Noon, local time. You completed
your forty minutes of exercises within the last hours and feel better for
having done so. So far it has been a typical Sunday with a breakfast while
reading the Sunday comics, the local paper that arrived last night and the rest
of the Enquirer. The fog has dissipated though it is still cloudy.
1205
hours. It is quiet but for the floor fan; the ceiling fan makes very little
noise. I need to get dressed for lunch out I imagine, unless Carol has been
working up the chicken salad she was going to create. Time to go check on
what’s happening.
Mid-afternoon.
You had a Subway picnic over along the Little Miami, came home and worked in
the yard trimming various bushes before tomorrow’s heat and city land refuge
pickup, which was supposed to be last week. You were reading an article on
Amazon Books and how they hope to control the market via a Netflix-like subscription
service. The concept bothers you because like the farmers, they become the
bottom end of the cash pool with the middlemen and corporations making the bulk
of the profits. Please add and post the article – Amorella
1557 hours. It looks like I have
a conflict of interest. It is unjust in my mind – the ‘business model’ usurps;
I am more concerned for the power grab than anything else. Nothing can ever be
done – business is business and anyone on the low end is the serf who would
rather have a lower cut than no cut at all. Maybe if I sell these books at 99
cents the powers that be won’t make much and I don’t really give a damn anyway.
That’s
not going to happen orndorff because the concept at this point is not for the
right reasons. My suggestion is two ninety-nine a book. These books are not a
give-away. These books were written from your heartansoulanmind, your base
humanity. I know this because I chose the order of the words. The work deserves
respect for reasons of its imperfections. That’s my view. Others
will have their own. You may not give a damn, but I do. Drop it in the blog,
boy, article and all. – Amorella
** **
Good for customers, not so good for authors?
The
terms of service for Amazon's new e-book subscription offering mean uncertainty
for self-published Kindle authors, whose work is automatically rolled into the
program.
by Nick Statt@nickstatt
July 19, 2014 4:00 AM PDT
Amazon's Kindle Unlimited
e-book subscription service, unveiled Friday, raised new questions about how
much the company pays its army of self-published authors and the methods it
uses to do so.
Kindle Unlimited
offers downloads on more than 600,000 e-books, as well as thousands of audiobooks,
for $9.99 per month. But more than 500,000 of those titles are self-published
works through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing Select program, according to
industry newsletter Publishers Lunch. That program requires authors to restrict
the availability of their title to Amazon's Kindle platform for up to 90 days
at a time in exchange for higher royalties on e-book sales -- sales ostensibly
undercut by the availability of these books on Amazon's growing number of
e-book lending services.
Amazon by some estimates
controls as much as 65 percent of the digital book market. That's given CEO
Jeff Bezos the freedom to flex his muscles when dealing with the traditional
publishing industry, evidenced by the running dispute with French publisher
Hachette. Now the e-commerce company is trying to stave off competition from a
growing number of e-book upstarts that are cozying up to those very same
publishers, as well as to self-publishing authors, with subscription models
that distribute the wealth more freely.
With Kindle Unlimited,
Amazon is again going to great lengths to reel customers into its e-book
platform, and to snuff out the competition. What's unclear is how authors will
stay afloat in an Amazon system that may soon be dominated by a Spotify- and
Netflix-style subscription structure.
Amazon and the power of
its terms of service
Beyond the handful of
notable series -- many trumpeted on the home page, like "Harry
Potter," "The Hunger Games," and "The Lord of Rings"
-- Kindle Unlimited is overwhelmingly self-published content. That means most
of its titles are not carried on the backbone of special arrangements hammered
out by publishers with Amazon, but are subject to the more arcane elements of
Amazon’s terms of service.
Publisher Scholastic, for
instance, has a deal with Amazon for using the "The Hunger Games"
e-books across its Kindle platform. That agreement translates downloads into
direct payouts to the publisher, and the deal transferred over to Kindle
Unlimited by way of the companies' contract, Scholastic spokesperson Kyle Good
confirmed. (However, Amazon has refused to disclose the terms of deals it
reaches with large publishing imprints that would outline how much Hunger Games
author Suzanne Collins earns from subscription downloads.)
Self-published authors
earn money depending on the amount of their book users actually read through.
The money comes out of a pool set up by Amazon that's shared among both its new
unlimited service as well as its Kindle lending library. That service contains
many of the same titles as Kindle Unlimited and is available for free to any
Amazon Prime member, though with a limit of one e-book per month. Analysts
estimate the Prime program has as many as 25 million members.
Amazon
says on its website that Kindle Direct Publishing Select "authors and
publishers will earn a share of the KDP Select global fund each time a customer
accesses their book from Kindle Unlimited and reads more than 10 percent of
their book -- about the length of reading the free sample available in Kindle
books -- as opposed to a payout when the book is simply downloaded."
Offering payouts based on percentage is similar to how competing subscription
services Oyster and Scribd operate, though both services offer a full list
price payout, which the author dictates, once the threshold is reached.
Amazon's global fund was
increased from $1.2 million to $2 million for the month of July but can be
changed next month, as can the 10 percent threshold that determines whether an
author racks up cash for a user's download.
"I think it's a bad
deal for authors," Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, the leading
self-publishing platform for e-books, said in an email. Smashwords provides
250,000 e-books each to both Oyster and Scribd. "It requires them to make
their books exclusive to Amazon, which means they can't distribute to
Smashwords, Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Scribd, Oyster, and
others."
Coker further laid out his
thoughts in a blog post Friday, titled “Is Kindle Unlimited Bad for Authors?”
"Indies would do well
to avoid Kindle Unlimited for one simple reason: it requires KDP Select
exclusivity," Coker wrote. "Exclusivity is great for Amazon, but it's
not necessarily great for authors and readers. Exclusivity starves competing
retailers of books readers want to read, which motivates readers to move their
reading to the Kindle platform. This is why Amazon has made exclusivity central
to their ebook strategy. They're playing a long term game of attrition."
Why would an author not
only restrict their e-book to Amazon's platform, but also let the company
openly distribute it through services like Kindle Unlimited that do not result
in direct sales? The simple answer is they were given no choice.
"All books enrolled
in KDP Select with US rights will be automatically included in Kindle
Unlimited," the company said in a statement. In other words, it moved its
entire library of more than 500,000 self-published e-books over to Kindle
Unlimited without the consent of the authors, which it doesn't need thanks to
the terms of service for KDP Select.
You can opt out of KDP
Select. Amazon is even letting authors terminate their contract before the
90-day runtime is up. To do so, authors must contact Amazon's Kindle support
team.
An Amazon spokesperson
steered CNET toward the company's press releases and did not respond to
requests for further comment.
How much are authors
really making?
Amazon lays out its Kindle
Unlimited and lending library payout system like so:
For example, if the
monthly global fund amount is $1,000,000, all participating KDP titles were
read 300,000 times, and customers read your book 1,500 times, you will earn
0.5% (1,500/300,000 = 0.5%), or $5,000 for that month.
In other words, the price
of your e-book doesn't matter -- what matters is your e-book's performance
weighed against the performance of all self-published e-books as a whole. If
the same author were to price their book on Smashwords at $10, then 1,500 reads
in one month on Oyster's subscription service would equate to $15,000, with 60
percent going to the author (Oyster uses the same 10 percent threshold as
Amazon). That's $9,000 or $4,500 at a $5 list price, independent of the
performance of other authors' e-books.
That key difference is
what has publishers warming up not to Amazon, but to Oyster and Scribd instead.
In fact, Oyster has brokered deals with two of the big five US publishers,
HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster. Kindle Unlimited contains no titles
published by any of the big five.
