Notes - Really? / final Chapter 11

         Shortly after noon local time. You finished your forty minutes of exercises, thirty-five minutes Sunday. Carol wants to go back to Tanger’s Outlets to dispute a bill otherwise she would wait until Saturday. You are fine with whatever she wants to do most all the time because you don’t have much that can’t wait. Later. – Amorella

         1317 hours. Carol is in Chico’s at the Tanger Outlets. We had an inch of snow this morning. It is the latest I ever remember having snow in Cincinnati, but not in Cleveland. The sun has peeked in and out of the clouds and most of it had melted off the front grass before we left.

         You had a very good lunch, again at Max and Erma’s at Exit 50 (Rt. 68) and I-71 before returning home, and it was extra special today because you drove the Avalon for the quiet comfortable ride and heated seats. – Amorella

         1749 hours. I completed Grandma’s Story though in a rather roughshod way – mostly by not following my corrections to the letter and handling them straight on instead.

         You neglect to mention that you felt me helping with corrections. – Amorella

         This is because I do not know that this is the case. I did feel this from time to time in the editing intensity but feeling something does not make it real; it may be wishful or just mistaken thinking. I am not a fool Amorella. I know what I do not know for sure thus I have my legitimate doubts.

         Your doubts keep you safe boy. I understand more than you think. Post. – Amorella

         What a thing for you to say.

         Really? - Amorella

         2213 hours. Chapter Eleven appears complete, certainly it is better written than before but I do not know if it is written well enough. What I mean here is that I want a consistency in style, tone, theme that sort of thing as well as character consistency.

         What about plot? – Amorella     [my bold not Amorella's]

         2216 hours. You bring up a good point. If I am recent dead and an Angel (which I doubt) says, “And what do you have to say about yourself, young man?” Then I respond, “I don’t know what to say about myself, but I have a fictional story to tell you instead.”

         And? – Amorella

         2221 hours. What comes to immediate mind is that my life has been a constant struggle between heart and mind with my soul, if I have one, being the peacemaker. These are not perhaps the right words, but I don’t know any other response at this time. This is what I feel at my deepest level. I think my doubts are reasonable considering my environment, that is, the Earth environment we have all grown in. As far as I know none of us are here by our own choice. Long ago I chose to live and as such I might as well learn as much about our nature as I can now while I am alive. I cannot imagine having a nobler purpose than to learn something new along the way to better put our species into something I can relate to objectively as well as subjectively which appears to be the easy part.

         Here you are speaking to me as if I were an Angel. Don’t you as an agnostic find that ironic? – Amorella

         I sense the slight humor.

         Add the chapter and post. – Amorella

***

Chapter Eleven - final

Trust

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 11

            Merlyn sits on his theatrical ruins admiring a 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 on Earth I am embedding in identical twins Richard and Robert.” Merlyn pauses to capture his heart. “We never had rain either until after the Second Rebellion.”

            “The Second Rebellion of the Dead began the night after President of the United States, Dwight David Eisenhower’s live Farewell Address on 17 January 1961.

            Those already dead did not know of this address at the time but many recent Dead in those days knew the name Eisenhower. It wasn't long before word of the broadcast we Dead via those who died shortly after.

            Wars and plagues had helped pass many people on more quickly in the first sixty 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. Technology and weaponry came into existence that had rarely been dreamed of let alone built. The majority of the earthly dead of the many cultures came together and declared to the unseen Supervisor; "’Somebody has to return to the Living to tell or show the Living how it is existing beyond the grave.’”           

            Now, I, Merlyn, a Bard of old 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 concept of Heaven, 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. Heavenly cultural settings evolve because of Space/Time. All earthly dead share the vision of the same moon and stars though from our own cultural regions. There was no sun before this recent Second Rebellion, but we had a fair blue sky and white fluffy clouds that we shared in the common blue though sunless daylight.

