Notes - grammar / (final) Chapter 13

         0923 hours. Thirty days hath September . . ..

        

         You and Carol were up early. – Amorella

         It bothers me that ‘you’ is almost always before Carol but that if I were writing it would be “Carol and I” because is more grammatically correct as well as politer. I have been conscious of this for a very long time.

         First, orndorff, I am doing the writing not you. From my perspective, being who and where I am, an outsider, I am as a third person, in context, am I not? – Amorella

         0929 hours. Yes.

         As I am doing the addressing I am first person and you and Carol are second. I am being polite addressing you as the less awkward second person singular and Carol with her given name. What else would you have me do, boy? – Amorella

         I agree your addressing me, as Richard is awkward. The focus is on writing concepts, ideas characters, etc. first. I put my concerns to rest. (1052)

         You and Jadah had a nap. Later, - Amorella

         Late lunch at Marx Bagels in Blue Ash. You have been working on chapter thirteen but are not complete with it yet. Tomorrow Carol has lunch with retired teacher friends; otherwise not much going on. – Amorella

         Out of kindness to my palms I asked Tim to mow this weekend or whenever he mows his grass again, at Carol’s suggestion. It’s arthritic weather that doesn’t help either. (1654)

         Post. - Amorella

         2245 hours. I completed Chapter Thirteen and am ready to post it.

         You both had a very light supper, some snacks, and watched the news, and three television shows. You are surprised you had the time to complete the editing of the chapter. Add and post. – Amorella

***

Chapter 13 (final) ©2014

Spice

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 13

            Merlyn thinks it a pleasure to awaken in a memory bed that is a memory of my adolescent days in life. A few blankets across a few wooden planks attached to four legs created from tree trunks. My pillow is a forearm in width and two hands high. Mine is about the same. The Living need to know a few of the rules we Dead have.

            We Dead have particular rules we attempt to follow for a general social order to occur. For instance first, we have to realize who we really are. We also are more ridged than you the Living might think, and if one is walking it is helpful to walk on a path that delivers you from point A to point B. We must conform to the way things are. These are self-evident truths the Living may deny for a lifetime. We Dead survive for what Ends? We, like the Living, do not know. We attempt to be socially polite and it is necessary for us to mature while we wait.

            We Dead have a set of ethics focusing basically on the four cardinal virtues: temperance, courage, justice and prudence. These four are woven within the circulation of heartansoulanmind as blood was circulated throughout the body in life. The more giving the spirit is in these four virtues the freer one is; that is, the more transparent the spirit is, the more the spirit is as the soul unseen but known and understood within one's humanity.

            We Dead wait, enjoying the learning, enjoying the company of others who always remind us of who we are as we grow or do not grow – to live, as it were, trafficking The Golden Rule within our own stuffing among the Dead, now with the marsupial humanoids as well.

            We Dead who rose once from clay are still consciously alive and our judgments stay our own. After all, what would a ghostly humane spirit be without free will?

            "Says you," interrupts Vivian.

            Merlyn smiles knowingly, as if he were just let in on the joke, "How long have you been here, my love?"

            "As long as necessary. Where are you going with your monologue?"

            "I lost my train of thought, my dearest.”

            "You were thinking on how much energy it took to move from Avalon to Elysium. It nearly wore you out."

            "It wore me down to nothing and that was before I left Avalon."

            "I watched you leave."

            "I did not know that."

            "Your soul took you."

            "How do you know it was not my heart?"

            "Only your soul could move like that."

            "What did you see? A soul is what it is, a shroud, a shell protecting heartanmind."

            "That is what we are told but I saw something different,” said Vivian. “You were evaporating quickly, taking the form a gray pinecone and then shrinking into the form of a brown walnut floating at navel height. I reached out and touched the brown, which became gray again; the soul was leathery like touching the back of an African elephant. I knew then that it was your soul because that is how I imagine your soul to be — leathery and pinecone-like.

            Merlyn laughs aloud, "Leathery."

            "Do you remember me touching you?"

            "You are within me already. Touching would assume you were not within," replies Merlyn earnestly.

            "I felt your leathery passion, Merlyn. I felt your soul's fuel if not your soul itself."

