Notes - morning / ebook final drafts 15,16,17,18 / evening

        Mid-morning. You are at Pine Hill Lakes Park and Carol has just left on her walk this cool crisp partly cloudy morning. - Amorella

         0901 hour. It feels like autumn at the Lakefront Airport near Cleveland Heights. I like this kind of invigorating weather. The Mason schoolboys are out in running groups of 8 to 12 along with other runners and walkers in this brisk 64-degree weather.

         1128 hours. We ran errands and did some chores and presently we are back at the far north Pine Hill Lakes Park sitting in partial sun and still cooler temperature facing wooded hill towards downtown Mason. Carol is reading a new Better Homes and Garden that arrived today and has a new Steve Berry book, The King’s Deception, to begin. I think the last Berry book she read was The Jefferson Key. And, I have two more chapters ebook completed, 15 and 16. We moved to the shade, facing south. We just saw a small deer, very cool. Carol is out for a closer look but I bet he goes back to the west woods.

         Mid-afternoon and you have been working since a pleasant lunch at Marx Bagels in Blue Ash. You have completed the ebook chapters, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen and eighteen. Add and post. – Amorella

         1524 hours. The chapters are better written but beyond that I have no idea. They appear to work but again who am I to make a judgment here. I feel like a college student about ready to turn in my thesis and hope for the best knowing the least that will be acceptable will be a C.

         In undergraduate college perhaps but in writing you always hoped for no less than a B. – Amorella

         That’s true. I didn’t always get at least a B though mostly because of uncorrected grammar errors although for some papers it was just not good writing. I did clean up better in graduate school. I always thought I should have worked on a doctorate but in those days I don’t think I would have done so well. I was politely turned down by Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. I got into a ‘conditional’ doctorate degree program at Blowing Green State University. If it got the scholarly grades I could have gone on just as I did in graduate school; that was through beginning in a “conditional” status also. I feel I am in the same place, a conditional writer. Shoot, I was a conditional teacher starting out too. The teacher I ‘taught’ under at Olentangy High School in 1966 recommended that I not go into teaching. I earned a C. Such is life. I was upset at the time because there isn’t anything else I could do but teach even if my grades weren’t so good. I really had no other choice, so I tried to improve when I took the job at Magnetic Springs School. I taught 7^th and 8^th grade in a school that held grades 1 through 8.  I was the English department.

*** ***

© 2014 GMG.One – Richard H. Orndorff

Chapter 15

Relations

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 15

         Merlyn has the taste of non-existent honey and sunflower seeds still on his nonexistent tongue as he glances up to see the mid-morning sun. At his feet he is in a layer of fog about a foot from the stream in his sanctuary. He turns to the right and walks northeast away from the water with the sun behind him.

         I walk passed the great Oak and the ancient theatre ruin towards the great granite boulder, more than half a grand Scottish Highland hill high in my estimation. In life I used to love walking the Scottish hills and woods enjoying the nature of sounds along the path, thinks Merlyn. The further from the stream he walks the more a silence fills his mind and dissipates into the sunlight of his spirit.

*

         A lone billiard ball in the mind lies centered on the table’s far cue point. The cue ball sits on the nearer cue mark as Merlyn watches from the near end of the reduced green on table due to the newly acquiring dense fog. "What ball is this?" mumbles Merlyn aloud. He comfortably sits down on a nearby stump in his head, the closed to the high granite hill of his sanctuary. "Hill between me and the Living," he says, while talking between himself and an important memory: G—D.

         Merlyn squints his eyes, sifting through the now layering white mist and the ball centered on the far side of the table. He whispers as if hunting, "Who might that be a-calling from my heart, a solid red 7 ball?”

         "It is but a first memory, Merlyn, no one is here," says a woman's voice though he fully understands it is his own. She continues quietly and assuredly, "The fog tapps the memory forward." 

         Merlyn's voice proceeds, "I see an almost perfectly round deep red, beautifully polished granite ball with a circular ivory inlay and a glossy black onyx number ‘7’ centered and embedded within the ivory."

         Memory speaks automatically understanding the present connection with past sitting in the present and future at once. The soul coils the transmission, the heart generates the energy and the mind is as nothing that nothing can be. Memory's silent picture - sharp and detailed - viewed a full eclipse of the sun.

         "I stand on solid ground and from between the boughs of an Oak and Birch,” says Merlyn. “My eyes see the flame on the pond. No, the flame is from the water. Fire and water. Slowly, so slowly my widened eyes and beating heart strain for the fire's lengthening blade of silent flames to provide an upward thrust into the invisible side of nature's air. The spritely mix of orange, yellow, and red flame with a flash or two of white the surrounding air glowed an eerie green when rose the handle as yellow as the sun. The hand shows its natural clasp in the surreal object making me think the white skin is ice itself. Frozen it is and clasped to the sun, without a hint of power. And the quiet freezes my soul. The eye accepts something anthropomorphic and akin to itself — it is made visible only a short distance away — visible but yet I see nothing. And, as I draw closer the calm waters edge of surrounding trees and foliage takes on the imagery of dark gray lashes, such as those surrounding the single eye that does not blink red and neither do I. Yet, it is that I see nothing in mind and soul.”

         “In all these things I, Merlyn, did most unnaturally observe, in the minute and whole of this singular event, my wonderfully fine eyes witnessed a focus on the most natural thing I have ever seen since before my birth — a slim, white hand, appears within the eye, a human hand more delicately feminine than my own, I see this at once a powerless woman's hand rising as a goddesses’ holding sun, water, a thin fire pillar in multitudes of colors all in an earthy imagination.”

         “Its owner is not a goddess, in fact and description, but rather, than what I once thought as G—D invisible, is but a naked human soul existing outright and in place with no need of anything but the potential of being flesh and blood. Such is my heart and soul and mind so re-conditioned on that day. The bone of the soul I will never see as the others might solely due to circumstance. The mightiest of swords ever held or touched by human hands holds no power whatsoever; yet King Arthur along with the populace thought that it did. And, in the end, the king and his country tried to re-make the sword like human beings try to re-make love and the purest of gold, into something that they are not. For, to me, Merlyn, love is invisible like a thought of G—D is — matter-less and far Beyond even the thought of the Beginning of Things in space and time. I need be ever cautious no matter what my present circumstance is between the Living and the Dead,” so says Merlyn’s ever-human heart.

***

The Brothers 15

Robert and Richard walk from the hardware store at the south end of town and take a late morning drive following road through woods, farms, corn fields and cow pastures interspersed with new crops of housing divisions. Interrupting near silence of the car. Robert asks, “What were we talking about early yesterday?”

“Proving the heart and soul exist.

“Yeah,” agrees Robert. “What did we decide?”

“The heart is more easily provable by circumstantial evidence.”

“That’s right.” responds Robert, “circumstantial evidence. We don’t define it though.”

“Well, whatever the center of emotions and passions is we call the heart,” notes Richard. It’s not that difficult.”

“So, we have hearts, but souls are less concrete, that is there is less circumstantial evidence for having a soul,” says Robert.

“We are both agnostics but there is a chance consciousness survives physical death.”

“Not very good odds though, I don’t believe.”

“What about saying the heart survives death, questions Richard. “There is anecdotal evidence. In many ghost stories the spirit appears to be out of sorts. Many would be ghost stories there is a haunting. Even the idea gives some people goose bumps.”

“But there are other stories,” responds Robert, “mostly private family stories, that tell of a family member coming back just to say good-bye. As well as stories of near death experiences on the operating table.”

“Wishful thinking pumped by grief or shock, that’s what I think, who’s to say?” snaps Richard. “The person who tells the story usually is comforted by such a psychological event. And, who is going to question the story outright if grandma or grandpa is the one’s telling it. It would be very impolite to do so, and what good would come from it since no one knows the truth?”

After ten some wordless minutes Robert says, “It’s time to head back." And in their quietest twin natures they drove Connie's classic home.

*

At home Connie, Cyndi, Robert and Richard sit at the kitchen table drinking bottled and flavored diet ice tea and munching from a medium sized common stainless steel mixing bowl more than half full of assorted finger sized carrot and celery sticks with a few ice cubes thrown in for residual crispness.

Robert begins, "Richie and I were discussing how the world will survive this relatively new century and the question came up, 'Are women naturally better leaders for these days and times than men?'

Cyndi's eyes narrow slightly, "So, Richard, what did you say to Robbie's question?"

Richard shrugs his shoulders in resignation, "I said it would be better if we brought this up with you two."

Connie quickly responds, "First, we two get along with each other better than you two."

"You two maybe, but I've seen a couple of down and out cat fights in my time," states Richard.

