Encounters In Mind: Notes - no letters, no numbers / coincidence

Mid-morning. Yesterday it took more time to work out the three chapters than you expected. Most of the problems were in “The Dead” sequences, which needed to be better clarified by deletions as much as anything else. – Amorella

0829 hours. I forget what I was going to write other than it was a response. Last night Doug sent me another physics article. The content is interesting and I underlined what the highlights are for me so that I might discover a use for some of this material. I have been fascinated with the concept of matter appearing and disappearing since the “quantum jump”. I remember (I hope correctly) that Doug and I had our discussions on this back in high school when he was working on his cloud chamber science project and later in our college years.

“In fact, spin is a quantum quantity that cannot be described in classical terms. Just as a proton is not really a tiny marble but rather a jumble of phantom particles appearing and disappearing continuously, its spin is a complex probabilistic property.”

How can matter appear and disappear at all let alone continuously? I can’t help but think about where the thought is when it isn’t. I know this may not be physics but as a youngster when playing with the letters of the alphabet I made them ‘real’ in meaning as well as metaphysical substance. Each letter is an individual standing for itself existentially and yet when several individual letters together are tagged as words one loses the meaning of the individual letter for a group of letters. “God and dog” come to mind first.

Protons are as letters in my mind, and it is the groupings that we see (the matter as words) – the basic is lost to the whole but the basic is the basement of reality. We sit in a house (earth/air) and live about in it but what of the foundation? It is like we don’t need to know the foundation when we live on the first and second floors. I think we do need to know the foundation so we can better substantiate where we are. It might help better show who we (as a species) are. That’s my point. We live in an interesting ‘reality’ and I would like to know more about it. This is who I am, this is what living is about from my perspective. (0849)