"It's our strong
belief that over the next three to five years, unlimited subscription will be
an increasing part of the market in how people read," said Oyster
co-founder and CEO Eric Stormberg in an interview with CNET. "For our
publishers, Oyster represents a fast-growing, new distribution channel for
their books. We're becoming an increasingly meaningful retailer every month,
sending them more revenue."
"I was initially
skeptical of the prospects for a 'Netflix of ebooks,' but I began to see the
light as I examined the emerging business models of the subscription services,"
explained Smashwords' Coker. "I think Scribd and Oyster hit the nail on
the head by creating services that balance the intersecting interests of
readers, authors, the subscription service itself, and the publishing industry
in which we all operate."
It's unclear exactly how
services like Oyster and Scribd will be able to operate at higher volumes as a
subscription service with such author-friendly payouts. That fact has skeptics
worried that the entire model is based on the assumption that customers won't
start binge-reading books like they binge-watch and binge-listen on Netflix and
Spotify, which would completely upset the current publisher-friendly balance
these companies have worked toward. Blogger Ian Lamont, founder of e-book publisher
i30 Media, puts it succinctly:
"While authors should
receive a payout for each read or partial read on the subscription services, a
model based on free giveaways and binge reading is not sustainable. If readers
come to expect unlimited books for $120 per year, it reduces the size of the
digital books pie and will take sales away from digital downloads elsewhere –
just as Spotify takes away business from iTunes digital music library."
Still, publishers are
happy to sign on at the moment as subscription services for e-books begin to
blossom.
"We have negotiated
very hard, to the point where if the whole business went this way, we and our
authors would be very pleased, because the economics are more
favorable...[it's] the exact opposite of the music industry's subscriptions
models. The revenues that go to our authors is up, somewhat
significantly," HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray told Publishers Lunch about
partnering with Scribd last fall.
Whatever
the outcome of e-book subscription services down the line, Amazon's Kindle
Unlimited offering is yet another complex, and seemingly less lucrative, avenue
authors must consider when trying to gauge which retailer and publisher has
their best interest in mind. For self-published writers, the e-book market is also
quickly becoming enveloped by a deeper, more existential question: Is it worth
living in Amazon's world, under Amazon's rules -- or trying to fight the
company from the outside.
Selected from --
http://www.feedspotDOTcom/?dadi=1#feed/f_28903/article/1281669017?dd=21172931
** **
1640
hours. I am not inclined to fight
Amazon or anyone else. Mostly I don’t give a damn. I want the books out there,
and they are already via the blog. I would like to see the publication
formalized though, like my one time Master’s thesis was. E-book publication is a way to do
this.
You did complete the first three ebook chapters tonight. - Amorella
*** ***
*** ***
All rights
reserved. No part of this e-book may be copied by any information storage
retrieval system without the email permission of the author.
rhorndorff@gmail.com
Copyright © 2001-2014 by Richard H. Orndorff
This is a work
of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, mythology, culture and dialogue
are the products of the author’s imagination or they are used fictitiously.
All events, themes, persons, characters and plot
are the contextual invention of the author.
GREAT MERLYN’S GHOST: ONE
An Encounter In Mind
By Richard H. Orndorff
Dedication
This
book is dedicated four-fold; one, to my friends; two, to my many former
students; three, to my many colleagues with whom I taught for thirty-seven years,
1966-2003; and; four, this book is dedicated to the memory of one of my few
dear ‘special’ friends Thomas Robert Pringle. We were kindred spirits,
twin-minded writing allies from our early days at Otterbein University spurred
on with our elections to the English department’s Quiz and Quill Honorary. We
were writing twins, so to speak, in real life and we are as brothers in these
Merlyn fictions.
***
Acknowledgments
Many
of the legendary historical names, historical settings; the romantic and
neoclassical ideologies; and the scientific concepts and theoretical plausibility’s
entertained among these margins can be found throughout Google and Wikipedia.
I thank
my life partner Carol, daughter Kim and son-in-law, Paul for their diligence
and patience. I also thank specific friends, initial readers of my original Merlyn’s
Mind trilogy: Angie; Bob and Patti; Cathy and Tod; Craig and Alta; Fritz;
Gary; Jeanne and Jim; Laney; my Aunt Patsy and Uncle Ernie for their
observations and helpful comments.
Also, a
special thank you to my two living Muses who know who they are; and, to my theoretical
physics advisor my lifelong friend John Douglas Goss, PhD. Physics with whom I
have discussed the scientific plausibility’s presented in this edition; and,
also to his personable wife, Nancy who has provided comments and suggestions
along the way.
During
these last twenty-five years Amorella has continually collaborated with writing
projects all of them setting the stage for this one. Since 2007 Amorella and I
have a working writing notes/journal at www.encountersinmind@blogspot.com. Feel
free to scan when, where, how and sometimes why the grammar and content pots
percolate as they do.
My
original objective twenty-five years ago was to intellectually stimulate and
entertain my heart, mind and imagination. Now it is time to better share the
mental experiences of those years to interested readers.
Richard H.
Orndorff, Spring 2014
***
This
is Amorella, Richard’s nonfictional writing guide and collaborator. This work
is a fiction but the words are as honest as if the author were swearing. What
makes this truly a ghost story is that it is being set down as if an Angel
asked Richard, recently among the Dead, to tell his story. I take the part of
the Angel. Richard is his ghost, the human spirit. The words come from where
they would come from if he were physically dead; the part one takes with her or
him after physical life. The heart and soul and mind/memory is the continuing
life of the spirit in these books. Does life after death, ask yourself. Or, ask
someone who has been dead for centuries, Merlyn.
***
Chapter One
Slavery
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 1
This
is Merlyn. The date is 15 December 2009. I have been entangled between the
Living and the Dead, since Orndorff’s third book Merlyn’s Mind was
published in May 2008. Your twenty-first century Earth is not the Earth I left
in the seventh century. This for me is a quantum entanglement within heart and
soul and mind.
This
is Merlyn's Supervisor and through
no fault of my own I am entangled also. Merlyn resorts to a billiard table mind
with six standard pockets but he cannot know which is the pocket to the heart
and which is the pocket to the soul in the table or elsewhere. No one knows how
or why the secret tunneling exists to heart and to soul. Glevema is another
nearby spiritual entity in "The Dead" segments. Being the ancestral
mother of all living human beings, Glevema speaks to the many Dead, and in here
her voice may be heard through the ancient antennae-like spine living humans
have but rarely use for such a listening purpose.
“Merlyn,”
says Glevema, “you are indeed knotted as a belly button between me and our
descendants."
Merlyn
felt the smoothly rolling and solid black mother in 8 ball on his tabled mind
whisper, 'Life is the spirit’s armor.' The balled concept invisibly
black 8 moves on across his green felted table to strike at the bumper boundary
of Merlyn's soul-pocket, spin, then run the green only to fall into Merlyn's
heart-side pocket where Glevema rolls unceremoniously into darkness.
'Mother
vanishes below and I am sick at heart,' pops roundly yellow onto Merlyn’s mind
table as a now cautionary yellow 1 ball stopping at near the center of the
table.
Mother
of the eight ball reappears from near left pocket and rolls to a set on the
white cue mark. "Merlyn," commented Mother in slight irritation,
"it is confusing for me to be so mind-placed on your thinking table."
Merlyn’s
quiet smirk rose in a burnt orange 5 ball near the far side pocket in open
confrontation.
Mother
reappears from the side pocket catching the intended smile. Resting marked and
cued. She comments, "You have been on Earth for almost three years and are
still adjusting to the twenty-first century."