"Leaders are strong decisive individuals though, in the operating room . . ."

"We are talking about political leaders, Rob, where people have to work together more socially."

"Like Congress and the White House," adds Connie. "You know, with the majorities of men in both camps.

"Men run empires. Look at history. Where are all the women emperors . . ."

"All this bickering," declares Robert softly. "Of the four of us who are the more reasonable day in and day out?"

Connie snaps, "Cyndi and I. What a stupid question, Robert. Who runs the houses, who does the chores, which of us are more mature and responsible in our day to day living?"

"Which two of us have always been more responsible on the home front, day in and day out?"

A thawed quiet reigns.

Robert says, "What are we having for lunch?" He didn't, but a sheepish smile perked slightly.  

"Why don't we go out to lunch?" suggests Cyndi politely.

"Good idea,” responds Rob, “where do you want to go?"

"I don't know. Where do you want to go?"

"Somehow this conversation sounds very familiar," comments Richard.

"Let's sit silently until we can come to an agreement,” states Connie.

         So they do.

***

Grandma’s Story 15

Grandma has a Mayan love story for this segment. Time is one of the major characters off stage, just like real life. Timing is everything. Solstice was and is important in Maya observances of Earth because of Zenial passage observations that are possible only in the tropical zones. This story takes place approximately twenty one hundred years ago when the dark rift in the Milky Way was some thirty degrees above the dawning winter solstice sun.

“Twenty-one hundred years ago, disguising as an old woman walking in Central America I spy two people making love under the broad-leafed bushes and a cacao tree near both their homes.”

Grandma shakes her head, “The physical passion people put up with. People don’t normally know Grandma takes a peek every now and then when the intensity has built up like it has with these two. I am also in humanity’s most naked nature. People like to imagine being alone or with an intimate companion or two in private.' Not so, Nature always takes a front seat.”

Grandma looks to the reader, “you can be private with your nature, honey-child, but you is never alone with your body. Heartansoulanmind, the invisible world of the human spirit, is always with you, and so am I.”

         Grandma continues, “Love puts the body to more work than it is sometimes used to. People become exhausted being in love. Some would just rather die happy in bed I guess. That is the way it is for Tapachula, who is hotter than a summer storm and Izapa who is normally cold and pyramidal-like except when he is with his Tapachula. She heats up and he cools down. He heats up and she cools down. These two are a weather of passion. You just never can tell how it is going to be from one minute to the next. A low pressure hits a high and something is going to move. Since one is usually high when the other is low, someone is always jiggling or jostling the other. One morning after the two had been at it several times, trying to get the timing right, and something unforeseen arises — basic competition. These human bodies suddenly take on a challenge of physical endurance.”

*

         Inside Tapachula’s head – What a way to go. Who is going to die of exhaustion first? Tapachula’s brain is reasoning, ‘Impending doom, a natural disaster is upon us I can just feel it. I can outlast this man, and if I can’t I’ll have to hand it to him to find a way to do me in first. I already have a plan if I outlive my Izapa. I will bed the first one that comes down the road until one of us dies and will keep doing so until I’m done in. What a way to go. What a way to go. What-a-way, what-a-way, what-a-way to go.

*

         Tapachula's logic is not completely consistent, but logic is something you might bed on but not sleep with. That is when I, Grandma, decided to step up from the body physics to the mindanheart for a change of pace.

         From deep within Tapachula's mindanheart Grandma whispers as consciousness might, “No prophecy is really true, child. No matter what any one or one thousand human beings utter it. Human beings can neither know their own nor their world's future, but they can learn to understand and reason.”

*

As Tapachula and Izapa's bodies clasped tight in climax, Grandma hears their souls think.

“Remember what and who you really are so you can balance the beam,” suggests Grandma.

What are the beam and the balance?" ask Izapa and Tapachula.

“The beam is in your intelligence,” answers Grandma. “And the balance is in your wisdom.” And with that, the once old woman with the walking stick disappears in the expended passions of the lovers' bodily perspiring fervor.

Arms and legs in loosening entanglement, Tapachula and Izapa blink and together say, “We are in an enchantment.”

The sweetness in their minds leaves but a lingering thought,

Of what the world may become after what has been wrought.

***

Diplomatic Pouch 15

         In private apartments aboard Ship the six have divided into pairs and are in their respective rooms. First, we listen in on Friendly and Blake's conversation. Diplomatic Pouch 16 resumes with Hartolite and Justin; and, the Diplomatic Pouch segment 17 proceeds with Pyl and Yermey.

         "What are you rubbing in your hand, if I may ask?"

         Caught off guard Blake opens his left hand. He stands slightly embarrassed. "Oh, this? It was a gift from my father. He was a hunter. This is supposed to go on a key chain but I keep it for good luck -- like a rabbit's foot. Here.” He hands it to her.

         Friendly hold and feels the smoothness of the claw, thinking, this is like a ThreePlanet primate's fingernail. "What animal is this from?"

         "A bear. Dad killed the bear in the Canadian Rockies about twenty years ago. He had a silver clasp and hook made to hold the claw so it could be used as a key chain." Blake continues, "It is not the kind of luck you use for navigation on Ship, I am sure."

         "Luck. Dr. Blake – sometimes luck is all we have."

         Blake Williams was surprised by how much instant relief this comment brought. He responds positively, "Luck is something I am glad we share."

         Friendly dryly says, "Good luck is better."

         Blake laughs and shakes his head asking, "I am interested in where Ship's electronic luck is located?"

         "Here, have a seat," says Friendly. The chair rises. "The technology is packed in the floor and wall like you pack insulation, but Ship's navigationanpower is built into the outer shell much like muscle and nerves. There are safety redundancies of course."

         Seated and relaxed Blake asks, "How many redundancies?"

         "Nine."

         “There are nine safety redundancies in everything; very impressive."

         "All are interconnected with lifesaving apparatus for every individual on board." She pauses, "with you three given priority."

         Blake is silent for a moment. He wasn't sure what if any words should be said. He quietly replies, "Thank you."

         "Our culture is built on being polite even when it is not necessarily expedient." Poker-faced, Friendly adds, "You may take this as a weakness."

         Blake breaks into laughter, "The thought had not yet come up." He is more solemn in response, "You don't want to stay on this planet. This is a very dangerous place — very, very dangerous."

         Friendly comments with resolve, "We feel you three are not a threat."

         Again, relief hits Blake. He feels immediately relief and realizes how very fortunate he is and to be with two other fellow human beings he loves very much. He unconsciously wipes his right eye and in his quietest polite manner says, "Thank you, most kindly."

         "You have more questions, Dr. Blake."

         "Yes, but call me Blake Williams, please. It is more informal. This is a more personal question."

         Friendly smiles, "Yes, Dr. Williams. I was attempting to be more informal myself. I have read that some of your doctors try to relax their patients by having them call them Dr. and then their first name; but I thought Dr. Blake might still sound to formal and thus, 'Mr. Blake' because 'Blake' alone would be impolite as we have just met as we are."

         “None of us are medical doctors.” He looks at her eyes from a slant and understands. He says,  “you feel bad about your clever ruse with us early on."

         “Yes.” She lowers her guard. “We could not decide what to do. We came here to meet with Earthlings but who to meet with first?" She thinks, Ship alone made the decision. She records in long memory – this is an assumption on my part.

         "With all the great leaders in our world, leaders in all the nations; surely you could have done better than us. We are not leaders."

         "But you are a family of adults."

         Blake smiled warmly responding, "We are not always adult-minded."

         "Neither are we. Both of our species are playful when we feel at ease."

         Both fall into a relaxed common quiet for a moment. Friendly speaks, "Ship decided you three were fine for the purposes of our first meeting." She hesitates, "Would you like to know my last name?"

         Blake’s eyes lighten, ”I didn't know you had one. Yes, of course."

         “Lakenladybytherightstreamanfork." She laughs, "That's a translation. Here it is in sound Marsupialese -- QUANdomIX."

         "Friendly Quandomix."

         "Friendly would be Ar."

         "Ar Quandomix."

         “Yes,” She smiles with satisfaction. “It is strange hearing you speak in a Marsupialese voice."

         Blake comments, "I would like to know more about you and your friends?"

         Friendly shakes her head slightly, ”What about Ship?”

         "Ship too, but people first."

***

        

Chapter Sixteen

Suggestion

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.