            "What a strange thing to say, Vivian, that my passion is leathery."

            "Like an elephant's, thick like the skin on an elephant's back," reiterates Vivian. She gives him a quick kiss on the cheek and say, "Bye, Merlyn,” at which she disappears from mind to heart.

            Merlyn chuckles, and looks to his reader, "Things are like this here among the Dead. The heart of the spiritual center comes and goes in me like thoughts of friends among the Living. Here thoughts come across more real like close friends do in those Living. You who are living know how that is, people show up, you have a good time, and then they say their good-byes and are they gone physically but not from your heart. Not much different here, except I heard Vivian's voice as if she were standing right here. And, I felt her arm on my back and she gave me a kiss on the cheek. I felt those lips. I will never forget Vivian's lips and her passion. Never. No leather in her passion, I'll tell you, smiles the contented Merlyn.

The Brothers 13

            While sitting on the couch Robert glances at his brother’s bare feet. “You need to trim those nails.”

            Richard peeped down, “They look fine to me. Give them another couple of weeks. Why do you wear socks?”

            “I feel better in socks.”

            “On to the subject at hand, what have you found in your genealogy files?”

            Robert picks up the paper. “This old letter from Oxford Ancestors, it says, ‘ . . .we cannot identify your Y-chromosome as being of Norse Viking by the criteria outlined above. It is much more likely that your Y-chromosome has been inherited from a paternal ancestor who belonged to one of the ancient Celtic tribes that lived in Britain and Ireland before the Vikings arrived at the end of the eighth century AD.’”

            “Grandpa was sure we had Viking blood in us. He always said we were related to Ragnar the Dane,” responds Richard.

            Robert snickers, “He told me we were related to Abu Hubba, the Viking.”

            Richard pulls another file. “Well, then there is this old family name Balduh on Grandpa’s great grandmother’s side. It sure looks Scandinavian to me. The h was probably a hard c or a k. Balduk sure looks Germanic; something right out of the ancient Norse sagas or Beowulf.”

            Robert, whose interest is quickly waning, adds, “Balduk could have been Baldacci then it would appear Italian.” I would rather dissect a corpse than a language, considers Robert, and then continues, “Well, it was the great grandmother’s side not the great grandfather’s. The male line has always been the only one legitimate on the British Isles, right?”

“Of course,” cracks Richard. Both laughed sardonically. “I'm hungry. Do you want some ice cream?”

“What do you have, Robbie?”

“Not here. Let’s go to the DQ or Graeter’s.”

“How about stopping at the college bookstore first?”

“That’s fine,” says Richard. “What are you looking for?”

My poem,” replies Robert in a deadpan manner.

“I need to get this Merlyn series done,” states Richard in irritation.

“Three books. It’ll be years until you redo that trilogy.”

            Richard scratches his nose while looking for his shoes. “You work a long time, then you retire. I like having a project or two. That is what is good about genealogy. I can dabble in Grandpa’s notes one day then work on my book the next.” In some ways it’s all the same thing.

            “You just like writing about our hometown,” comments Robert.

            “It is just like everyone else’s hometown. Familiar landmarks, different street and place names. People have their uptown or downtown businesses that last a long time, doctors, dentists and the like. Groceries or food markets that people are familiar special areas occupying peoples’ lives. One town is as good as any another for a setting.” Richard paused, “Where are we going again?”

            “Bookstore, then the DQ I guess, if you still want to go.”

            Richard replies quickly, “I’ll drive.”

            “In high school we used to borrow Grandpa’s VW a lot.” Robert laughs, “it had those pop open back windows and a nearly non-existent heater.”

*

            Later the two sit, one with a small chocolate cone and the other with small vanilla  shake. Both faced north looking at the old Riverton High School they attended in the late nineteen fifties. Richard points, “Up there’s our old senior homeroom.”

            “Yeah, I never got in trouble in that room, but you did,” comments Robert.

            “True. I got three whacks in the principal’s office for talking. That wouldn’t happen today.”

            “We thought we were going to be nuked by the Russians; but it hasn’t come to it, but eventually we will be nuked by one set of terrorists or another.”

            “Nuked or plagued,” adds Richard.

            “Yep. Nuked or plagued. That’s the way it will be.”