The
reality shocks Merlyn's mind into a full table of sixteen scattering balls and
he finds himself sitting instead on his favorite large piece of tabled granite,
a slab resting in the ever adjusting meadow-of-his-mind. He finds himself
suddenly staring at a petite and beautiful womanly spirit with the darkest of
eyes. Her long curly black hair swirls over her magically feminine arms and
fingers and legs and toes. Mother appears as he secretly endearingly imagines —
a legendary Celtic faery without wings or wand. Such are the distractions that
come from the depths that coil on the divide of the Living and the Dead.
Merlyn
queries, "Are you our once original ancestral Mother, Glevema, the
granddaughter of Panagiotakis the Shaman, or are you her later ancient Greek
look-alike twin, Sophia?” he paused, “Are you Sophia the Greek during the time
of the First Rebellion in HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither? Or are you something else,
a shape shifter?”
Mother
replies, “I am Glevema, Merlyn. I am your ancestral Mother of the Dead
and all those presently living within Earth’s boundary." She stands slim,
dark skinned and royal at her former living height of five full feet at less
than ninety pounds. ”Now, you see me as I am.”
Merlyn
bows slightly in the humility and whispers, "m'Lady."
Amused,
Glevema asks, "When did you last see Sophia?"
Merlyn
responds, "She was in charge of constructing a bridge across the River
Styx." Seemingly this event was only hours ago, realized Merlyn,
that I was delivered to the presence of Sophia’s spirit, to witnessed the
beginning of the Rebellion of the first fully conscious ten-thousand human
spirits in Elysium, the Place of the Greek Dead. The first revolution of the
Dead happened during the earth time of the great Greek storyteller, Homer, who
lived in the ninth century BCE.
A
brief and passing thought encompassed itself and rotated slowly into the shape
of a solid green 6 ball to the center billiard table . . . 'Wait,' thinks Merlyn, 'Today is a
present earth date. I am a fully engaged human soul entrapped within a living
human mind and body of Richard Greystone who is stuck not so solidly in the
once familiar world of three-dimensional physics.
***
The Brothers 1
Robert
Greystone sits down at his desk giving a glance to his younger brother and
asked, “Richie, what the world are you talking about?”
Richard
Greystone continues 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
quips, “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 are better poet.”
Robert
smiles, “True. I am.”
“Your
poetry is clear and concise with no nonsense.”
Robert
expresses 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,” grumbles Richard, “Captain Lamar just delivers
the stories to me, 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
continues 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 your final Merlyn books the first time
around? Why are you now redoing the works?
Richard
truthfully responds, “It’s Lamar not Leo, Robbie;” somberly he adds, “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
reckons, 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
sits 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 chuckles, “I thought there was going to be
a real railroad.”
Rob
softens, “So your stories float up from the underground railroad in your head.”
“Look
Robbie, people still want freedom from slavery,” comments Richard but he dared
not say it without further consideration from the Captain.
“We
live in America. We have freedom,” says Robert. “You liberal thinkers are all
alike.”
Richard
retorts, “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 fusses up, “I hate politics and religion too, what’s the
goddamn difference?”
Seeing
a win on the horizon, Robert taunts with 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
scoffs, “Bull,” but remembers 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
surmises. I heard wonderful college humor interspersed with many fun years of
teaching; how I miss the classroom.
Robert
skims the first half page of manuscript in the nondescript blue folder and
said, “Is this a final draft?”
“It
is the final, one chapter at a time.”
“I’ll
read it,” says Robert abruptly, but who's to say this will be any better than
your first self published attempt?"
“You
are,” smarts Richard. “Surely, you, the significant poet, can understand how
novel writing is.” Wrong word choice, he realizes.
Resetting his tone
Rob comments, “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 smiles nonchalantly, “Balls and
words both cut and slice.”
Robert
looks 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 in a verb tense
disorientation,” declared Richard with an air of unconscious authority.
Rob
smiles, “Where’s more of “The Brothers” segment?”
"Read
what you have, carefully please. I'll get it to you. I'm reworking,” states
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. What were we thinking?
***
Grandma’s Story 1
This
is Grandma Earth. I show selected examples of stories of human spirits, ghost
stories going back almost eighteen thousand years in the direct genetic lines of
the two Greystone and Bleacher families. The human spirits in these stories are
connected to some of you readers also. That is both the lighter and the darker
humor resting in the margins. Homo sapiens come onto the earth whole and a
selection of that whole, the spirit, survives, at least in here, whether one
likes it or not — just like when being born. The species provided the ancestors
of Robert and Richard and their chosen life partners Connie and Cyndi. These
stories are plucked from their genes, you see. Human beings are haunted.
Grandma’s
old dark eyes glance off the page to view the reader, 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, remarks Grandma. This dead man is still
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 to 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,” asserts the dead man.
He turns to better
face his audience. “I had a dream last night, and it was a whopper. The dream
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 a
surrounding the pond of stars. I am the first wizard and though now solid I
still dance.”
Much
later in the time of the world, the first shaman, Panagiotakis, alive on Earth
also looks to his audience and in a dancing memory points to a not so bright,
and seemingly solid northern star in the night and reveals from an
unconsciously driven genetic memory, “We are from there,” then he points to the
soil beneath his feet, “to here.” No one who saw this shaman point and speak
those simple words slept well that night.
One
of those attentive listeners is Glevema, Panagiotakis’ granddaughter. She
tosses and turns 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 die in consciousness. 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 the living and the dead at the same time. These few 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. Glevema becomes the
first human consciousness-in-spirit to enter a Place of the Dead because she
accepts her immediate spiritual condition.
*
Glevema
knows Grandma Earth with her white teeth gleaning as a white cloud usually unsoiled
behind wordy shadows. Grandma stares out at her listener thinking, the living
and dead passing as wordy shadows on the whitest of walls. “Child,” she says,
“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 sits down and
expounds, “You may not like it but
I am your Nature inside and out. This kerchief on my head ain’t nothin'
but the stars and the Beyond.”
Grandma
glances up into this dark sky and continues, “I got me this chant to take us
from the Dead and the past to Merlyn’s dream story future set. I am the heart
on which shamans dance. Nobody dances alone. Most everyone has a love to dance
with and Merlyn’s no exception. He dances with Vivian.
From these two ancient hearts by soul made one
Show these stories where passions are begun.
Our well-known druid and druidess will do,
They are the same, human spirits that make up you.
In a timeless corridor where musing memories rightly tie
Our Vivian and Merlyn do consciously lie.
From anecdote and Grandma's tooth-filled gums
Our past shaped narrative to a future dream story comes.
I
did not know I was in a dream, responds Glevema innocently enough.
***
Diplomatic Pouch 1
Pyl
Williams-Burroughs sits next to her brother and pilot, while they await
departure instructions from Detroit to Burke Lakefront in Cleveland. Pyl turns
excitedly, "Justine, what'd you think of this year’s automobile
show?"
"I
liked it. I liked the new plug-in hybrids the best."
"I
liked them too,” she replies. “Which ones did you like best, Blakey."
"Right
now, I like the sunny and mild weather — not bad for a third of the way through
January.” He pauses, and matter-of-factly remarks, "We are a go on
33."
Justin
leans forward pushing himself back to sit up straight and adjusting himself to
better observe the instrument needles fluttering as the worn asphalt runway
began to swiftly disappear beneath the fuselage. ‘We are up,’ rests his
anxiety. Justin’s next thought, ’now all we have to do is come down safely.’