Dead 16

         Merlyn sits comfortably on the green meadow under his favorite spiritual Oak in his sanctuary. The Scottish bluebells are in his left in his peripheral vision and the stone stage ruins, north, directly ahead, the white daisies beyond and the white foxglove and red poppy at his right peripheral. This is one of very many pleasant days in my home of homes, thinks the great druid. The grass is green as is the felt on billiard table in my mind. I am the solid yellow ball in this thought and sitting next to the larger cue ball in the center table. This is a reflection on ancient Elysium and its rules. I still hear the Supervisor in a voice hardly a whisper.

*

           "This is the Supervisor. “Elysium, the ancient Greek Place of the Dead, is the connection between the Dead and the Living in Merlyn’s heartansoulanmind. The self-learning Living may or may not help cultivate the Dead by expanding Merlyn’s unconscious dimensions of the human experience. I myself not know these things.    

          Merlyn cultivates and contributes through his self-education. What one learns in life is carried to the Dead. Hearts and minds serve as a serendipitous postal service. The Dead, being out of space and time; more easily develop abstract and metaphysical concepts and theory, which return through a slow process, similar to molecular diffusion and osmosis, to the Living. The River Styx is the conduit, a metaphor, a form that carries a current of new ideas and concepts both to the Living from the Dead and from the Dead to the Living. This is the way of Merlyn and the Living.

     The classical Dead understand Elysium is their Eve-Mother’s body. She is at the heart of the heartsansoulsanminds of the originally elected Rebellion of the Ten Thousand in Book One. Orders are few and far between, but when deeply heartfelt, Mother’s commands are unconsciously understood. Most children intuitively understand this process. The Dead are their mothers’ children first from the present back to the beginning of consciousness the original mother’s consciousness. Eve-Mother’s children recognize a possible truth when they feel it from the inside out. Feeling is not declaring however, and in here, true translation from one sense to another is not so easily accomplished no matter how heartfelt the feeling may be. Even in life, in genetics a species’ genes language, the mitochondrial DNA for example, is subject to a misinterpreted translation. It is no different, in this case, with human languages — those of the Dead and the Living.

         To absolve a few questions between the two social terms, the elite and the proletariat, for instance, I’ll say each individual is judged equally, but how the person lived is, in part, up to how the person chose to live her-or-his common life under the circumstances she-or-he lived. Souls are built, in part, for humanities’ protection and are similarly constructed.

         Hearts and minds are also distinct individual qualities. The only roost an individual halfway controls is herorhis own. This sharpens the sense of Free Will. In these books the Dead have no fear of other people. The Dead, marsupialese-humanoid or Homo sapiens, exist to grow, to mature within one’s individual heart and mind and on into the grandness of the species as a whole — a flower within the largest of flower gardens, so to speak. This is a necessity not a rule. Why else would conscious continue in existence beyond the grave?

          While I, the Supervisor, am observing an individual heartansoulanmind, herorhis soul experiences being observed. This may cause a teeter-totter of heart and mind in the deepest or lightest of unconscious and conscious levels. This is how it is to be confined in one’s humanity. This experience, a mixed play with Free Will, results in subtle changes in an individual’s contemplations at any given time.

         Contemplation is one thing; human attitudes and behaviors are another. The general cultural virtues and vices of your two species, Homo sapiens and marsupial humanoids, are separated into various higher qualities: prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude for example. The marsupial humanoids and the Homo sapiens and other species with like spiritual attributes are not to be toyed with. I, the Supervisor, wish all naturally gifted species such as yours, well. Your Milky Way Galaxy is but a single limited garden. As the Dead and Living expand their awareness of what reality is its roots, its potential, appears to grow deeper, but the root was already, long into the Before and the multidimensional concept of seeding.”

*

         "I understand," replies Merlyn as if he were speaking to a Presence. I am watched and even read, thinks Merlyn. By whom I am not sure. I am not even half an ounce in weight. I can be sucked in and out of a living lung and never know the difference. The dark pupils that bring me sight are scattered letterforms on a ghostly white background. I exist within the observation of the Supervisor; thus, I am dead and not dead both at once, no matter in what or where my shape-shifting circumstances, my letter-forming dark pupils discover they are embedded. A ghostly white sheet is a good form on which this old bard, this ancient Merlyn might abide.

***

The Brothers 16

Robert and Richard pull up beside to the neatly white clapboarded and brown-trimmed one time church, now a book store, climb out of Richard's red GTI and walk briskly over to the austere entrance below the copper clad roof of the bell tower. Once inside they make their way between mazes of mostly neat book filled rows and intermixes of interesting cubbyholes and wall fixtures to the back of the first floor.

Coming up the back corner they spotted two dark green overstuffed chairs midst a chaos of book cover colors which gave the simple framed backdrop walls the appearance of large abstract art forms stacked in various sized three-dimensional rectangular blocks of color. The two sit down somewhat recklessly into the puffed chairs before perusing through nearby book sections then moving on to the second floor and returning to the corner area where they began. Richard arrives first.

While other customers slowly meander about Richard mumbles, "Other than my kindly Marsupial humanoids helping us out, God’s promise to Sarah and Abraham is the only hope for the books I can come up Talk about fiction."

He sits a few more minutes then spies a Hebrew Bible in English on the nearby table and thumbs through Genesis until he finds Chapter 22:15 which reads, “And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham a second time out of heaven, (16) and said: 'By Myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, (17) that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; (18) and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast hearkened to My voice.'” All nations, thinks Richard; this is pretty inclusive in my story, but how do I keep the references to any particular religions out of the books?

Robert comes over from the nearby bookstand, he asks, “What did you find?”

“I found an old Hebrew-English Bible on the table, a 1917 edition, and I have the reference of God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis.”

         "Don't bring any miracles into your books," urges Robert, "the book is fiction enough as it is. What do you think human beings would do knowing they had help from God?"

         Many already assume this, considers Richard. He says, ”Then I'll have to leave it to my marsupials. I agree wholeheartedly. I have to leave God out of this.” I know better, he realizes. I don’t know if God exists or not. The concept of God exists. People will read and consider what they want to read and consider. Each comes to her or his heartfelt conclusion or to no conclusion at all. Nothing can be done to prevent this. Nothing should be done. I am free and so is everyone else. A dark humored line from Milton’s Paradise Lost forms in his mind but is interrupted.

        

         "There's politics in King Arthur's Court too. So, you're stuck with politics,” notes Robert, "And, what about the Druids and the Christians? You can't go deleting history. Your books have a tinge of historical fiction not fantasy – no comic book superheroes.” Robert glances down at the poetry book, "This is $9.95, not bad. I'm ready to go."

         "Might as well. Old Bibles are rather classy."

         "Some are worth a penny or two," grins Robert.

         They pay for the books and return to the car for a nearly silently back to Riverton.

         "What about the 1950’s books Earth Abides and I Am Legend?” asks Robert about five miles into their trip home.

         "In my original book, Braided Dreams,” says Richard, I had a twin Earth almost wiped out. The apocalypse concept has been done to death.” That was another time, another dimension, he imagines. Each book is bound by its own time, dimension and space too. No two books are alike to any writer or reader either for that matter. A book is frozen. People however cannot be bound, perhaps the concept of God cannot be bound either.

         They continue on in the mutual appreciation for silence, but upon pulling in the driveway Cyndi comes out the side door, waits for Richard to open the door, and says, "I'm going to pick up Connie. Rob do you want a ride?" He responds affirmatively then says, "Dickie has a problem with his book, what do you think he ought to do?”

         Cyndi looks at her husband and replies, “He knows. You hit the problem head on. You don’t dilly dally with it. Isn’t that right, Richie?”

         "Listen to your woman, bro.”

*

         Later Richard sits on the front porch straight and formal like his favorite grandpa used to sit with an old Bible in his hand. He stares out at the college cemetery across the street just like his lifelong follower of the local German heritage Evangelical United Brethren Church Grandpa Greystone only with another old Bible. I am on one side and they are on the other. West Walnut Street in Riverton might as well be the River Styx.

***

Grandma’s Story 16

Happy to be in private for a change, Queen Saraid, King Conaire II and young Prince Corbred walk along a private forest path when the king sees a strange mushroom on the right side of the path. It is ivory colored with brown spokes like those of a Roman chariot, the spokes of our enemy. The Prince asks,  “What is this?”

“Shall I pull it for a snack?” replies the queen.

“No, no. This may be an omen.” The king glances up. “Where is Corbred?”

“Oh, he is fine. I saw him walk on ahead, but he will not go far without me.”

King Conaire II stands and looks about scrutinizing the trail. “I don’t see him.”

“That little boy,” replies Saraid, “has never run off before. He is usually tugging on my dress.”