The above reflects your perspective. I have a perspective too. Post. - Amorella

** **

Atom Smasher Sheds New Light On Proton Spin Mystery

By Clara Moskowitz

Posted: 07/21/2014 9:52 am EDT Updated: 07/21/2014 10:59 am EDT

Protons have a constant spin that is an intrinsic particle property like mass or charge. Yet where this spin comes from is such a mystery it’s dubbed the “proton spin crisis.” Initially physicists thought a proton’s spin was the sum of the spins of its three constituent quarks. But a 1987 experiment showed that quarks can account for only a small portion of a proton’s spin, raising the question of where the rest arises. The quarks inside a proton are held together by gluons, so scientists suggested perhaps they contribute spin. That idea now has support from a pair of studies analyzing the results of proton collisions inside the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y.   Physicists often explain spin as a particle’s rotation, but that description is more metaphorical than literal. In fact, spin is a quantum quantity that cannot be described in classical terms. Just as a proton is not really a tiny marble but rather a jumble of phantom particles appearing and disappearing continuously, its spin is a complex probabilistic property. Yet it is always equal to one half. Quarks also have a spin of one half. Physicists originally assumed that two of the proton’s three quarks were always spinning in opposite directions, canceling one another out, leaving the remaining one half as the proton’s total spin. “That was the naïve idea 25 years ago,” says Daniel de Florian of the University of Buenos Aires, leader of one of the new papers, which was published July 2 in Physical Review Letters. “By the end of the ‘80s it was possible to measure the contribution of the spin of the quarks to the spin of the proton, and the first measurement showed it was 0 percent. That was a very big surprise.” Later measurements actually suggested quarks can contribute up to 25 percent of the proton’s total spin, but that still leaves the lion’s share unaccounted for. Gluons are also present inside protons as the representatives of the strong nuclear force, a fundamental interaction that binds the quarks together. Gluons each have a spin of 1, and depending on which direction it is they could add up to make most of rest of the proton’s spin. Measuring their contribution is a tricky task. RHIC is the only experiment that can address the question, because it is the only particle accelerator built to collide “spin-polarized” protons, meaning that the particles are all spinning in a certain direction when they crash. (At the more powerful Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, the particles’ spins are not aligned.)   When two protons slam together, their interaction is controlled by the strong force, so gluons are intimately involved. If gluon spin is an important ingredient of proton spin, then the orientation of the colliding protons’ spins should affect the outcome. Scientists would expect collisions between two protons whose spins were aligned would happen at a different frequency than collisions between those spinning in opposite directions. And according to recent data from RHIC, there is a difference. “If there is no preferred position, the difference will be exactly zero,” says University of Oxford physicist Juan Rojo, a member of the so-called NNPDF Collaboration that wrote the second paper, which was submitted to Nuclear Physics B. “Since the asymmetry is not zero, this tells us the distribution of the spin is not trivial.” Rojo’s team calculated that gluons probably contribute about half the spin that quarks do to the proton. De Florian and his colleagues analyzed the same data from RHIC, but used a different mathematical analysis to calculate the gluon contribution. They also found that gluon spin must be significantly involved. “This data for the first time shows the gluon polarization is actually nonzero; we see the gluons are polarized,” de Florian says. “Basically they could be responsible for the rest of the proton spin, but the uncertainty is very large.”   Both teams say their work is just the beginning of the quest to understand how gluons affect proton spin. To be certain, a larger experiment is needed. The best candidate, they say, is a proposed electron–ion collider that could be built at Brookhaven. This machine would collide polarized protons at higher energies than RHIC does and could probe the contribution of higher-energy gluons to proton spin, rather than the relatively lower-energy range the current data do.   If gluon spin does not provide the balance of the missing proton spin, the rest might arise from the orbital angular momentum of the quarks and gluons swarming around inside the proton. Just as Earth rotates on its own axis as well as orbits the sun, quarks and gluons have their own internal spin, along with angular momentum that comes from their movement around the center of the proton. The question, says physicist Robert Jaffe of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was not involved in the research, is what portion of the total spin each of these elements contributes. He adds: “Measuring the gluon contribution to the proton spin is one step—an important one—to answer this question.”   Resolving the proton spin crisis is vital not just for understanding spin, but to learn where protons and many other particles get their masses. The recently discovered Higgs boson is often said to be responsible for bestowing mass on all other particles. This is true, but is not the whole truth, Rojo says. In addition to the Higgs mechanism, another process is at work to give protons mass. This process is related to confinement—the reason quarks and gluons are always found confined within other particles, such as protons, and never alone. The dynamics of confinement also affect the spin polarization of quarks and gluons. “One of the most outstanding problems in modern theoretical physics is to understand confinement,” Rojo says. “The better we understand the polarization distribution of quarks and gluons, the closer we get to an understanding of confinement. With our data we have the underlying mechanism for confinement and ultimately for where the mass of the protons comes from.”

From -- http://www.huffingtonpostDOTcom/2014/07/21/proton-spin-mystery- +

** **

Whoa. (0852 hours). I cannot imagine your perspective Amorella.

That is the point, boy. No letters, no numbers – what have you got? - Amorella

You are at Pine Hill Lakes Park sitting in the shade facing east. Carol is on her walk. You have completed chapter seven for the ebook. – Amorella

1028 hours. This chapter went faster than the last. A few errors were caught and corrected. It is amazing; no matter how many times I proofread I find something I missed. I wonder how many proofreading newspaper editors go over the first section of the paper knowing that somewhere along the line, most assuredly an error of one kind or another will be missed. I would imagine they would have bets on it to settle the anxiety with humor and perhaps a few dollar bills. (I remember Col. Thackery, my Freshman English professor at Otterbein talking about this in reference to his early days on the N.Y.C. Harold Tribune.) I wonder if there ever has been a perfect edition of a daily newspaper or blog even. Once in a while I notice an error on BBC News. I am sure that strikes some editor cold when caught. This is no excuse though, still, I would rather have fewer errors.

Carol made egg salad sandwiches with your own cherry tomatoes on the side for lunch. Last night you had you husked, cooked and ate your first ears of sweet corn from a nearby farm. Putting on the butter – you used a new toothbrush scraping it in a tub of near-butter – worked quite well. – Amorella

1259 hours. I have completed chapter eight, one more and I’ll have my scheduled allotment. If it is quick I may do another. I still have exercises to do and a nap appears to be in order.