An
hour into their flight Blake and Justin were enjoying the meticulous drone of
the Rolls-Royce engine in line with the darker blue above and the gray blue
waters of Lake Erie ten thousand of feet below. Dusk will be around five, brooded
Blake, as the tip of the Cessna Eagle’s left wing appeared to lightly tap onto
an unseen object. He mumbles, “What the hell?”
"Was
it a bird?" asks Pyl cautiously.
Justin
comments, “It sounded like a car tire kicking up a stone."
Blake
picks up the small binoculars for a quick inspection, "There's a crack
near the wing tip light." His puffed lower lip and grouching demeanor lead
to another round nervous of cabin silence into a satisfactory landing at
Cleveland’s Burke Lakefront Airport.
While
Pyl and Blake visually inspect the landing light held fiberglass wingtip of the
parked Cessna more closely Blake observes a minute gray spongy substance within
the slight crack. This is secondary to the reassuring fact that the crack
appears easily repairable.
"What
is that gray stuff?" asks Pyl.
Blake
replies, ”Probably bled out bird gut."
"Scrape
me some," orders Pyl. "I'll have it analyzed. I want to see what kind
of bird was flying that high."
Her
husband Justin moans, "What for? Jeez, Pyl, it’s ground bird guts.”
Pyl
ignores the comment saying, “Justin, get me something to put this in. We were
pretty high for it to be a bird."
At
that point a stranger walks up to the wing and begins inspecting the damage.
Pyl
asks politely, "May I help you?"
"I
saw you coming in. I am interested in buying an old Cessna P210N like this
one."
The
woman has such an odd dialect, thinks Justin as he picks up a small plastic
envelope for Pyl. Noting the stranger’s dark Mediterranean-like eyes, he first
gives Pyl the envelope and then extends his hand, "I'm Justin. This is my
wife, Pyl and that's her brother, Blake, on the stool.” In curiosity Justin
contines, “I’m surprised you just didn’t call the plane, the Eagle or Silver
Eagle, that’s what people who know her usually say.”
The
female marsupial humanoid quickly gathers herself into a warm smile,
"Hello, I’m Fran."
"That's
your name?" questions Pyl.
"Yes,"
as she gave her hand to Pyl she caught her error and adds, "My given name
is Francis Parker, and you are Pill?"
Pyl
giggles, "My brother couldn't pronounce my real name so I have been stuck
with P-y-l ever since."
The
easily disguised humanoid turns slightly and shakes Justin's hand, "And
you are the brother?"
"No,
he's my husband,” answers Pyl. “My brother Blake is inspecting the
damage."
Blake
quibbles business-like, "We think a bird hit the wingtip light. A slight
crack, but it appears repairable."
"I
have a trace of the remains," adds Pyl. "I'm going to have it
analyzed to see what kind of bird it was."
A
slight crack, thinks the humanlike Francis Parker. Ship was considerate with
the tap and would have been more had he not allowed the touch at all.
Interrupting her thoughts Francis says, "Well, good luck making the
repair,” And quickly adds, "Blake, how much would you give for her?"
Pyl
moans, "Daddy would never want us to sell this plane, Blake. She's
family."
Francis
declares, "Upon a decent inspection and fly about, I’ll give you up three
hundred thousand and not a dime more." The human lookalike concludes with
an in-your-face business-like smile.
"Give
me your card. I'll contact you tomorrow," responds Blake.
***
Chapter Two
Control
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 2
Merlyn
sits on a large stone north of his rustic hut within his ghostly spirit’s
self-created hut. The flower-strewed Scottish meadow sits north of the stone.
The greater phantom sanctuary is surrounded by dark forest of Merlyn’s own
surmise. I witness much, surmises Merlyn having been born then later dying
during the seventh century according to the Church. AD 670 appears to be either
my birth or death date. I do not really care which. Dates, being artificial to
begin with, are of little importance to the Dead.
As
a Druid I learned Celt, Greek and Latin. I memorized vast tracks of folklore
and wisdom. This is what the Celtic society expected, and this is what I did.
He notices, rather unexpectedly, the white cue ball materializing on his
nineteenth century billiard table mind. Nearby is his memory’s stone ruin of a
childhood stage in the meadow.
I
enjoy my spiritually refurbished Scottish trees and the flowering meadow,
thinks Merlyn. He observes the billiard table and ball dissolve in a wispy
white cloud of early morning mist. In the corner of his mind a short thought later,
Merlyn witnesses the mystical billiard table appear again, this time on the
meadow near the giant Oaks.
‘You
did not hear the cue ball tap one of your solid balls?’ asks the
Supervisor of the Dead.
This
voice is coming from heart or soul or mind, which? considers Merlyn.
The Supervisor comments, 'I tap the
solid burnt orange into the far right pocket.'
Merlyn
lightly smile and asks, ''what unconscious thought of mine did you just put
away?”
‘The
orange ball, The Boatman, in this
case,’ evokes the Supervisor.
Merlyn
declares, 'I don't have to pay the Boatman.'
'You
pay, boy,' snaps in Merlyn's tabled mind. 'Everybody pays the Boatman.
Even I, the Supervisor of the Dead, pay the Boatman.'
Merlyn
mutters, 'In my friend Sophia's ancient Greek day the pearly white Gate of
Heaven rested on the far side of her rubescent River Styx.'
'The
Styx is where you are,' comments the Supervisor dryly.
Merlyn’s
mind registers the name 'Richard?” as the solid yellow 1 ball resting near the
far left corner pocket. Merlyn’s mind complains, 'the living Richard Greystone
is where I exist.' My heart doubts this. My soul only touches my mind. Clairvoyant-like,
Merlyn suddenly notes an itch near his left fourth finger’s nail – a ghost of a
nail that is no more real than he is.
The
tiny heart, this naked and winged faery of a Celt whisks herself from the
fourth finger's nail. 'Prick this fingerless finger,' suggests the faery’s
charm in a nonexistent butterfly’s flutter.
I
am being seduced, muses Merlyn as he watches his finger-that-isn’t move into a
more natural position for this growing faery’s feminine comfort. 'Whoa,'
whispers Merlyn as flashing an image of his first love, Vivian appears as
faery’s head. She suddenly kisses and slowly sucks down Merlyn’s now quickly fleshed
once bone fourth left finger. I am becoming a body, smiles Merlyn in observation.
I understanding. I exist in skulled brain of this Richard Greystone as I exist
among the Dead.
This
is the Nature of we Dead, announces Merlyn. I am borne continually envisioning
our Earth’s genetic mother, Geneva, as an eight ball setting alone on the very
center of my mind-created green-felted-slate-on-a-Victorian-billiard table. I
have no other balls on the table, shutters Merlyn, not even a cue ball to
strike Mother of an Eight Ball off my mind’s center.
*
The
Supervisor, SheanHe in form, sits in Merlyn’s private sanctuary between the
Dead and the Living. SheanHe balances tree leaf high above the now younger aged
and spirited Merlyn.
Merlyn
looks up, points his forefinger aggressively, and dictates, “This, my human
spirit, runs on a deeper gravitational energy than what you, the
Supervisor, take in as my love of Vivian. I am hot in unrealized passion and
here, among the Dead.”
The
Supervisor of the Dead grins quietly surmising, ‘Merlyn is a wound alarm clock
of unalloyed consciousness. Merlyn’s bells will ring when the Boatman demands
it, not me.’
This dream is whisked away — a thought without the entrails
to show Merlyn what he has foreseen.
***
The Brothers 2
“I
see we are at your house again today. What are you watching?” asks Robert.