            Richard smiles sardonically, “Not many places to hide either.”

            “New Zealand would be a good spot.”

            "Yeah," replies Richard without much enthusiasm. His mind began running over the characters and plot of Nevil Shute's On the Beach. He thinks, Shute created a novel out of Eliot's words in "The Hollow Men" - “This is the way the world ends; Not with a bang but a whimper.” - excellent graphic tone in few words.

            On the Beach is a dark, dark novel, reflects Richard matter-of-factly, still surprised that the world survived those Cold War times; and the 1959 film was just as dark. The setting was 1964 and in the black and white film no one was going to survive the radiation, not in Australia, New Zealand, Argentina or South Africa, then the radiation moves to the northern continents. Not one human being survives. I have no idea how we ever make it this long into the twenty-first century without a nuclear war? Sometimes I think we are all dead and don’t know. We carry on our lives oblivious to the truth entangled within space and time.

Grandma's Story 13

I have a little story for you, notes Grandma. This narrative takes place in a narrow area of India in the sixth century. Thar stands tall along the upper Krishna River in the Maharashtra state in the Western Ghats mountain range. The eight hundred mile river flows east to west across India to the Bay of Bengal. To the far north is the Indian desert of Sahara-like sand dunes. To the Krishna River’s far southwest coast of India in the present day Kerala state are coastal semi-evergreen forests. This limited area of the subcontinent has the Indian Ocean to its west and the high Western Ghats Mountain to its east.

An elderly couple, Thin Thar and his beautiful full-bodied, long black haired partner, Malabar sit eating some fruit on a large ash gray boulder on the south shoreline of the Krishna. Behind them about three hundred feet is an ancient temple dedicated to Lord Shiva. The temple has long been destroyed but it has a near twin still standing and in use in the state of Bihar, the Mundeshwari Devi Temple. Both towered temples were built for the worship of Lord Shiva in the early first century. A younger couple, Goa and Comorin, come out of the entrance to the small temple and see the backs of the couple lounging on the rock.

An ever so slight wind, a seeming inconsequential breeze with a flit of bliss, accompanies Goa and Comorin on their now judicious walk to see their older friends and to innocently ask how it is that Thar and Malabar long ago had come to be married and to live in such a place of peace with one another.

            Thar rises and stands loincloth naked while Malabar continues sitting. In solemn tone Thar declares as he has many times in the years before, "There will be great floods from these mountains to our north."

            With her feet dangling in the cool water and turning her head slightly to her left and up to see her husband's eyes looking down, Malabar grumbles, “There are always floods, Thar," then with a twinkle in her eye, added, "And droughts too; nevertheless, we cannot wade across the Krishna without getting our feet wet."

            Thar turns his head having observed Goa and Comorin within a few feet of the rock.

            "Hello," said Comorin energetically, "We thought we saw you from the Temple." She paused as Malabar turns their way. "What's wrong? Thar stands while you sit?"

            Malabar does not bother to stand. It is easier to look up at the three of them. "Thar is the problem," she states matter-of-factly, "he wants to wade across the great Krishna without getting his feet wet."

            "You need a blessing from Lord Shiva," declares Goa earnestly, "to wade the Krishna without getting wet feet."

            Attaching to the immediate humor of the moment, and to the quick twinkling exchange between husband and wife, Thar calmly replies, "What blessing would that be, my young friend Goa, so that I may wade and not have to take a boat across to keep dry?"

            Perplexed by the sudden question Goa ran his mind through the moments of meditation they had just spent in the Temple. Goa lowers his eyes confessing, "Only as a soul can you be liberated from the physical, Thar; thus being alive you will have to take a boat across the river."

            Malabar smiles warmly at her two young friends, "That is just what I told him, Goa. Thank you for clarifying this for me." She touches her husband left leg in friendly jest and continues, "See, Thar," she looks knowingly as any woman in her position would, "what would I do if you waded across and I was left here alone?"

            Thar stands tall scratching his head, he looks seriously at their two young friends and then down at his wife, "Come, Malabar" he says gently, "please stand so we four might stand together as two couples." Thar pauses helping Malabar up. The four witnessed a sudden and unannounced meeting of common human spirit.