            “After the Second Rebellion, we shared the same artificial yellow sun and the separate cultural regions are now boarder-less by a new attitude jolted by our neighboring spirits from afar, the vast rivers, fields and mountains of the ThreePlanets system on our Milky Way Galaxy’s far side. People in the twenty-first century would probably say we earned an upgrade.” Merlyn glances 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. Surprisingly, we two species are alike enough in spirit to be common friends.”

            Merlyn glances down at his own naked feet that don’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/are correctable. Peoples' spirits need to feel comfortable so individuals choose their own level of personal ease within one's self. This is mostly completed before conscious arrival at HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither, as these recent to sharing our shores, these ancient and not so much foreign spirit held souls (the marsupial humanoids), call our beloved Place of the Dead.

            Nothing has been more disheartening to many of us humans than to find there are spirits that retain more humanity than we Homo sapiens. I am sure that deep down, where we exist, these foreigners wonder why we were moved to border their Territories. In here everyone pays the Piper or Boatman, whom I assume are one-in-the-same. What a shock it must have been to discover us at the same Here. Those who knew of our Earth never suspected we would survive physical death. How could this be, some wondered, that such an uncultured tribe of primates had the wherewithal of heartansoulanminds to survive the transfer to the same Place as us?”

            Merlyn continues, “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. The words are driven from the heartanmind and in that order.” Merlyn chuckles and says, “If one does not quickly adjust to this singular humor sheorhe misses half the irony in being among the Dead in the first place. Those with unenlightening problems with this social arrangement of heart first and mind second tend to remain more at home in herorhis private sanctuary.” Merlyn gives a more serious in you face look. “The humor as the marsupial humanoids see it, is that no one is fully hidden in the private sanctuary, because each has to deal with herorhimself. One of ours on the Isles wrote as much a few centuries after my own death, ‘The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven’. The English bard had it right-on but few give it real notice. Not enough Time or Space to fill it in I suppose. Such is the humor here.

            Merlyn looks about his own spirit, his own heartansoulanmind, in contemplation; I have this granite stone, woods, meadows, flowers and a river and now a common sun, moon and stars for fishing the unseen swimming thoughts coming down from the far mountains. My lean-to shelter in this heavenly rest is little comfort without the witness of friendly souls who come and go from time to time. To cross into the Living is to string a line from one soul to another, from our original genetic Mother to a newly born babe on Earth and now ThreePlanets. What is the difference? It appears to me that the Supervisor sees little to none. Though SheanHe may be invisible to us, it is not the other way around. How could it be otherwise? You tell me.

The Brothers 11

Driving north on State Street in his red 2005 Volkswagen GTI Richard 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!”

“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.” Rob smugly asks, “Want to go for a ride?”

“Why not. Where are you heading?”

“Hardware.”

“Get in."

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

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

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

“Nature’s a conspiracy,” says 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,” voices Robert.

“Reality is what you bleed in.”

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

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

“You reason with the brain,” jabs Robert, “imagination is in your mind, Richie.”

            I have create this mythology, considers Richard, for the marsupial-humanoids to re-discover on ThreePlanets in the new sequel but I like it so much I feel like sharing it with my friends on Facebook tonight. I should share it with Robert first and see what he thinks. Damn, it’s hard to know what to do here.

           

            “Were you going to say something, Richie?”

            “No,” smirks Richard somberly. “I’m just thinking on your brain and imagination comment.”

*

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

            "We went to the hardware store. I had to get some screws for Grandpa Bleacher's the old train set,” says Robert.

           

            "Is it still on that antique table in the basement?" asked Cyndi.

            "Yep."

            Richard comments, "I love that old table."

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

            Richard glumly answers, "I know, Cyndi."

            Rob states, "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," lauds 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," injects 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 smiles at Cyndi, "I see your paperback on the table, what are you reading?"

           

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

            "I loved that book."

           

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

            "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 soft smile lingers. "You boys want some crackers and cheese?"