Richard not stirring from his comfortable easy chair, says, “An
old National Geographic rerun on DNA. A genetics researcher named Wells
is showing that we men are all genetic sons of a man who lived fifty-six
thousand years ago in East Africa.”
Rob slightly frowns, “So what else is new?” He sits next to a tall
brass stick lamp their parents had bought a year before they died. “Turn us
males and females upside down and naked anywhere in the world and we look
enough alike,” comments Dr. Robert, I don’t need any DNA evidence.”
“True,” replies Richard. “But it's interesting that according to
this program, those early sailors sailing the oceans moved the brotherhood
around the known world fairly quickly. Our genetic Eve supposedly existed about
one hundred and fifty thousand years ago or so. It is almost a hundred thousand
years between the genetic parents of we who are now living.” While speaking he glanced out the front window of
their old white painted wood frame built for five thousand dollars by their
grandfather in 1903. We sit across from College Cemetery; he ruminates, half a
block west of the corners of Walnut and Knox. My eyes bridge the Dead everyday
just as they did when we were kids using the cemetery as a playground. Richard
forgot what he was going to say.
“Men are faster than women, that’s the difference in the hundred
thousand years,” chuckles Rob. “You got anything to read? Where’s your latest Harper’s?”
“I hid it before you got here.”
“I give you my poetry mags in short order.” complains Rob. “By the
way, what did you think of my latest poem? You’ve had it for a week.”
“Hey, what’d you think of my first chapter?” snaps Richard.
“You’ve had it for almost a day now.”
Restless, Robert heads to the refrigerator, “Where’s the high test
Coke?"
“Where it always is – on the back on the right side top shelf.”
“Golf's on ESPN,” comments Rob coming back into the room.
“You got it,” says Richard. He pushes the remote.
“Where’s Lady?”
Richard speaks lazily in empathy with his pet cocker, “She’s
sleeping on the living room couch. When Cyndi's gone Lady heads for the couch
where she can see the driveway and when Cyndi drives in, off she goes. She
knows she’s not supposed to be up there.”
While watching a terrific putt by Mark Wilson the brothers both
snicker as imperiously as the golfing crowd clap rewardingly. “Anyone could
make that shot,” comments Robert. “Where's Lady? Wake the old girl up for me.”
“Lady!”
shouts Richard, “Come here, girl!” A commercial later, Richard shouts again,
“Lady!” Still she sleeps. “She’s got junk in her ears again,” says Richard
brooding on how, Rob’s fox terrier named Jack is always obedient. Richard adds,
"Cockers have ear problems.”
“So
do you,” parries Rob.
“Damn
dog,” grumbles Richard as he rolls off the couch.
In
a moment Robert hears the growl and “Damn!” What happened?” he asks impatient
for his brother’s response.
He
comes in, “She bit me on the hand. Look at this!” grouses Richard.
“I
see the marks but she didn’t draw blood. You must have startled her, Dickie.
Rob looks down seeing Lady cower under the coffee table. “Come on out, girl.
It’s okay,” coaxes Rob in a soft voice. Lady creeps out with ears down. “My Jack
would never bite me,” muses Rob.
Robert
pulls up Lady’s right ear. “You’re right. Look at the wax and crude in here.
Get some tweezers and swabs,” then adds, “and scissors, she’s got hair tangles
in there. I’ll clean this out.” Rob gently pets her, “It’ll be okay girl. You
are such a pretty Lady. Pretty Lady,” he continues stroking the venerable tan
and white cocker spaniel until Richard arrives with the small box of ear
cleaning material.
The
aging cocker soon finds herself with clean ears and quickly leaps on Rob for
the wonderland of a belly scratch.
Richard hits the remote during the next commercial and catches the tail
end of a broadcast asking for donations."
“Everyone
wants a donation,” says Robert.
“I
agree,” responds Richard as he flips the channel back to ESPN. “I'm tired of
all of it, charity, religion, politics - all of it."
Rob
counters, “Our two dogs have a better life than either of us.”
“True,”
says Richard as he reaches to stroke Lady, “but she cares for us as only a
mother might.”
As
if on cue Rob responds, “We have to take care of ourselves. Nothing's free.” He
grouses, “It's a miracle our species has survived this long.”
“The
fifties and sixties,” comments Richard, “how did we survive that? Few our age
thought we would live to be thirty and here we are seventy this year. “And, the
world is worse now than it was then.”
“No,”
argues Robert, “it was worse with the arsenal the Soviets and Americans had
pointed at one another.”
“One
day some crazy group will explode a nuclear weapon somewhere in the remote
Pacific and then say they have another, that's all it will take, even if they
don’t.”
“Why
didn’t Truman do that?” questions Robert. “Why couldn’t we have dropped the
bomb near Japan so the power would not be hidden from the general population?”
“War
is not humane,” comments Richard.
Robert
counters, “But it is human enough.”
“War
dogs take care of their own,” notes Richard sarcastically.
“War
dogs hardly ever bite the hand that feeds them,” snickers Robert.
“Remember
Rob," jibes Richard as he stuck his right forefinger in the air, "a
bone in the hand is worth two in the bush." Both laugh at the now stale
and stained once private adolescent joke.
***
Grandma’s Story
2
Grandma begins, “I
trace Homo sapiens’ genetic Eve’s DNA through various storytellers known as
shamans because they understand Merlyn's use of trancephysics. Trancephysics is
a vehicle Merlyn uses to slide his
human spirit into the essence of the spirit, the heartansoulanmind of Richard
Greystone who wishes to free his mind of fanciful visions of being among the
Dead before his time.
Grandma continues,
“One might consider trancephysics a retro version of quantum entanglement in
modern times. For example, Sir Phillip Sydney, a tolerable Elizabethan poet of
a few hundred years back unknowingly created two quiet philosophical lines
about trancephysics in his poem, ‘Arcadia’."
My true love hath my heart, and I have his,
By just exchange one for the other given . . .
“Merlyn intuitively sides with the poet,” winks Grandma, “though he appreciates
the modern sciences, particularly those of Quantum Mechanics and Chaos Theory
because he finds them useful. Anyone who has ever been deeply in love like
Merlyn is with Vivian better understands the intimate event Sir Phillip Sydney
so eloquently describes.
This unconsciously connected ‘invisible bond’ is an undeniable human experience
beyond the “I love you’s” mutually understood between two or a large family.
This trancephysical bond also extends those who may rarely if ever meet while
living, and this is somewhat how it is between Merlyn and Richard Greystone and
all other humans living or dead, who share a common genetic Mother.”
She continues, “When
Glevema physically died in an accidental drowning,” declares Grandma, “she came
to more fully understand her grandfather’s earlier story of humans being both
out among the stars and on Earth at the same time. She also discovered other
heartsansoulsanminds who already occupied a region within the Place of the
Dead.” Here is a selection from Glevema herself.”
*
“I quickly realize
these otherworldly human-like spirits with heartsansoulsanminds, have a
facsimile of a physical body, but noticeable differences — the nearly naked
women have the manifestation of a pouch on the lower belly and no breasts. The
men have nipples below the belly and a small earthworm-thin curlicue of a
penis. As I was the first representative of Homo sapiens to find her way to
this Place of the Dead I was politely allowed to stay, but once a few more
primate oriented spirits followed me, I was told, that if I wished to form an
original Homo sapiens region to more easily comfort her descendants, I could.
So, I did thinking it would be better to remain with my own kind.”