*

Meanwhile little Corbred is on a trail of his own. I’m not afraid of anything, he thinks. The fox is a menace and I will chase him until he tires and then I’ll bring him home by his tail. Everyone will see how marvelous I am.  Corbred’s eyes continue focusing on the tail end of the fox.

*

“The boy’s your responsibility,” comments the king in his clearly royal voice.

“Yes, m’Lord,” replies the queen with no further comment.

"The mushroom is a bad omen. I think the Faeries are behind this, comments the King nervously.

“We must find him,” exclaims Queen Saraid fearfully. “Faeries will want to bargain for our son?” Or worse, she fears they’ll steal his soul?

*

Corbred, who lost the fox, hears a great horned owl hoot “Whoo” once near the top of the old tree.

Corbred, not sure what he heard innocently answers, “Prince Corbred”

“Whoo,” replies the owl.

“I am Corbred, and I want my mother.”

The old owl flies off.

Exhausted from the hunt the boy lay on the worn animal trail and into a deep sleep. He had a dream encased in sharp teeth. Here is little lost Corbred’s dream:

“Hello, little boy, this is your Grandmother. What sharp front teeth you have. I will have one of those.” She reached in his mouth and pulled it out.

When Corbred awakes he discovers his left front tooth is missing. He wonders about this for hours because he can find it nowhere.

In late mid-morning he hears his mother’s voice and quickly runs toward her. “Corbred!” she exclaims, “I knew I would find you.”

“I was hunting a fox, Mother, See, I found his den looking for my tooth. How did you know to find me here?”

         “This was the only animal trail we hadn’t yet searched.”

         “I didn’t notice,” he says, “I kept my eyes on the red tail because I knew the fox’s head was at the other end.” Besides, he thinks, better the red tail of a fox than of a dragon.

         “You sound just like your uncle,” laughs his mother. She asks, “What happened to your tooth? I didn’t know it was loose.”

         “Grandmother came by in the night and took it out.”

         “Grandmother? Both of your grandmothers are dead, Corbred. You know that.”

         He replies indigently. “Well, someone took it,”

         She sighs then she politely comments, “Your father will say a faery took your tooth.”

         Corbred turns white as a sheet. “Faeries take your soul, not your teeth,” he replies. He quietly considers, I never thought of the faeries in my dream. I thought of Grandmother.

         “Don’t bother with it, son,” says Mother, “It’s just old men’s talk.” He gives her a look that might have frightened her but did not. She asks, “What’s the matter, Corbred?”

         “My front tooth left an opening in my mouth, Mother, and it is making me faery afraid.”

         She laughed softly, “Don’t worry, you are safe. No need to be afraid.” With a motherly smile she adds, “I’m not afraid.”

         Corbred thinks it is good to keep his mouth shut so no one can see the gap in his teeth. He thinks people might mind a Faerie's gap. Besides, a lost tooth is better than being a lost soul. That is what got him to thinking, putting tooth and soul together in the same sentence. He was never the same boy after. As he matured he minded the gap and became known as Corbred the Silent even though he’d grown many adult teeth in his life.

*

         Grandma chuckles and slides quietly between the toes of her nearest reader. She nestles there, between those toes whenever they touch the bare earth. Grandma comments, “Everyone thinks she or he knows the difference between a tooth and a soul by the hole it leaves behind.”

         A whisper from afar, “I know the difference,” says the still small lost ghostly child in Corbred’s well-worn nearly extinguished spirit.”

*

         Grandma relinquishes her chuckle and in an added wink says, “One has to be careful about what she or he thinks she or he knows for sure. The Place of the Dead is full of such spirited people who think they know most everything.

***

Diplomatic Pouch 16

         Justin and Hartolite are seated and semi-relaxed. Justin focuses on the figurine sitting on the drink stand to Hartolite's right. He asks, "What is that on the table?"

         "The finger-cup-with-a-top? It is filled with sacred water from home,” answers Hartolite warmly.

         "It looks empty. I thought it was a vase to put a single flower in, except it is not quite tall enough."

         She responds contentedly, "When I am homesick I put it in my pouch when I go to sleep. It is comforting."

         "Pardon?"

         "I put the finger-cup-with-a-top in my pouch for comfort. She picks up the small vase and hands it to him."

         Justin takes it with self-consciousness, "It's soft. I thought it was glass." A nasty thought hits and he tries to dismiss it. His cheeks redden. 

         Showing an immediate concern Hartolite asks, "Are you embarrassed? What is embarrassing? I mean, if I may ask. I will try to rectify it."

         "No, no. I'll set the relic here."

          Hartolite stands reaching for the vase and says, "I'll take it, Dr. Justin.”

          He hands it to her with relief. ”Call me Justin, Hartolite. PhD’s are not medical doctors."

         "That would be rude,” she replies. “It would be impolite for us to be presumptuous. Earthlings are all titled, that's what we are taught."

         "We are more equal than titled with a Mr. or Dr. that's what we believe, that is what are laws say."

         "Saying and being are two different things."

         "See," brightens Justin, "We agree on that."

         "I am happy that you consider us equal. May I ask you an equal question?” Not waiting for his response she asks, “Is having sex fun?"

         Jarred by the question Justin attempts to remain professional. ”Do you mean foreplay or intercourse?"

         Hartolite laughs at his awkwardness. Just like our men, she thinks. "No, I meant 'Isn't sex fun. I like it?'"

         Justin laughs at the thought but remains anxious. To relieve the silence he quietly replies, "Our species thinks so, but, uh, affairs are not looked highly upon in our culture."

         "Then why are there so many?"

         "I don't know." What about your culture? Our social rules are complicated. How do you dispense justice?" He meant to say marriage.

         "That's an easy question. We have three judges. After a hearing they pronounce the person not guilty or guilty."

         "No jury?"

         "Why would you want to complicate the justice?"

         "It is like your Supreme Court only it is an equal court," comments Hartolite matter-of-factly. Then a quick change of subject, "Since we are equal would you like to see my pouch?"

         Am I being seduced, he thinks. I want to give her a long warm hug. He says, ”Isn’t that a bit intimate?"

         "No. We marsupial humanoids are built to share our pouches." She stands and drops her outer pants slowly. "See, here it is." I would never show my pouch to our primates at home. They might attack me."

         Justin stands in a thought, marsupials have primates. He wants to discuss this but a seemingly polite curiosity takes charge. His heart races but his mind carries the tone of a medical doctor, "There is a brownish ridge like an old scar."

         "You can touch it."

         Justin does. "It is a rubbery soft texture."

         “You can put your hand in with permission. Our men put their hand in the pouch whenever they can. Usually when we are alone in the apartment as we are now. Go ahead.” She eases his hand down inside.

         Surprised, Justin comments, ”This is soft and slightly moist. My goodness – this is very calming and pleasurable - I feel like my hand is being given a full body massage."

         "That's why our men like it. It is the same for us women too. When I put my hand in my pouch or in Friendly's pouch we become very relaxed, like we are crawlbabes in a sleep."

         Thinking about her hand in Friendly’s pouch, Justin slowly pulls his right hand out and politely steps back while she adjusted her outer pants. "I don't know what to say."

         Hartolite giggles, ”Neither do our men. Isn't that funny?”

         Their eyes meet in a sparkle and Justin automatically reflects her giggle.

         Both laugh and are strangely more intimate friends than just moments before. Hartolite is sure this is a good sign that the two species are indeed equal just as Justin had said. She thinks, ParentsinCharge at ThreePlanets are wrong. We two species have similar strengths in our wit, laughter and intimate touch.

***

Chapter Seventeen

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 17

         The observer modifies what is observed, thinks Merlyn while sitting cross-legged facing south toward the meadow of ragged robin and white foxglove over the stage ruins. He grouses, "I am watched. How does this entanglement change my ever-present state?”

         I can only read my own mind as a measuring device. I measure the human heart and I measure my intuitive soul. These are as rays of filtered light through a deepened, water-like consciousness that rises or sinks tide-like and when alone, as now, I am without a mirror’s reflection.

         This presence of soul is also an observer but unlike myself -- a near-parallel and near-equal self -- a natural doppelganger of shadow-less spirit. This is a sensory experience, a human experience, be this spirit encased in living matter or no. The lingering awareness of 'a separate being' in heartansoulanmind exists nevertheless.

*

         Merlyn falls into a memory of Plutarch, whom he met at the Academy of Athens when Plutarch was in also in parallel and once entangled memory. Plutarch stands with his friend Senecio and their discussion is on how long consciousness will last after death.

         "Excuse me," utters Merlyn, "Did I overhear that one of you is Plutarch of Chaeronea, the once senior priest at Delphi?"

         "I am," comments the Greek on the right. "And you are?"