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

            "I usually sit there," comments 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? I should look into that after I finish this Thunder mythology.

Grandma’s Story 11

We return some three thousand years, to King David of Israel. His intention is on Bathsheba’s hair and features while she takes a bath on a nearby rooftop. He thinks that  this perfection is a gift from G-d. ‘I am king in his name. I have done good works. I am of the loins of Abraham and Sarah. She is a gift for me from her husband, my good and loyal general, Uriah the Hittite. I love the man who loves soldiering and war more than anything else in the world, but Bathsheba is heaven and I am king.

                                                       *

            Bathsheba arrives at the palace as ordered. Once the two are alone David touches her shoulder and surprisingly Bathsheba immediately returns a like touch. ‘I am king and she is not perfect,’ considers the king. This causes an internal debate with his original intuition. However, being alone with her trickles an intimate lust to rush and spear his mind. David becomes instantly terror struck; ‘lust is not a present from G-d.’ He sits, quietly deliberating, then confesses to the quiet Bathsheba his immediate desires in faulty reasoning.

Bathsheba stands in surprised at his unpretentious manner and instantly understands her king’s intentions. She holds him in her arms as he cries for G-d's mercy. Upon this relief of tears David stands army-like and dismisses Bathsheba in an intimate light kiss of friendship under her right ear.

                                                         *

They meet again, this time is secret, and make innocent love in a rioters’ passion neither expected. Afterwards, they bath together in a mist of passion so fine tuned that each believes in witnessing the same radiant rainbow in a shared uncommon soul.

                                                         *

Weeks later, Bathsheba calls on King David privately saying, “I am pregnant with your child, David. I will be stoned to death for adultery.”

“Have you not slept with your husband?” he questions.

“No,” she replies solemnly, “He is busy soldiering.”

King David confidently replies, “I will not have you stoned."

With her next breath Bathsheba whispers, “I love you, my king.”

Without thinking, David says, “I love you, too.” The soldier king then considers the immediate situation. How can this be? She is my general’s wife. I have many wives, but he has only one. I cannot take her from him, and I will not. It is then that he remembers that Bathsheba might still be God’s gift for him. He concludes, ‘only if General Uriah dies a good death in battle will I wed her.’

                                                          *

Very soon, almost too soon, there was a battle afoot and brave Uriah is up front with his men as always. The loyal general dies in this battle much to the amazement of King David. Thus, it comes to be that Bathsheba marries King David. Their son dies young to the shock of both. Nathan, the knowing prophet, tells the king, “Your son’s death is partial payment for adultery and for wishing the early death of Uriah.”

With wisdom King David immediately counters, “If this is so, then why did G-d take my son and not myself?”

“For further punishment,” hails Nathan who is righteous and the wise.

“How do you know this?” commands King David, “That G-d should speak to you directly before he would speak to me.”

Quickly reassessing, Nathan somberly replies, “I do not know, my king."

“We shall have another child,” snaps King David dismissing Nathan after a verbal bruising. Once alone the king quickly realizes that G-d was talking to Nathan because he was a powerful prophet, and with that David comes to feel that G-d might also have been talking to him too, because he is a powerful king.

                                                         *

Years later, Bathsheba asks a much older David, “Will our son be king?”

“Yes,” rejoins the king without hesitation, “Solomon will become king while I am alive to see it.”

Bathsheba smiles silently musing, I am content, and David is content that I am content.

Solomon comes to realize this long-standing joint contentment within his parents and silently rejoices in the wisdom of this contentment.

                                                          *

Grandma notes with a knowing wink, ”This is the David and Bathsheba story the way some of the Dead have heard it.”

Being born human can be a chain of much strife,

A free human may unshackle this chain slave in life

Accepting what one is, a piece of humankind --

With common and humble roots to grow in the mind.

Grandma’s words dream free through Merlyn’s own hand

A full flowing fiction between the Shoreline and Strand.