You had no nap but you did do your forty minutes of exercise. The bedroom warmed up an extra degree with your workout, don’t you think? – Amorella

1418 hours. I would like to think so but I doubt that is the case. I have been thinking about Merlyn. In a way, he appears to be haunted, that it is an illusion he walks back into the Living through Richard and, since I am partially each of these characters (if they are as real as I am) then why could it not be in real life that I am haunted, that I carry a ghost about and it is you or an illusion of you.

I agree, it is plausible, but I am no illusion, boy, and you understand this as a fact through many years of experience. Too many coincidences in your life, don’t you think? – Amorella

1425 hours. Yes. You drilled to the right spot. To say there are no coincidences in life is to deny human reality. Why would the word exist? Why can statistics set the odds? Recognizing coincidences are two different matters. It is the ones that I feel first and observe second that make me wonder how the world is. I have ‘rationalized’ many observations assuming my brain is off tilt, “miswired or defective” and has been so as long as I have had memory. This is the simplest explanation from my perspective.

** **

defective – adjective

1 a defective seat belt: faulty, flawed, imperfect, shoddy, inoperative, malfunctioning, out of order, unsound; in disrepair, broken; informal on the blink, on the fritz.

ANTONYMS perfect.

2 these methods are defective: lacking, wanting, deficient, inadequate, insufficient.

From Oxford/American software

** **

1442 the closest (although only slightly felt in this abstract) I can find for what I 'intuitively sense' is a correct definition for ‘miswired’ relates to this abstract (I am not autistic):

** **

Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2009 Sep;33(8):1227-42. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2009.06.006. Epub 2009 Jun 24.

Autism: a world changing too fast for a mis-wired brain?

Gepner B, Feron F.

Author information

Abstract

Disorders in verbal and emotional communication and imitation, social reciprocity and higher order cognition observed in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are presented here as phenotypic expressions of temporo-spatial processing disorders (TSPDs). TSPDs include various degrees of disability in (i) processing multi-sensory dynamic stimuli online, (ii) associating them into meaningful and coherent patterns and (iii) producing real-time sensory-motor adjustments and motor outputs. In line with this theory, we found that slowing down the speed of facial and vocal events enhanced imitative, verbal and cognitive abilities in some ASD children, particularly those with low functioning autism. We then argue that TSPDs may result from Multi-system Brain Disconnectivity-Dissynchrony (MBD), defined as an increase or decrease in functional connectivity and neuronal synchronization within/between multiple neurofunctional territories and pathways. Recent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electrophysiological studies supporting MBD are outlined. Finally, we review the suspected underlying neurobiological mechanisms of MBD as evidenced in neuroimaging, genetic, environmental and epigenetic studies. Overall, our TSPD/MBD approach to ASD may open new promising avenues for a better understanding of neuro-physio-psychopathology of ASD and clinical rehabilitation of people affected by these syndromes.

From - PMID: 19559043 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

** **

1448 hours. My assumption here, in this context, is that as long as I write fiction, hopefully creatively, it makes no difference whether I am miswired or not. I survived this long in the world and certainly have lead a mostly ordered life and been a good citizen. So, to me it makes no difference how I see reality as long as I keep this perspective in a fiction. I am good with this, so I see no problem.

I agree, orndorff. This explanation allows you to be settled within you own inner world and the one you live and breathe in. – Post. - Amorella

You have completed the ebook drafts of chapters seven, eight and nine. Add and post. – Amorella

1549 hours. These chapters moved more swiftly.

*** ***

Chapter Seven

Contemplation

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 7

Merlyn stands by the rock and chair in his sanctuary and looks west, looks through the heather and between oak and birch to the cold river water. He conjures lifelong memories of fishing from such rivers. I see exciting great catches of salmon, trout, northern pike and arctic charr. The size, shape and colors of the many fish quickly slide away. They are but bait for memories to grab at those many daydreams. Youthfully fantasies stir my male nature through lonely and sometime surreal surroundings hot kettled in my budding druidic spirit. What be the name that is alphabetized first, Vivian. We are such creatures of familiar habits – toys we are to one another whether in embrace or no. Such souls as we dance within our spirits so close that we share sanctuaries sometimes unknown to one another, especially in this sancuary this link to the Living.