         "Merlyn, a man interested in the arts, living some six hundred years after yourself and this is your friend, Senecio, I presume."

         "Yes, I am," responds Senecio somewhat surprised, "And you are which Merlyn?"

         "Merlyn, a Scottish bard of the seventh century."

         "I know of you Merlyn," notes Plutarch intuitively sensing that he was once read by this man. "You are interested in Pythia."

         "And, yourself?” divulges Merlyn. "I see we are engaged through channeled memories."

         "Astute of you."

         "I would like to meet Pythia,” announces Merlyn.

         Plutarch smiles confidently, "Why?"

         Merlyn speaks distinctly and clearly as always, "I want to meet Pythia in a tranced mind."

         In a manner echoing Merlyn's, Plutarch asserts, "We two have a similar interest at heart."

         "Dead, does she still make pronouncements?"

         "An oracle needs not, Delphi or any other place. Besides, what is more sacred than Elysium?"

         Merlyn observes Senecio smiling then nodding politely before fading like worn colors in a rainbow. An ornery insight wanders into Merlyn’s sight and he suggests, 'Perhaps, Senecio, Avalon is more sacred than Elysium'.

         “Perhaps,” he responds, “Senecio and I will talk later, Merlyn."

         Merlyn turns to his left to see an attending fair and vibrant female physique personify from nothing. I am reminded of a sword once thrust onto this graceful fresh hand that grasps the blade which would rather push first before being pulled from the scabbord.”

         Plutarch smiles wearily and declares, ”Xaire, Pythia, how kind of you to join me.”

         Pythia appears Celtic rather than Greek, realizes Merlyn. Coal black hair falling near, parsing her wide-open green eyes slanting his direction as sheer theatre curtains. 'What a wonderfully well looking woman you were in life' flew into his mind as he bowed slightly and saying, "I am Merlyn, a sage of Caledonia, old Scotland."

         "I know your name," responds Pythia.

         “Here I am, not yet physically born to die and move on. Yet, here I am.”

         She notes, "Yet here you are, and we three talk together as though we three are livingandead at once."

         "We speak through our heartsanminds," recites Merlyn confidently, "not our souls."

         "The soul is first," disciplines Plutarch, "our souls gathered for this meeting."

         "Souls do not display purpose," reveals Merlyn unapologetically. He asks, "I cannot foresee the future and am looking for a clue as to how the Second Rebellion will help or hinder the future Living?"

         While seemingly speaking from her soul, Pythia remarks, "I see your many eyes, Merlyn."        

         Merlyn's hand rises gently and without the slightest caution he touches her left cheek while saying, "I have only the two common eyes I had in life."

         Plutarch replies, "You cannot be alive and dead both at once. This is a dangerous illusion Merlyn. This meeting is in a fact not constructible as is."

         Pythia gathers her face into Plutarch reasoning, "I know what Merlyn wishes and you may speak my response."

         Thus, Plutarch in an immediate gaze, says in a feminine voice, ”The lumpiness under a bushy tops hold the dusty desert to the ground, Merlyn, while the small wind-made dry furrowing arteries blast free from below the bushy tops."

         "A riddle for the Living, not for me," declares Merlyn with a grin.

         Coiling in mind, Pythia whispers to the inner heart of her oldest of old friends Plutarch, “Right or wrong on his vision of the soul, this man walks with eyes in the soles of his feet, and I swear that upon the touch of his fingerless finger on my cheek I felt a tear."

***

The Brothers 17

         Robert and Richard sit on a bench with their eyes towards College Park’s Lake Major; Lake Minor is to the west and just out of sight. The large roofed picnic table area sits to the northeast between the two small lakes in Riverton's favorite park also a stream and surrounding woods as well as flowers, mowed grass, a Kid's Play Area and meadowland for birds and other critters. Just the sort of modern area Merlyn would enjoy. They focus on the great blue heron fishing near the west bank. He stands patiently with a closed wingspan, a yellow beak and black plumes running the neckline.

         A wingspan of more than six feet, references Robert, about my height; it is a magnificent, a solid feathered bird standing in its natural habitat.

         "We used to come here as kids; it was almost more fun than the cemetery," comments Richard.

         "I remember coming here with the girls our senior year  -- old Riverton High, Class of 1960.” says Robert thinking, now it's a refurbished honors elementary school, our once small town now has over 30,000 people.

         "I was dating Connie then," says Richard.

         "And, I, Cyndi." Robert smiles. "Here we are seventy; a long road since seventeen." Both laugh.

         "How did it come to this? You a retired surgeon and me a retired professor, who would have thought."

         “Back then we were both in Air Force ROTC at John Knox. We were going to make it a career,” comments Robert.

         Richard adds, "And the girls were both at Case Western for nursing degrees our sophomore year. It was rough with them being gone.

         Robert continues to focus on the quiet heron who is retrospective like himself.

         Suddenly the great blue lets out a discordant screeching.

         Richard in delight says, ”He sounds like a dinosaur in an old movie."

         “Unmercifully so," replies Rob. "Why the squawk?" They watch the wings rise as if they were going to pull his five-pound body out of the water with a single flap then they refold.

         Robert comments, ”It is an intentional act of will and hunger. He stands down wings in place."

         “It is an existential act. We raised our wings once and it kept the girls and us together," declares Richard.

         "We four were always attracted to one another," injects Robert. "Look, the heron is back to stalking a fish."

         "You failed the ROTC physical in the Spring, and in the Fall the Cuban Missile Crises loomed."

         "It was our junior year. We thought we going to die in a nuclear holocaust brought on by arrogance or accident."

         "That was an existential world drama," expresses Robert. "We thought we were going to die. If the Russian ship did not stop a news report said we would see the beginning of a war few would survive."

         "I remember that if the missiles were fired from Cuba we would have about twenty minutes. We both wanted to call the girls but the frat house phone was busy," says Richard. He chuckles in the dark humor. "I was taking World Drama from Dr. C that semester. It was either Ionesco’s  "The Chairs" or Beckett's Waiting for Godot. In any case the class focus was the Theatre of the Absurd during those days."

         Robert responds, "The missile crisis was absurdly real."

         Richard nods, "Just like that blue heron; a fish just jumped, the bird focuses, catches and swallows it down. Reflex to survive." Richard pauses, "Maybe all that intelligence and patience is the same; the chips were down and humanity had a reflex to survive the moment."

         "Another kind of reflex could have brought a nuclear holocaust," reckons Robert. “Maybe in another worldly dimension it did.”

          Ignoring the comment Richard says, ”I willed my way through graduate school; and you through medical school. That was real drama."

         Robert stays matter-of-fact, "We married our high school sweethearts. We became who we are, fathers; and Connie and Cyndi continued their careers as mothers and registered nurses."

         In quiet honesty Richard asks, "What real difference did it make as to which one each of us married?"

         "I'm sure Connie and Cyndi know. They made the choice as to who was marrying whom not us. You do know that don't you Richie?"

         "I guess. I don't really like to think on it. The girls used their free will. To each the marriage was an existential act but for us the dual marriage ceremony was a kind of personal indifference as to who married whom." Both nervously laugh at the secret.

         "It is like they were the identical twins, not us," quips Rob unexpectedly.

         "Very bizarre." Both laugh. Richie shakes his head, "Never thought of it like that. Hey, we both loved both girls equally. I don't think it really makes any difference."

         Robert adds, ”And we do love them still."        

         "Very odd. Sometimes life almost doesn't seem real does it? I mean here we are, seventy years old sitting on a park bench watching the birds. We could be dead.”

         "It's real enough, bro. Wait until we get home to our significant other then we’ll know whether we are alive or not." Both laugh aloud at the juxtapostioning of the light and dark humor.

Grandma's Story 17

This chapter’s story setting is in the year three hundred and five and we are in the Roman town of Durolevum, Britannia, present day Canterbury, England. We are visiting a couple who have dealt with a tragedy. At fifty, Copia Minor is a tiny woman with red and streaks of gray hair. Lethargus is dark haired though with streaks of white, he is taller and has more of a Roman look than Copia Minor.

         One of Copia Minor and Lethargus favorite places in Durolevum is the Roman temple built on the southwest side of the city. This temple is similar in design to the modern day Supreme Court Building in Washington D. C.

Empty, the temple appears as a mausoleum in search of occupants. It became the couple's privately shared memorial, an imaginary playroom for their two lost young children who had accidently drown in the Rhine some years earlier. Lethargus and Copia Minor secretly placed some of the children’s toys for memories of the children in the southwest temple floor where they believe their children may come and play together once again.

One day Copia says, “I do believe they have gone on. I don’t see them anymore.”

