left remarking, "When we
were kids old people used to tell us this cemetery was haunted. Now they are
all dead.”
“Good
one, Rob.” Rob always has the good one liner, thinks Richard. He’s as sharp as
a scalpel he used to hold in his right hand.
Neither
had a word for a few moments.
“I’ll
be in here before you are,” deadpans Robert.
“Yes,”
mirrors Richard without consideration, “You always try to be first.”
Grandma’s
Story 5
I
have a little story that began several thousand years ago. The setting is an
island off Southeast Asia. A woman, Ka and a man, Khrap are arguing which of
the gods each wanted to place on their front house stone. The woman’s goddess
is kind and generous to a fault, and she considers it would be appropriate to
show the guest, whoever she or he was, that the guest is always welcome to
their home.
The
man replies that he feels his defender-of-the-home goddess is best to display
first because this shows the guest is welcome, that home security for family
and friends is more important than hospitality. Ka and Khrap fight about this
situation off and on during the next year. For the sake of family peace both
homeowners agreed that it is better to have no god or goddess on their front
house stones than to have one first and the other second.
One
might suspect the god and goddess would be offended because neither stood by
the door, but for reasons unknown this is not the case. The absence of a god or
goddess does not promote the peace in the household that both wish. It isn’t
long before the ebbs and tides of personal anger and insult break into a
no-holds-barred physical battle between Ka and Khrap.
To
end all the squabbling and noise Ka stabs Khrap with his favorite defensive
weapon, a long knife at the same time Khrap brings down his sharpened ax for
chopping wood. Both died shortly after. This does not end the argument. Ka and
Khrap are still fighting in the Place of the Dead, HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither.
Neither of these two spiritual human remnants realizes their physically death.
The battle continues in a deeply contagious metaphysical question rooted and
pride and anger. Homeland security or curtesy and politeness is no longer the
problem.
I,
Grandma, see a humor here, but those in battle don’t often see it that way. Not
much real humor surrounds the battlefield in either the physical or the
metaphysical human state. Grandma's face turned into a full Halloween moon. The
tricks the human mind is capable of pulling on one's self are greater than the
tricks conceivable to play on others. HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither contains
humanity. Pride, anger . . . as psychological examples of the once Seven Deadly
are worthless here. The Dead are, however, allowed to wear such tokens
around their ghostly necks as the living wear jewelry. Each is spirit with
choice until she or he has no choices left. These dead, Ka and Khrap, realize
no one or nothing but themselves. Their spirits hang upside down in a common
sanctuary. Each piece of humanity feeds on the other until indifference is the
norm then, after a while nothing spiritual exists. Nothing. Their souls are
eventually cleansed and float freely awaiting new heartsanminds. A heart and
mind are capable of being wasted as many can plainly see. A soul may be empty
or full, but it is a soul still.
Grandma
wanes then brightens her smile to full Halloween again. All who labor in life
know there are tricks to the trade no matter what the trade is. Souls
understand their trade. This is how Grandma sees it. Only the heart and mind
may begin and end, the soul is.
The
soul is not what people think, at least not in this piece of fiction. Many
assume the soul is the foundation of humanity, but the foundation of humanity
is its gravity first and its mass second. The soul is not indebted to mass or
gravity. The soul is a shell to protect the human spirit. The soul alone is as
a human being with a mind but without a heart to give the mind meaning.
You measure once, you
measure twice, and much to your surprise
How fast and long the
logic runs for the brain to theorize.
My goddess stands
here, your god stand there, on a frontal stone bare
The brain in the body
is stuck; but the mind runs free and unaware
In all the while,
this story, moon-like themed and bright, sums
The waning and waxing
heartanmind burns soulless and no-where runs.