*
“Generations
flourish,” continues Grandma, “and spread flower-like until some five thousand
years ago when one of the many descendants of Glevema found herself on the
British Isles mixing with a trading group from Europe called Basques. A few
traveling Basques settle in lower western Scotland. As the families mix and
grow, some move to Ireland while others drift to Wales and England.” A
thousand years later still in the Isles, another shaman of the same direct line
appears. He has some tall tales centered on Mother Earth, the Sun, the Moon,
the Stars, and the Nature of human beings. The shaman tells such stories in a
make believe theatre circle on England’s Salisbury Plain,” reports Grandma.
“Here is one of shaman’s stories.”
*
“I had a dream and I
thought about this for the next fifteen years. The dream is about a great
Rebellion in the Place of the Dead. The dream begins with the cold, icy fingers
of the Dead feeling their way back to Mother Earth. The Dead do not go to
Heaven or even to the Moon. The Dead are still within us. If you cremate the
Dead, their bones will be blackened like the night. They will not have to see
their bodies rotting and the animals won’t dig them up, and the quicker they
will be a part of Mother again and best of all they will have no icy cold
fingers reaching out for the Living. Close the Land of the Dead with well placed
stones. Stones don’t move so easily as spirits.”
*
Grandma
snickers. “Stones, a few of them, are like bones,” she says, “line them
up just right and they lie right in front of you, that’s the truth of it.” She
adds with a wink or maybe two, “I got me on a Merlyn chant to take us from the
past to the Merlyn future dream that includes those humanoid figures Glevema
first met being dead.
From the two venerable Celtic hearts created to sing
Return this story to where other passions ring
The well-known druidess and druid will do
In a similar spirit body that is dressed like you.
Within a corridor where stirring memories show
Vivian and Merlyn on Charon’s ferry flow
This time when Grandma chants and hums,
The marching future this way drums.
***
Diplomatic Pouch 2
The
next morning Blake rambles down the stairs to find Pyl and Justin sitting at
the breakfast table with toast, cups of coffee and sections of Cleveland Plain
Dealer unevenly placed on the table. "Morning," murmurs Blake.
Glancing out the large back kitchen window he says, "Looks like quite a
few dog walkers out at the park."
"Joggers
were out earlier," responds Justin.
"Right."
Pyl
put down the editorial page and says, "Are you really willing to sell the
plane?"
"Three
hundred thousand is much more than it’s worth."
"Why
is that?" confronts Justin. "Pyl and I were just talking about
this."
Blake
walks to the cupboard for a mug, the refrigerator for skim milk, and the pantry
from instant cocoa mix. He tears the package open and adds, "Odd that she
brought up her top price rather than low-balling. I will say that." He
nukes the mixed milk and powdered cocoa hot.
Pyl
replies, "Justin thinks the woman has a strange mix of Boston accents. I
agree that her voice is unusual."
Blake
laughs sympathetically saying, "Maybe she’s a business woman who studied
to hide her family’s true language accent. Sometimes people from Appalachia do
that."
Pyl
notes, "You've taken a liking to her sudden friendliness, huh,
Blakey."
Justin
pops in, "Sell the plane and gain a businessman’s wife, is that the plan,
old man?"
"Then
we'd have the plane back," jokes Pyl.
"Don't
you two have some work to do today?"
"Just
to jerk your mind, brother dear."
“Why
don’t you two work with me, here in Cleveland. It is our family owned
business." suggests Blake dryly; hopefully wishing they would help run the
company. “We can live here in the
old family house.” Blake trails off in the silence then sighs, “You’re right,
it wouldn’t work now any more than it would have worked ten years ago.”
*
Hartolite
mummers, “Do you need a little more action, Yermey? She notes his typical
nonverbal smile as his right hand slowly sinks into her silky smooth and toasty
warm pouch.
Yermey
comments, "It's been five years since I've had my hand on you this far
down." He muses, whenever the women have big decisions a hot itch comes,
and there is not a ThreePlanets man alive who can satisfy it. My right hand
snuggles into Hart’s dreamland and it is one of the very real pleasures in marsupial
man’s life.
Giggling,
Friendly’s moves from Yermey’s stomach, "It's been ten years if it's been
a day since we’ve seen you in this position Yermey." Hartolite echoes
Friendly’s snicker.
Yermey
slides his hand-from-pouch, abruptly sits up and jumps out of the bed-from-the-wall.
He grumbles and pulls fresh overalls from the nearby dress chute. He lazily one
at a time drops his legs into and pulls up his overalls feeling the cloth
methodically unwrinkled and automatically adjust to his size. A general distain
floats like smoke in his mind – the women pop us in those pouches when we are
tiny crawlers and never let us go. We men grow expecting at any time to see a
woman’s seductive glance, to be politely and judiciously asked to put a
hand-in-a-pouch. His old heart scoffs, ‘Such is our biology, our destiny.’
In
such moments Yermey usually turns to philosophizing on ancient ThreePlanets
children’s tales. He recollects, ‘I don’t believe the myths of our clergy and
their ancient fableizing. Strange, there is such a close species connection of
the Concept-of-God and a Fall-from-Grace. These earthy Primates have a similar
story. How is that?
Friendly
now fully dressed catches the corner in his eye. She is always upbeat and
positive. Hartolite is one good handsomely suited cuddlanbabe. I imagine
resting my hand in your pouch almost every night before I go into a deep sleep,
thinks Yermey. We do our life’s series of services-for-the-species, imagining
and creating a more comfortable educational and entertaining setting for our
community-of-families. We create the safest, most efficient and easily
manipulative devices possible for our species’ healthy growth and wellbeing. We
attempt to treat ourselves humanely in our ThreePlanetCommunity; and we will do
the same for Earth too, if they can accept such gifts as free and without
obligation. He smirks and whispers aloud, “there’s the rub” as an Earthling
might say.
Within
the half hour, Hartolite and Captain Friendly come to a mutual conclusion.
Friendly declares, “We buy the Williams’ plane tomorrow or leave them two
hundred thousand U.S. dollars, and commandeer it. I want done with this. We
must create the most efficient and resourceful way to directly contact this
High-Primate species. The shock of us will do them well,” suggests Friendly.
Yermey smiles and Hartolite’s facial expression makes Friendly quickly ask, “Is
it ‘do them well’ or ‘do them good?’”
Eyes
gleaming, Yermey asks, “Who were you two?”
Responding
in a mischievous tone, Hartolite comments, “I was Hart and she was Fran.”
“We
were sisters,” adds Friendly.
***
Chapter Three
Circumstance
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 3
“These
are a few social rules of the Dead. Having higher consciousness is not free.
Each pays the Boatman,” begins the Supervisor, “Living or dead human
beings sometimes deserve to have some free time without interruption. The Dead like company just as the Living
do. Why, because in here the Dead are still human beings otherwise what would
Heaven be without having your humanity? Presently, in Merlyn’s dreams, the
Place of the Dead has adopted a new name. The primary reason the
marsupial-humanoid human-like spirits long ago chose to call this Place of the
Dead, HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither. The Earth centered human spirits saw humor in
their own language translations because there are times people want to keep to
themselves and usually the more secret the reasons are, the more the personal
the hell is. People who have no secrets are entitled to a free pass. The Dead come
to accept themselves, secrets and all. It’s relatively simple really. The human
spirit, Earth or ThreePlanets’ centered, reasons and makes a fair or just
worthiness of her or himself. The gravity or the passion that holds one's
centeredness, one’s self-worth and dignity, to the spiritual rails of conscious
as well as unconscious memory, the freer one is. Knowing one's self is
balancing one's spirit of who one was in life with who one is now dead. A few of
the Dead in these dream sequences remained silent for a long period of time;
learning to know who one is, is generally a prerequisite to learning who the
other Dead are. Allowances are made. Those recently Dead are entitled to a
close friend to help or to an advisor to help manage when such service is
needed. I, the Supervisor, am the custodian
who stewards the Dead. Let’s visit Merlyn.