“I never saw them,” replies Lethargus. “I know you did. That was enough for me.”

“The children were here yesterday. Today they are not.”

Lethargus sighs, “This is the way it was on the Rhine.”

“How could our children's spirits leave the temple?” asks Copia.

“How did they arrive here in the first place?” asks Lethargus politely.

“Perhaps they returned to be with our hearts,” suggests Copia.

“Our hearts are no place for young children to be. We will die one day, then where will they go?”

“Use your glass, Lethargus. Put them under glass.”

“Glass is not to be used for such spiritual matters.”

“Why?”

“The soul may be trapped forever beneath its transparency.”

She pleads softly. “Use a special glass, Lethargus, I know they are hiding somewhere.”

“I will go look,” he replies, “but you said they were gone only moments ago.”

“I was wrong. The children are hiding,” she pleads, “we need to put their young souls in the special bottle that we can carry.”

         Suddenly afraid her children’s spirits had slide through the cracks in the temple floor, Copia hears her speaking heart, “Vipsania and Germanicus, please come out of hiding. Come be with your mother.” She quickly surmises the children believe Mother is playing a game.

         Copia waits and waits. Lethargus did not return as quickly as she expected. He is always a busy man. Deep inside Copia Minor thinks, my children have seeped between the cracks and are sliding into the Underworld by themselves. A good parent should be there with them to help them along the way. She was beside herself.

*

         I, Grandma enter the story in disguise and show myself at the door of the temple as an older lady at least that is how I am seen. I quietly ask, “Copia, can I be of any assistance?

          “Momma,” replies Copia, “Momma, I can’t find my children? Shut the door, Momma. Please shut the door or Vipsania and Germanicus may run out of the temple. I do not know what I’m going to do. I promised them that Lethargus or I would always be with them. We thought they’d like it better here in the temple than in the Rhine River where they drown. The children talk to me, and sometimes I can see them. Lethargus knows I can do this. It gives him comfort. I have never told an untruth to Lethargus in my life. He is a good man. He is a good husband. We fell in love at the temple on the Rhine, Momma. This is a smaller temple but our hearts are in here Momma, and our children too. I don’t want them to be lost.” Reality suddenly voiced with a, “Momma, you’re dead. Who are you old woman?”

         “Copia Minor, you are confused. I am a traveler taking old Watling Road to Londinium, and I stopped in for a few moments of solitude. I am always on one side of old Watling or another, all the way to Oxford and back. I walk the long road Copia.”

         An aroused Copia asks, “How do you know my name?”

         “I know everybody’s name, child.”

         A chill rolled up Copia’s narrow spine, she declares, “You are Death; Death looks exactly my mother.”

         “I am not Death, Copia, I am yourself.”

         Copia sees Lethargus in memory's doorway and with a blink Grandma disappeared into the street. “Am I mad?” she questions aloud. In the silence Copia Minor hears this little poem in the voices of Vipsania and Germanicus:

We see our bodies head to toe

But what, oh what is the self to know?

We each view a self without regret

Though we don’t know what self is quite yet,

A mirror can’t see our self reside,

The mirror can’t see the us inside.

***

Diplomatic Pouch 17

         Dusk, the same day. Friendly sits in a chair at the dark walnut round table. The others quickly adjust to a seat. Friendly looks to her immediate left and sees Blake, and Yermey sits in the chair beyond. To Friendly's immediate right is Justin with Hartolite sitting beyond. To Yermey's left and Hartolite's right sits Pyl who is closest to facing Friendly directly.

         "Where's Ship?" asks Friendly, and Yermey pulls what appears to be a small translucent marble from his right trouser pocket and places it near the center of the table.

         Blake and the others watch as the white-as-paper round marble lifts slightly and adjusts to the exact table center equidistance from the surrounding people. It rises to the average height and size of the sitting humanoid species and takes the outer shape of a globular mirrored through holographic tricks, thinks Blake. Each person appears to be looking at Ship's iconic face directly. 

         "I am ready, Captain Friendly," says Ship intuitively.

         Friendly speaks more formally, "Thank you. In a few minutes Ship-O-My-Mothers."

         'Polite form in flight,' reckons Ship. He replies. "Ready when you are, Captain Friendly, crew and honored guests."

         Why don't you call Ship 'SOMM' wonders Justin, or SOMM 10, a name of some kind. Ship is so generic.

         Too polite, reasons Blake quietly. I think this may be a set up. He smiles politely at Hartolite who mirrors his expression.

         We hardly know you people, considers Pyl. We were in casual conversation and I was feeling good but when this Ship Machine speaks I get goose bumps on my shoulder blades. Pyl eyeballs her husband silently conveying help me out here.

         Yermey, looking across at Justin, scans the table. He grins like he is sitting comfortably in the middle of a joke and comments, "The point of this little production is for your entertainment, nothing more. We want you to feel at ease on board, but perhaps we should play a game of cards or dominoes with some refreshments instead."

          "We can do that," says Friendly casually, "then you three can get a good night's sleep and tomorrow we can go for a short ride."

         Blake's eyes light and excitement measures in his voice, "You are going to take us around the world as if we were in the space station. That would be awesome. I don't even know how high we are."

         "We could be on the Moon as far as we know," echoes Justin and grins, "Where do you think we are, Pyl?"

         "Good idea," says Hartolite. "A guessing game. Where do you think we are?"

         "Each guess, then we'll show you," laughs Friendly. "I'm sure you are all wondering."

         "This could be like a Mission Impossible movie. We could be sitting in a warehouse somewhere on Earth," comments Blake.

         "Or, really on the Moon," adds Justin secretly hoping it is so.

         "I think we are hovering at eighty to ninety-thousand feet," says Pyl. She couldn't help smiling with the others. "Where are we Captain Friendly?"

         "Good call," responds Friendly. "We are in Earth atmosphere at seventy-thousand feet, hovering over Cleveland, Ohio. Straight down are your Rock and Roll Museum and the Great Lakes Science Center."

         Yermey adds, "It sounds like the two men would like a short ride with the window shades up. Shades are down because we are in Blackanot. We cannot be detected by Earth built electronics or outside human sight."

         "Besides, we thought it might be disorienting to have them up," explains Hartolite. "We would be happy to give you a short ride."

         "You already have us nearly out of the atmosphere and I never felt a thing," says Pyl.

         "You and Blake are experienced pilots, but Justin is not. He does not enjoy flying like you two," comments Friendly in a matter-of-fact manner.

         "Is this true, Justin?" asks Pyl. She observes his small sheepish grin. "It is. Why didn't you tell us you are afraid of flying?"

         "I'm fine,” reasons Justin. “Friendly is right though, I do get apprehensive. I trust you and Blake but I don't trust the plane. Things can go wrong. Planes crash and sometimes for reasons not clear."

         Ship adds, "You are safer up here with us than you are on your own planet."

         "Let's go to the dark side of the moon for some sight-seeing, declares Friendly.

         By the time the shades filter for the best of human eye viewing the six find themselves silently witnessing the dark side. Smiles all around and no one utters a word. What can anyone say in such a quick, quiet, comfortable and unique human experience?

***

Chapter Eighteen

Brevity

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.

         Merlyn has this little ditty memorized to the point it sits in stemmed reverence from which the four-leafed chapter dream grows to novel size and beyond. Merlyn kneads the dreams into words, the music for the heartansoulanmind whose transcendental spirit shines. The words cast a light for those have no sight and for those with an imagination that casts no shadow.

The Dead 18

         I, Vivian, wait on love once again deliberated from heartansoulanmind with a brooding lip, I am at once again vivacious and uncommon fourteen year old. I am young in years but half a divine moonth along in years rather than days. I am as a babe unslaughterable ready to capturing this Merlyn, this great Bard and Druid of our own Caledonia, who is beyond a doubt more than double my age. My thin soft white linen robe drapes suggestively tight or loose where welcome for a visual shadowy enrichment the dark triangle outlined below and subtle fresh fruit-sized bosoms, taut nippled to further enhance this Merlyn's questing imagination. Glancing down her breasts tingle in the goosiest of small bumps, each as a firm faery stem ready to flower for an immediate pollination.

         Happily glad, trooping seelings, the blessed faeries, conjure me a-musing . . . wondrously and sprite-like they, a piloerection of tiny hairs about to shoot feminine succulents for love's quick aroma in this our Master Druid's most deserving nostrils.

         I, a druidess spectacular, swell in mind, shape-shifting my supple young heart to sway to the natural craving of our two druidic souls reuniting from Beyond to intertwine in naked modern worldly ways of memory’s seventh century. In intuition and grace we shall be one and invisible but for the subtlest sighs of a gentle breeze at play among and upon the highest leaves on the massive Oak.