Diplomatic Pouch 11

            Yermey comes into view about five yards in front of the Cessna waving and smiling. Then he jumps up and down on the earth a couple of times and shouting, "The floor is solid; you are fine!”

            "It looks like grass, like a grass runway," says Pyl as she opens the aircraft door. Blake climbs out the other. Friendly follows, then Hartolite and Justin. Pyl puts her hand down and touching the grass. "It is real grass . . . and dirt."

            Blake grumbles, "I don't remember putting the wheels down. I had just put them up."

            "Where are we?" asks Justin.

            Yermey reaches out with good will shaking Pyl's hand first. "Welcome to our abode."

            "This is a giant hanger with grass growing in it," declares Blake, "I'll be damned if it isn't. How'd we get here? I don't remember landing."

            "Things are not as they seem, asserts Justin. “I think we have been abducted.”

            "You are not being abducted," replies Friendly warmly. "We need to talk, and this is the safest place."

            "For you, maybe," charges Justin. "Where are the windows?"

            Restraining anguish, Pyl responds, "Calm down, Justin."           

            Blake directs his question, "Are we being abducted?"

            "No, you are not."

            In growing anger Justin retorts, ”Why the deception?"

            "First, let's show you where you are," says Yermey politely.

            Looking at Pyl Justin quietly bemoans, "They are probably going to gut us and have us for dinner. That's the best outcome I can think of."

            Friendly smiles hesitantly and comments, "Yermey put real dirt on the floor; this is real living earth grass because we want you to feel comfortable. You are our guests and you will be treated well."

            "Not well cooked," notes Yermey as he quips with a fun face, "We are not cannibals."

            "We hold the same virtues you do," notes Hartolite. "This is why we are here. You are not going to be harmed in any way."

            “You have a shared two bedroom apartment if you choose to stay aboard; otherwise this will be a short stay. If after we explain and respond to your questions you will be allowed to return to your Cessna and we will see to it that you will be loosed into the lower atmosphere with everything functioning to land safely at Burke which is only twenty miles away."

            "Are you going to take our memories?" asks Justin in a slight but direct voice.

            "No need," says Yermey with a grin. "This is not science fiction. No one will believe you if you tell what you are experiencing here. Why would they?"

            "I am not so trustful as Pyl," answers Justin.

            Ship interjects a comment for the first time, "Trust is what we do, Justin, this is what I, Ship, am built for. I am built to know and to understand the captain and crew whom I protect. I am in loco parentis just as a public school teacher in your culture. It is my job to keep you safe from harm first. We have no weapons. We have no need of a military presence at home or here. We, meaning the captain, crew and myself are runners by the same nature that you Earthlings are naturally stand-and-fighters.

            “In loco parentis?" asks Pyl. “You, Ship, are a parent?”

            "The marsupial-humanoids, as you will come to call us, are single family social, a ThreeWorld household run in a single family sense of economics. We are the same species thus we are family. I, Ship, am adopted family.”

            Blake chuckles, "We have problems in and between our families."

            "As do we, that's why we have a committee of twelve with two Parents elected once and only once every twenty years, a male and female. Three judges in courts clarify disputes. Our institutions are similar. Our practical form of Family has worked for us for fifteen thousand years but we have no wish to impose our culture onto yours. We would rather run first. I, Ship, am built for safety and for running first."

            Friendly interposes, "Ship welcomes you. He will protect you and your culture while on board. If bad comes to worse, we will drop you off safely, with your plane fully intact and running and we will run off too."

            Anticipating Justin's next question Blake asks, "What if one of you attempts to harm us?"

            "Ship would protect you first,” answers Yermey. “You are our guests."

            I am trusting this Ship machinery first, strange; it is like I would trust my car before I would trust a stranger to drive it, thinks Justin out of the blue. I trust my computer more than I do some people I know. He looks to Pyl and says, “Let’s see this ship and hear what they have to say. What do we have to lose at this point?”

***