*
North
of Merlyn’s roughshod though comfortable wooden hut, sits our delegation to the
Living in his favorably remembered stone chair. This Druid’s throne rests on a
well-laid stone slab to the immediate right of the large tall and stately oak
near the center of his human spirit. Merlyn glances north into the configuration
of a securely woven spiritual matrix to better dress his energetic and
passionate heartansoulanmind. This personal sanctuary, a vivid dream from
once-in-life-memory becomes a vivid reality when you are as nothing.
To
the northeast of Merlyn’s chair rests the moss-blotched two-foot high flagstone
front stage ruins on which he had first magically danced as a child. Around and
beyond the stage is a favorite Scottish meadow of grasses and flowers. A brush
of bluebells and ox-eyed white daisies sets to his left and a caress of white
foxglove and red poppies to the right. Further north a large stand of Scottish
Pine growing grandly tall on a high rising sloop. These are the quiet memories
that interlace the solitude and what appears to be Merlyn’s good fortune.
To
Merlyn's northeast is a great bald granite dome. Skirting the granite mountain
is a fence of purple heather. Watching his newly found yellow sun rise over such
a large and handsome graveyard dome granite is his recognized cemetery head
stone. This is a continual reminder to deadanliving Merlyn that he is close
enough to walk to where the physical, the material universe lies.
The
southern aspect of his domain lies in a valley of thick oak forest blotched
with edges of hazel bushes and stands of birch. Further into southwest of this
druid’s domain are two wild apple trees with red melancholy thistles ground scattered
about, all a delight in Merlyn’s heart and mind.
To
the west, not far from his hut and nearby granite slab on which Merlyn sits, he
sees through the slightly camouflage of well-leafed young trees and bushes to
the slowly moving narrow and shallow river. Merlyn has a tanned leather and
stick framed Celtic boat, the solidified image of his old curragh,
resting on the bank. On the other side of this fishable stream is a large stand
of tall majestic oak. No wall but a tree settles well in Merlyn.
Quite
satisfied with his spirit’s sheltered environment, Merlyn glances up beyond the
blue and sun to see the faint outline of his basic chess-squared mind-spirit
weaving his continual imagination and reasoning more tightly into a spiritual
reality. It is here that Merlyn flashes his entangled consciousness, his
presence into the here-and-now of Richard Greystone, younger twin brother of
Robert. Merlyn knows Grandma Earth and has heard her ghostly storytelling of
the Greystone and Bleacher ancestors of Richard and Robert and their wives
Cyndi and Connie, also sisters but not twins. Such connective realities with
the Dead a living person rarely zooms in on. Merlyn calls this interconnection
of one’s ancestors soul-threading and in here Grandma Earth is the
Needle. The Dead share but it is in an unseen roundabout construction to the
Living.
*
Glancing
at his stage, Merlyn views a fellow spirit appearing beside his stone appearing
ruins. "Hello, Merlyn, this is Sophia your friend.”
Merlyn
smiles warmly in the immediate pleasure of surprise and delight of seeing a
friend so close to his heart.
***
The Brothers 3
The
following day Richard walks the steps up and then down the hall to Robert’s
study.
“This
room is like our old club house,” announces Richard.
Both
laugh, and Robert adds, “We were two of six in that club.”
Richard
replies, “While walking Lady, I picked up the wilted flowers on Mom and Dad’s
grave this morning. I thought I’d drop them off here before heading home.”
Robert
notes his place the recent Atlantic Monthly and closed it while saying,
“Connie knows Memorial Day is coming up. We’ll put some more on.”
“I
still like walking Lady through the cemetery in the morning.”
“Just
like Papa used to do with his dogs,” smiles Robert. “And, Dad too. I sometimes
walked Jack past the mausoleum and down the hill to the river."
Richie
mirrors his smile, “The stones, trees and mowed grass; it was a kiddy park for
us.”
“Fun
times,” declares Robert.
“You
know," comments Richard, "People still say it's haunted on the west
side of the Mausoleum where the old trail leads down to the woods.”
Robert
sighs, “Dad never agreed, but Mom thought it was haunted too. There was an old
story about seeing dead people walking. I have a poem about it somewhere."
"Published?"
"It was; some
years ago in our own Riverton Historical Society Bulletin."
While finger tapping
on both arms of the chair Richard says, "Mom always believed in ghosts but
Dad never."
In a sadder than
expected tone, Rob replies, "I don't think Dad ever believed in
anything."
"Not in our
lifetime anyway.” Both chuckle. “What are the girls up to?"
"They are getting
ready to go shopping."
"Why did I ask?"
moans Robert.
"I got the car
if you want to head over to the book store.”
"The old white
church on Worthington-Dublin Road?” suggests Rob.
"Why not, we
haven't been over there for a while."
"You know I'm
looking for an old copy of Ferlinghetti’s "Coney Island of the Mind".
"When Cyndi and
I were in Frisco last year we stopped at Ferlinghetti’s City Lights bookstore.
They had a republication his classic Coney Island of the Mind."
Robert comment ranks
caustically, "I used to have a signed first edition, but I can't find it.”
"Julie probably
borrowed it to show her classes. Her favorite Ferlinghetti is "Coney
Island of the Mind # 5". It’s my favorite too."
Rob shakes his head
in dark surprise, "I can't believe Julie has a popular classroom unit on
fifties Beat poetry," pausing, "she didn't have to take my signed
copy though."
"She’s your
daughter. Give her a call. Do you want to go booking or not?"
Robert mumbles,
"Old books and poetry are what we have long held in common. Let's
go." Getting up Rob smiles while watching his brother heading to the door;
“we have long held those Bleacher girls in common too. It was inevitable that
we would marry the sisters – one of those things that was meant to be.”
Sitting at the
kitchen table Connie and Cyndi are drinking tea with an opened House and
Garden and a Money magazine underneath.
"It
is hard to believe the boys just turned seventy," whispers Cyndi.
"We're
not too far behind."
"They
been going to that used bookstore for at least forty years."
"Was
it ever a church in our lifetime?" asks Connie.
"I
suppose it was. It’s the closest the boys will go to step in a church setting;
and they always seem to come back with an old book or two."
"Julie
often borrows a select old poetry book or two to show her classes."
Whispering,
Connie comments, "Robbie always wanted Julie to go into medicine, to be a
surgeon like himself."
"You
wanted her to be a cardiovascular nurse like we were."
"Julie
didn't want to be either," sums Connie. "She always wanted to be a
teacher like Richard."
"Does
she still call him Uncle Dickie?" giggles Cyndi, quietly proud of Julie’s
choice of careers.
"That
was Robbie's doing." Both laugh. “I used to call him Dickie when we dated.”
“You
were always the cock-teaser," jokes Connie; then she abruptly changes the
subject, “What kind of countertop do you really want Cyndi?"
Exasperated,
Cyndi drawls, "Richard says he doesn't care. He says that, but he won't
like whatever we end up with."
"They
are both stubborn and single-minded. We knew that when we married them. Both
burrow into themselves – a linked personality quirk, I suppose."
“How
did we ever decide who was going to marry whom?”
“I
think we flipped for it,” says Cyndi. Both laughed independently, one never
knew who was going to stop laughing first – one of the minor differences
between the closest of two sisters.