         Bay tree laurels, like reason, are not for this momentary crowning. Pray today, thinks Vivian, no victors here but for Merlyn's plowing into my wholesomely moist earth. A virginal seeding is not so much a clutching as it is the outreach of hot passionate desire in both our melting part.

*

         “It is this enraptured youthful wish, say Merlyn, “of mistaking mind for heart that leads my young Vivian into the gravest error, an accident of unforeseen and unpredictable circumstance. Faeries, Vivian should have known, have greater trooping smiles in a spiritedness bordering on lasciviousness compounded by obsession rather than love-in-reason which in this earthly reality all living consciously are bound by even in Death. She stands forever if it suits her, a young lady-by-the-lake, ready to walk up and out the forest path exit ready to greet me, the man she has known for lifetimes but never once on Earth.”

*

         Perchance here is Merlyn shared-in-memory, assumes Vivian. Likewise, he stands a pace or two from heart’s forest path awaiting a twenty-first century physics experiment in quantum entanglement. Such is it being Dead that Merlyn's soul instills heartansoulanmind with no need of further memory. Merlyn feels my secret dreams of yore are but manifestations of Divine Justice. Little does he know the wiles flushing from my soul to heartanmind.

*

         In an earlier time in life, plods Merlyn in mind, I was sitting on a recently fallen log minding my own business wondering how I would think as the second common element, air. Everyone knows how it is to be made of Earth and neither Fire nor Water would be so fully comfortable for its burning up or running off. Air; nothing is so intimate, long lasting and invisible. What I could be and do? He smiles soul-contented, knowing intuitively that to be naked and running, the woods invisibly clothed in Air the most free and natural of Aristotle's magical four. The breathe of God will be my Heaven. That was my wish in those days when I measured these first thirty-six years in life.

         Waiting for the white dressed druidess by the lake Merlyn brushes the back of his head as if an ant had falling from a tree leaf and is taking flight. My virginity contains naturally cultivated creative powers and one day I will know what it is to be invisible. On that day I shall become the sovereign's Arch Druid's master (so thinks Merlyn).

*

         In this interval between space and time Merlyn glance at mind’s billiard table, clean and empty of balls, and he wonders if it is fair and just that reasonable cause and effect appeared to be eluding him. How can it be that when I first ponder on my first meeting with Vivian there are no balls on the slate?

         I am thirty-six and a virgin and this would-be-druidess is a young fourteen in heart but not so in mind. In memory vivid we are about to meet for the first time. I see her stealthily ambling through the memory of woods and two arms outstretched from the lake's touch. Vivian knows I see her for more than she is, a true druidess in the making. He glances down and sees two grounded goose feathers, one pointed towards her and the other pointed towards him.

         How can it be we share the same pinion feathers when they point quills opposite? Is this an event to be calligraphic in our two minds forever? Mind to heart and heart to soul – is this but a practice for full sharing. Open-minded, I am ready for anything but the losing of heart’s self-discipline in this world and the next.

The Brothers 18

         Connie and Cyndi sitting on the wood stained gliding swing chair for two and Robert and Richard were sitting in sturdier charcoal black chairs one on either side of the porch glider, and on the other side of the street lies John Knox College Cemetery.

         Robert and Richard had just adjusted their sitting on the warm cloudy day. Robert speaks first, "Where are we going for supper?"

        

         "Let's go uptown for a change, I'm tired of the chains," replies Cyndi.

        

         "That's a good idea, how about Jimmy John's?" adds Connie.

        

         "And we could have Graeter’s ice cream for desert," replies Cyndi.

         "That was quick. Sounds settled then," comments Robert shaking his head with the hint of a grin. He adds with a hint of sarcasm. "What did you want to do, Richie?"

         Richard grumbles, "Like it would make a difference." Noting the sharp looks from both women, he mimics his brother's dry grin. In a slightly higher pitch Richard asks, "Where did you want to eat, Robbie?"

         He shrugs his shoulders, "Hey, Jimmy John's is fine with me."

         "Why do you two not speak up? Why didn't you suggest where you wanted to go, Richie?" asks Cyndi.

         "Why didn't you ask a minute or so ago?" His shuffled face explains he had made his point.

         "We can't read your mind, Richie," says an irritated Connie.

         "We can just let them scramble up some baked beans and hot dogs for themselves," reinforces Cyndi.

         "Mind reading would be illegal because of privacy laws," quips Richard.

         "Let's go to the kitchen, Connie." The sister leave but it is the brothers who sense banishment.

         Richard feels a tinge of guilt for instigating the squabble, thinking, 'I'll pay for this incident later,' but says, “How’s your cemetery poem coming, Rob?”

         “I haven’t been working on it, but I have another I’m dressing up.”

         “Let’s see it.”

         Robert left the porch for a few moments then returned. “I had it in the folder under the car seat along with a few others I like to work on from time to time.”

         “Like where do you work?”

         “Sometimes when I am out for a short drive I will go down to the park, sometimes just a parking lot, or park under an old shade tree down the street. I can dig out a poem and see if the setting helps change my attitude towards the words. Here’s the poem.”

         Richard reads Robert’s poem intently, recognizing his own parallel patterned thinking.

*

TRANSPLANT WAITING ROOM, CHIIDREN'S HOSPITAL

                                                                                

                                    Parents pace among the scarred tables,

                                    settle anxiously into shell craters,

                                    stare about for tonic comfort.

                                    New magazines paint the litter of butchery:

                                    more reminding of a holocaust

                                    With one picture, a girl,

                                    middle of a row, gently smiling

                                    At a sweet, treasured thought

                                    lost to the ashen grass of Auschwitz;

                                    It was the Christians, at Chatila--

                                    broken rooms, stray dogs lapping

                                    Blood from pools, furnishings line

                                    the roads, the gray remains compose;

                                    Children sled, tumble, cane to rest

                                    in the red snow of Sarajevo;

                                    Good intentions stick to poles,

                                    grim advertisements for aid.

                                    Western Art in gilded frames haunts the walls:

                                    Still life with ripe fruit; poppies

                                    bleeding a hillside; myths of Primavera

                                    down the bright corridors of morning;

                                    Yet in one scene, parents perhaps,

                                    bending the will to stoop,

                                    Glean the fields at evening --

                                    they could be Arab women

                                    sorting clothes at Kasserine Pass,

                                    or thin fathers picking rice

                                    Among the limbs near Camranh Bay, or

                                    Parents, bent at the bed of human future,

                                    who have sent the organ-gathering troops?

                                    To scour the farms of combat,

                                    and who have willingly bowed

                                    toward the any-price of child salvation.

*

         “I’m not sure what to say about this. It leaves me re-organizing your thoughts and speechless at the same time.”

         Robert gives him a sardonic look, saying, “That’s really quite a helpful criticism, Richie.”

         Richard returns with, “Sarcasm is a slice and dice scalpel, Robbie boy.”

         “I get it, Dickie.”

         Richard retorts slowly and more seriously, “That’s the problem with words sometimes, you think they mean one thing in context, and it turns out they mean something else again.”

         “That’s what was good about being a surgeon,” says Robert. “I was in and out, and the body being operated on was never my own.”

         With a twinkle in his eye, Richard responds, “You can’t cut your thoughts, like it or not, the brain just keeps on working and producing.”

         “These brains of ours will stop one of these days, then where will we be, bro?” comments Robert, who almost always slams in the last word of a conversation.

         Rob’s content with having the last word, sighs his brother, and frankly I can’t think of anything else to say. I’m getting hungry. We need the girls so we can go to lunch.

***

Grandma's Story 18

         This is Grandma. Bloodlines were important to the Royals of Europe within their national identities of religious power. This story’s legendary bloodline traces to Pharamond, King of Westphalia, who died in four hundred and thirty of your common era. In this story King Pharamond is about to declare his love to Argotta Genebald of the East Franks an important royal bloodline link.

We are in a forest clearing. Princess Argotta of the East Franks sits on the trunk of a large fallen walnut tree and faces east. King Pharamond wishes to sit beside her, but under the circumstance, he sits on a smaller oak log facing her.

Pharamond thinks in this time of muddled and muddy politics and religion in our cultures – I am attracted to all that I see – beauty, though not beyond compare. Argotta sits as a friend, and as a possible lover and mother; yet most important, as I muse she sits a princess. First, I must tell her I love her, and second, I must ask for her hand in marriage, a state marriage already secretly approved of.