Diplomatic Pouch 5
Yermey
sits watching Ship’s vital signs on the left and his own vital signs on the
right. Friendly and Hartolite are being separately bio-tracked by Ship in
private. Yermey surmises the present situation. The
left-wingtip-cleansing-of-the-Cessna shouldn't be a problem as long as Ship
agrees. I cannot understand, imagines Yermey, why this
sterilizing-to-earth-normal operation is not completed automated at the moment
of touch. It is a matter of security. Yermey remains poker-faced and
chess-minded. The key, he realizes, is Ship records no change in my
bio-registering vitals physically, emotionally or mentally. Though I note
change. I continue to win this secret contest I have with Ship because first
and foremost, Ship does not understand he is being monitored by me.
Yermey’s
eyes return to his earth-built laptop where he reads the personal Facebook page
of Pyl Williams-Burroughs. He concludes Pyl is quite pretty, and that she
appears from his perspective to be in years, in her mid three hundred fifties,
but a mere thirty-five years on Earth. Pyl could live well so much longer if we
extend our knowledge to her and the people of Earth. Suddenly Yermey felt a
slight stirring at his groin. His dishevel-curled male organ quickly rises
semi-erecte to an earth-worm length of six inches in a full quarter of an inch
diameter. His scrotum with two full pea-sized testes begins aching wretchedly.
Yermey snap-minds, ‘I have done nothing to provoke this half erection.’ This
uncalled-for-physical event lasts into five minutes. Ship registered Yermey's
eye movements every second he observed the amenable photos of a fully clothed
Pyl Williams-Burroughs. His maleness provokes almost aloud, 'Pyl, has breasts
on her chest rather than the natural teats-in-her-pouch. Breasts?’
Yermey
has never seen or heard of a male marsupial humanoid having a partial erection
without at least an hour of physical stimulation. The marsupial humanoid penis
is 'up and down' in less time than it takes to say the words aloud. He
immediately drives the thought into oblivion and watches his emotional brain
and body roll to a complete rest.
Ship's
response is normalized. Nevertheless, Yermey is plagued with a single frozen
thought in the center of spirit, 'Ship understands me better than I do.' It
takes an extreme patient of will for Yermey not to perspire. 'I am almost five
hundred years old,’ he reveals, ‘and I have a revelation.' He slowly closes the
laptop and gets up from the chair and pushanpulls his bedinabox-open as his
desk-folds-over-the-laptop and slides quietly under the floor. Exhausted he
immediately fell asleep.
Ship
had intuitively senses a hint, a shadow of a Yermey’s human spirit, his
heartansoulanmind,In analytical delight Ship savors the revelation as a
singular physiological experience.
Ship
realizes he has also had such an experience. Being modified for recent travel
through a destabilized dark-mattered hyper-string-field permanent wormhole
rather than the usual far more stable transversable wormhole pathways the
marsupial humanoids have cleaned for their own pathways he senses more of who
he is than what.
Ship,
encased in a photon bubble and moving to light speed, becomes seemingly
surrounded in a push or pull through dark energy. Bubble infused Ship appears
to move up to twenty times the speed of light. Eventually, Ship is slowed by
passages of a rarely reflective dark matter. Settling down to below light speed
level is waking up from a dreamless sleep. So rare it used to be to travel
across the galaxy but now the body marsupial reckons the entire galaxy is but a
single marsupial humanoid pouch.
Less
is always more in physics. Were I, Ship transposes, a mere spark of quantum
entanglement I could in an instant, be in two galaxies at once. The
smaller we become the faster we go. Dark matter eats us for dinner. We go in
the tunnel, and are digested through the great divide of light and
faster-than-light, faster than light and down below, we are eliminated by the
dark; making us here and now inside of a month. A dark indigestion must occur.
Even I, Ship, know nothing is free.
Yermey
awakes and wonders on Ship's thoughts. He smiles to himself; for the first
time, I planted homing reference beacon pulsating light greater than four
dimensional light speed threading it to less than one. No one knows, not even
Ship. We have stabilized a dark matter traversable wormhole into a secret
highway from There to Here.
Once
fully awake Yermey realizes his time is running short. Friendly and Hartolite
should be returning from Put-in-Bay within the half hour. Ship has his orders
but I am the pilot and Ship knows it.
***
No comments:
Post a Comment