***
Grandma’s Story
3
“In this story a girl-child’s heart is born from sheets of
ice piled over solid stone depressed by weight. Warmed, the water flows inward,
creating a landlocked seacoast with green hills, a place subset between two
deep memory faults. I am in view of a young woman consciousness,” Grandma
continues, “Qwinta is the girl’s name, and she is standing, staring at a
multi-shaded orange tinged maple leaf in her hand. Qwinta stands within heart’s
memory sight of a body of lake water. Some eight thousand years after her
lifetime on Earth, this body of water is named Lake Champlain. This ecologically
setting is between the eastern Canadian provinces and two U.S. states. Today
the world understands the orange shading in the maple leaf is caused by a
complex of the photosynthesis of carbohydrates using the energy of sunlight not
by the color of magic within a suggested thought.”
*
Eight thousand years ago, Qwinta imagines the orange hue of the beautiful
autumn maple leaf to be that of the ghostly kneeling Princess, a royal
canoeist, in an artfully orange decorated sun regal dugout. Touching this
enchanting and perhaps magical maple leaf Princess Qwinta unknowingly creates
the self-imprinting of this inner fantasy . . ..
The maple wood paddle the Princess is using and I, the Quinta, become as
one-in-mind . . . I am the paddle’s head, its grip. I am the head; the
shaft-and-paddle-blade become two . . . The royal hand on the grip, my head,
becomes one with the drop and swirl movement of the paddle through the water.
When the paddle is Princess lifted from the water, a ripple ensues. The ripple
is a wave with a reflected orange in the Maple leaf . . . The very spirit of
the one whose hand dips like a paddle into the River of the Dead also lifts up
and leaves a ripple as it passes from one side of the ethereal current to the
other side. The swirling spirit, the sculling spirit also manifests itself into
the maple tree reflected water is swirled into this lone maple leaf as the paddle
rises . . . I, Qwinta, a Princess in spirit and mind, am the causal connection
between the Living and the Dead just as the once decorated tree, the wood
paddle and canoe, are the causal connection between the sun, orange and this
fallen maple leaf. To doubt this sensation is a truth is to doubt my own
existence. To do so I would have to deny that I hold a truth between finger and
thumb. I watch as the falling sun touches the leaf to gold.
Wonderfully black,
Grandma is full hipped, full bosomed, and colorfully costumed in Caribbean
Island attire sashays and ripples her own waters by suggesting, “There isn’t a
reason on this Earth for people to be touched by Perfection even in fantasy. I
dance the physical sciences – matter and spirit each has its own interests
which can be observed in Quinta’s ghost.”
While living, Quinta
is abruptly interrupted by three squawks of a crow then silence like the black
eyes of night. Doubt and perfection cannot coexist like the color of sun and
leaf. She ruminates my family has light skin and blue eyes. No one knows why.
Some say we are the children of the blue sky and white clouds come to life, but
why would that be? Our family rule is to avoid contact with outsiders. The sun
and moon are the outsiders. We have a sun and moon inside, as the Earth has a
sun and moon outside. Body and spirit, spirit and body, who sets these rules of
rising and setting — of the green leaf and the orange leaf?
Human species, be
they marsupial or primate in these books, enjoy imagination and reason. I, Grandma,
operate by Necessity so humans have the necessity to operate.
Muddy waters run full and fast
And show a future in this woman's past,
Thus in old Grandma’s waves of rain
A leaf of maple and imagination sprang.
Long ago, a memory stirs, a spooky thought re-occurs, ‘I, Quinta once a spirit,
become a leaf and princess subset between two faults in unseen consciousness. I
would rather be the water the paddle strokes, and not a leaf of orange floating
upon it.
***
Diplomatic Pouch
3
It
is another pleasant Cleveland day in January. Pyl, Justin and Blake finished a
lunch of ham and cheese sandwiches with sides of chips. Getting up from the
table Pyl checks the tree-lined backyard for blown small branches and sticks.
Justin
and Blake move to the couch and chair in the nearby Bose-styled media
room. Once settled Justin asks,
“How is the family company doing?”
Once
Blake adjusts the sound of smooth jazz playing and sits relaxed, he talks the
CEO talk of Electronic Communication Software. “You know,” says Blake, “Dad started
in a small empty space that had been a small used book store near the college
campus. He took classes at Fenn College, in the early sixties then transferred
to Case-Western. We grew up in the three-story off West Fairmount in the
Heights.”
“We
drive by every time we come up,” responds Justin. “The old screened porch is
still awesome.”
“Dad
had it screened. He reconditioned the old electric fan motors himself. We used
it full time in the summer. In the late seventies he thought about building
chips for the radar detector business down in Cincinnati but decided it wasn’t
for us.” Both men sit chilling on a long George Benson's guitar piece.
Pyl
strolls in from the back yard. “I love that big old sugar maple, look, it’s
January and I found this beautiful orange leaf by the bushes.”
In
a perfectly cadenced tone Blake adds, “I'm thinking about cutting that maple
down, Pyl. It's old and the highest tree out back. If we get a terrible storm
it could come down on the house.”
Glancing
at the rising anger in Pyl’s face, Justin turns up the next piece, a Walter
Beasley sax rendition of "Do You Wanna Dance," thinking on how Blake
sets the bait and on how sister Pyl almost always picks up on it.
*
Mid-morning. Ship hovers well above the air
traffic and well below any orbiting satellites. Lake Erie is straight down.
Friendly sits around a handsomely dark wooded table-from-the-floor with
Hartolite and Yermey. They are drinking a good-for-you yummy twistanshake and
nibbling on p1green-forest-nuttleberry treats. All three sit bare breasted in
colorful boxershort loungers relaxed on comfortchairs down so their clean bare
feet and well trimmed toe nails are firmly snuggled in the greenest plushest
living blades of grass this side of HomePlanetsThree. Ship's floor is a living
piece of bio-diverse machinery from his outer hull to his antigravobars pulse
that allows these three perspicacious marsupial humanoids to serve as Ship's
heart, Ship's humanity as it were, but not Ship's mind which is mostly his own.
For
safety’s sake, the worst that can happen is Ship, with for his living crew
attached, will run naked to HomePlanetsThree. When it comes to fight-or-flight
the marsupial humanoids have always had some place to run for their own safety
and survival. They have not had a stand-an-fight event for over twenty thousand
earth years. A very strong social consciousness is necessity for this to be.
"Do
you think he'll take your offer?" asks Hartolite.
Yermey
responds, "I'm more interested in why Ship allowed the Cessna wingtip's
touch. Ship knew the plane was close and he chose to do nothing until after the touch."
With
gazed eyes narrowing Captain Friendly recounts, "Ship allowed a touch not
a collision. I too wonder about this. For now though we need to go with what
is. Unknowingly to this woman named Pill she may have scientific evidence of
our existence to be analyzed, and there may be microscopic evidence, traces of
blackenot mass on the wingtip. I think still it would be easier to buy the
plane and allow them to make a healthy profit in the process. Besides, an
electromagnetic anomaly may have allowed the plane to tap Ship. Godofamily only
knows stranger things have happened to us.
"What
do we do?" questions Hartolite. "Ship is autonomous as we came here
on our own orders, not from ParentsinCharge." At least this is my assumption,
considers Hartolite, if we don’t know the truth, surely Ship does.
Friendly
interrupts Hartolite, "We came to save this species of primates from the
most abominably of plagues, perhaps the same one we had over twenty-thousand
years ago."
With
his impish smile Yermey calms the notion, "We cannot know this coming
plague on Earth is a certainty.” Pausing in the further reflection of a man who
is nearly five hundred Earth years old, he says, “it is highly probable though,
highly probable or otherwise I would not have volunteered for this surreptitious
expedition.”
***
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