*

Should I wait until he speaks, thinks Princess Argotta? It seems only polite to do so. I don’t know why he wants me to be his walking companion in this forest? He has not made any advancement though now I wonder. The king is the point and sharply double edged. I am no flat of steel though; I appear to be the handle of such a metaphorical sword. I can exchange with a blade handle easily enough. Harmonies exist in a marriage of royal metals. It is odd for me to have such a quick thrusted feeling thought. I should up a shield for his silence, but now, strangely, I do not care for one. Normally I maintain the need to speak. It is the job of a Princess to speak her mind. Others need to know what to do.

“We haven’t seen the owl today,” interrupts King Pharamond.

“No, we haven’t milord.”

         “You are beautiful when your cheeks are red, my Princess Argotta,” discloses the king.

         She smiles pleasantly while looking at Pharamond, saying, “My King, did you know I am skilled in the art of blacksmithing?”

         Pharamond nervously laughs at the unexpected remark, “I did not, m’Lady. I had no idea. Where did you learn the arts?”

         “My father, the King. He is skilled in the ancient arts.”

         “I did not know.” . . . along with what other secrets, he wonders.

         She stands, straight and ancestrally proud, “Yes, when Father discovered I was interested in the arts he taught me. I have created a sword with my own hands, m’Lord,”

         Pharamond smiles warmly. “I did not expect this. Your father is of the old ways.” He quickly conjectures and says, “I always considered him a follower of the Bishop of Rome.”

         “That he is, and so am I. We do not agree with the Visigoth tribes to the south. We accept Jesus as God. I understand the Visigoth and perhaps you question this.”

         “True,” says the king. “Some people have doubts.” As have I, he considers.

         Without thinking or even flinching, Argotta immediately replies, “Jesus as God is not a fact, m’Lord.”

         Pharamond is taken back momentarily confused, “What do you mean, my Princess Argotta?”

         The king's unusual royal tone takes Argotta by complete surprise. She quickly replies, “You cannot doubt a fact, milord.”

         The king responds in relief. “You are skilled in the academics also, I see.”

         “Of course, m’Lord. What would you expect of a princess?”

         King Pharamond gathers military courage and blurts, “I would like you to be my queen, if you so desire it also. You will always be free to verbally respond to me as a man would respond, Princess Argotta both in public and in private.”

         “This is not the Catholic way, m’Lord.”

         “In private we each are not the Catholics we are perceived as in public. We have more in common than I suspected.”

         “We do, m’Lord,” questions Argotta as she steps towards the king. She kneels automatically and draws her right hand forth as if it holds an invisible and magic sword, “I accept your kind offer for I know we have a secret. You may thus kiss your future queen’s hand, my King Pharamond.”

Old Grandma knows which way it goes

Along the genetic path petal-filled with rose;

Hand in hand from any solitary Eden left

Is an ancient story of an Eve and Adam bereft.

***

Diplomatic Pouch 18

         "Who would have ever thought we would see this live?" utters Blake.

         "Never in a million years," declares Justin.

         "What does this mean?" asks Pyl.

         Justin quickly rebuts, "Why does this scene have to mean something, Pyl? Jeez.          Here we are in an alien ship witnessing the dark side of the Moon."

         "There is a purpose,” grimaces Pyl. “What do they want from us?"

         Yermey appears to pop up from nowhere, "You ask a good question, Pyl Burroughs."

         "Here it comes," mumbles Justin.

         "What's that?" smiles Yermey.

         Blake grins sardonically, "He means my sister will be direct.”

         Yermey chuckles, puts his hand on Blake's shoulder saying, "Let's go in here and sit for a minute where we can talk comfortably."

         The relatively non-descript empty room has two chairs and a couch up and in place for sitting while the ceiling and upper walls create a soft lighting. Blake enjoys Yermey's comrade-like touch and says, "All this room needs is a fire lit fireplace to appear from the far dark wooded wall."

         Yermey laughs softly, commenting, "No fireplaces here but I could arrange for one.”

         "No, that's fine,” responds Blake.

         “Excuse me a moment, I’ll be back.” The dark wooden wall is provided as an accent as Yermey leaves.

         Pyl sits on the couch with Justin fitting in beside her, "I don't know what's fine, Blake,” she says. “We don't know, but I assume we are going to be used by these people."

         Justin realizes Pyl hardly knows he is here comforting. He off-handedly falls into Pyl’s mood, "Pyl's right, Blake. We need to know more before we get cozy with these people.” He thinks, ‘after all the man said, ‘he’d be back’. It sounded like a line from a movie.

         Yermey returns quickly, sits, looks quickly at each earthling and comments, "I appreciate your honesty; really, we all do. Cozy is not a word I know well. We want you to feel safe and secure. First, we respect your species. This is the reason we came here. The greater ThreePlanets family is not happy we have arrived, and even less so for inviting you onboard as guests."

         Jokingly Blake off-handedly mouths, "Good cop, bad cop."

         Not understanding the meaning, Yermey chooses to ignore the comment. He says, I think Friendly might be able to better explain. "I am neither a good cop or a bad cop. We would like, if you three accept, to have you teach us more about your culture from your personal standpoints. We want . . . "

         "I understand you would like some help Yermey," interrupts Friendly. "It is not often Yermey asks anyone for help.  Let us give you some private time to talk this over among yourselves.” She continues standing. Yermey follows suit then they quietly leave the Earthlings.

*

         Something Yermey said earlier stuck in Blake’s mind that would change his life, Yermey said, "the machinery allows us to see who we really are," to which Friendly countered, "it helps us to analysis our private agendas in advance of action."

         "What do you think, Blake?" asks Pyl, "Are we ready for this?"

         He looks up, "Ready for what?"

         "Ready to help," replies Justin. "Do we want to help these people help themselves to our ways?"

         Confused, Blake smiles sheepishly, "I think I am missing something here." He sees Hartolite passing in the hallway, calls her in and asks,  “Do you think we can really be helpful to you people and helpful to our own species also?” Suddenly Yermey re-enters.

         "This is important to us, to have you be our ambassadors of sorts. We have come all this way," reinforces Hartolite. "We four are the rebellious ones by being here on our own. Our visit is not officially sanctioned. We cannot come out and say 'Hello, we are official representatives from ThreePlanets.”

         “Who is the fourth person? asks Blake immediately.

         “Ship,” smiles Hartolite comfortably.

         "Why have you not used SETI?" asks Pyl. "It seems to me this would be a natural first place to communicate."

         "We prefer one-on-one personal contact," answers Yermey, "because we are trying to avoid the cleverness and cultural bullshit. We don't have time for nonsense."

         "You live five hundred years," responds Blake. "I think I smell some bullshit right here."

         "I don't have time," declares Yermey bluntly, "because I have lived those five hundred and some years already."

         Blake catches the look in Yermey's eyes; no question, he thinks, these people are human. We have death in common. Death is something we both can understand.

         "Our Parents-in-Charge would use machinery to deal with Earth if it is forced upon them," comments Friendly.

         "Communication machinery, though not as sophisticated as Ship," adds Hartolite. "We have no weaponry. We need none. When we think 'run' or Ship thinks 'run' we do. We are very fast plus invisible when need be. We can take care of ourselves.”

          Pyl responds with her brother’s bluntness, "We have too many pre-programmed machines.” She looks quickly to both Justin and Blake. “We three are willing to listen though. We want to remain on good terms."

         "Good," says Yermey smiling, “we like those terms.”

         I am not sure what these terms are, thinks Pyl while looking at Justin for an immediate eye of quiet reassurance.

***

        You watched the news and two more programs “Motive” and a “Suits” from about three weeks ago. You also did a lot of trimming today – three charged batteries full and have a bit more to do in the morning. As it will be cool you will probably mow in the morning as it is supposed to rain late Friday night or early Saturday morning. For supper you drove to Schnappsher’s Farm on Rt. 42 north of downtown Mason for more freshly picked corn as well as a freshly picked catalope. By fresh you are talking twenty minutes for buying. Mr. Schnappsher said they were very good and he was correct. From your perspective he has the best produce in southwest Ohio. – Amorella

         2052 hours. We have been going to his farm for about as long as we have lived in Mason. The corn, like that we had two nights ago, was excellent. Wow. Fresh picked corn is the best. It was a great meal. I had two ears of corn, and a handful of lightly salted dry roasted peanuts. I don’t know what Carol had as a side. It reminds me in a way of how the coffee was in Brasil and the steak was in Argentina – once you’ve tasted the best and the freshest you never forget – the same with Ohio corn on the cob. I suppose it is the same for those Maine blueberries too.

         You love food, boy. – Amorella

         2059 hours. You can’t eat or drink when you are dead.

         Post. - Amorella