            Thar is the first to realize the four are standing together in the cardinal directions unaware. He says, "We will soon be the North and South winds and in time you two will be the East and West. Lord Shiva speaks in such a quick heartfelt meeting as ours and as such the four of us, beyond the smoke and the ashes, will dance over the Earth and not a one of us will retire with either wet feet or dry soles."

*

            Old Grandma Earth smiles; nods her head and quips, "Not everything in the world is as loose or as tight as it seems." She continues in the calm of the moment.

"Transcend, transcend, without a beginning, a middle or an end

While talking among a foresome, with a couple or a single friend."

Diplomatic Pouch 13

            Ship analyzes all personal and public information gathered on Pyl, Justin and Blake as well as their fine-lined DNA substructures and ongoing vital signs many degrees beyond those presently possible or even known on Earth. With what Ship has presently he can create a female and/or a male twin of each individual earthling for non-rejecting fully mature and transplantable whole body or body parts within twenty-four hours. Observations of living earthling vital stats while anywhere on Ship are compartmentalized into Box-UsefulanMixeData.

*

            After explanations as to general safety procedures and how the control room sorted data on Ship, the earthlings sit down in comfort at an accompanying table and chairs in a small pushanpull bump-out room. A short break with familiar drinks of choice and a few assorted well-known tidbits sat on a small wall shelf for their pleasure.

            Justin asks, "I'm sure Pyl and Blake are fascinated with the overall mechanics of operation as what you say reminds me of a flight manual. I appreciate that this is a general review as I am somewhat overwhelmed with the size and detail. Friendly, you mentioned that you have about a twenty thousand year head start on us in science and technology. To carry through – what is the form of politics and social control used on your three-planet solar system, that is, how is society organized so that you could build and man such a ship as this?"

            Friendly responds, "First, the point is that we are not any more intelligent than you are. Our species developed differently for a variety of reasons even though the physics of our planets are quite similar to your own. We can breath your air, drink your water and eat some of your food without momentary illness. We evolved similarly because we are from similar habitats." She pauses taking a sip of water and relaxing with a slower pace of speech, "Think of your family automobile and how it is built and used. It is a vehicle to take a person, friends or family safely from point A to point B."

            Blake slightly raises his hand and interrupts, "But we have a choice as to what vehicle we buy."

            Yermey raises his index finger and touches the slight smile forming on his lips. He says nothing.

            Friendly continues, "We had choices too, over the millenniums, we tried many choices but after about five thousand years of whittling down to the best choice for us, we chose one that while not perfect, works better for us. Change happens, just as your species has had to adapt, so do we still. Our being on Earth is an example of this. We are here on our own because ThreePlanets is not ready for you, not because of your lack of technology or because of your being primates. ThreePlanets is not ready for you because you think differently than we do."

            Hartolite nods in agreement with her comrades. "We want to show you our humanity because we feel our basic humanity is really no different than your own."

            "Perhaps we might begin with a what do you do?" questions Pyl. “When we are at a social mixer this is one of those questions people start with. She awaits Justin and Blake's fuller attention. “For instance, if asked I would say I am a career counselor at the University of Cincinnati. She glances, "Justin?"

            Her husband smiles sheepishly, "I teach archeology at the University. I have spent time in the field, the last time abroad I was in Israel and Egypt.

            Blake quietly adds, "I have a software company that specializes in small electronics -- behind the scenes work in communication devices. My father started the company many years ago. Pyl, my sister, and I own it jointly. It is a private company."

            Yermey interrupts with, "I am a problem solver."

            Hartolite follows, "I too am a problem solver."

            "Me too," responds Friendly. "The three of us solve problems. We are employed by Family Services, what you might call State Services."

            "You mean you counsel the poor?" asks Pyl, "It looks like you are all pilots. You flew a ship across the galaxy. The jobs seem so unrelated to one another."

            Blake looks to his fellow earthlings and quips, "Maybe we are the poor these people are counseling."

            Yermey sits delighted thinking Blake's humor quick and excellent; yet in the moment he finds himself unsure.

       Meanwhile Ship realizes humor and storytelling might be the best path for these two humane species to develop a lasting common trust. Everyone likes to be entertained, thinks Ship, even me.

***