The billiard table rises. Merlyn stares at the grouped balls near the side rail. The yellow one sets to the left of the orange striped thirteen and the purple striped twelve ball. To the right of the striped are three solids, the blue two, green six and maroon seven. He wonders, what is the meaning in how these balls lie? Am I like the ancient Greek prognosticator stirring recent entrails of intention within romance or an astrologer looking at the alignment of billiard balls rather than the cognation behind this illusionary table. Yet what am I to see by any other name but my own?

"You are captivated by my presence, Merlyn," comments Vivian in a modestly suggestive voice."

She faces me within this intimate heart interval and my tongueless tongue freezes.

"Which of these vividly hued balls would you have me be, Merlyn, when I am myself the table on which you dress your endearing and passionate contemplations? No need of cue stick or billiard balls to roll in me, my dear man," winks the shrewd foxy-tailed apparition, this Druidess Vivian pre-fixing her Druid.

Vividly Merlyn remembers, 'My dear man,' those are the last words Vivian says to my living ears.

"This is not so, Merlyn," whispers a voice of consciousness. His ears increased and he felt his facial muscles seemingly materialize from spirit. Merlyn looked left towards his privacy hut realizing what he had known since death, there are no mirrors. The Dead reflect only through the closest of friends. Even among the Living I cannot be seen nor can I see myself other than by fanciful contemplation. I feel my physical body grown but I have no proof. I have no witness other than this string theory in thoughts and words.

Vivian presses her warm lips lightly against the flesh of his right ear and whispered seductively, "We are attached souls, married as a blacksmith’s blade is married copper and iron."

Merlyn carefully turns his head away from his natural abode and composes his tongue, "How do you mean these words?" The wonder roars through his mind and heart while white lightning bolts slow glacially between the lines, 'She has me still in an enchantment.'

Vivian whispers, ”Our souls are twinned not intertwined. You used to say our love was but a thread entwined many times over, solidified by experience and memory, but you are wrong though the word 'entwined' is near." Vivian gives another quick press of her warm moist lips on his now equally warm ear. "I am but a gift of love’s giving.”

I evaporate from ice to air, eyes Merlyn. I, the once master, am taught a lesson by my once student. Vivian exists with-on-me, with-beside-me, but not within my completed soul. We are timeless rings in a chain. These spiritual passageways are macro-webbed tunnels. For what uses was this is in secret told. It would seem to make no difference among we the Dead, but among the Living such a twinning of spidery macro-soul grooms tighter, and ever so insect-like around the world. Such invisible intent cannot be known in physics but among enlightened souls it is as far spread and resolute as gravity. Grammar is the physics of thought, and Vivian, as my Muse herself might, dreams my dreams into the dreams of others.

***

The Brothers 7

The next day while at Robert and Connie's home, the brothers sauntered out of the kitchen into the dining room to rid themselves from their wives chatter on the seemingly consistent recipes for roast beef and gravy as well as graham cracker pie, essentially the same recipes from their grandparents' time. Each recipe begins: "This is a family recipe. Do Not Share. "

“Good brownies,” states Robert as the stood by the dining room table nibbling the freshly baked goodies on the plate.

“Yeah, this is my third one.”

“I agree. Connie makes the best brownies.”

“No question on that, but Cyndi Bleacher makes the best chocolate chip cookies,” smiles Richard.

“Your wife makes one hell of a cookie. I agree,” replies Robert who then continues sipping his half a glass of skim milk. He pauses, "I'm working a new poem on blacksmithing — welding.“

Surprised, Richard comments, ”You haven't used that as a subject before."

"You're right."

"So, why now?"

"I was thinking about how it was on Uncle Doc and Auntie's farm when we were kids. Their neighbor was a smithy when he needed to be. I remember he came over and welded the plow more than once. The arc, the welding light, was the brightest thing I had ever seen.

"We were told to never look directly at it,” counters Richard.

"I only did once. Never forgotten. So I need to shade that flash of memory in permanent ink."

“I've been thinking about the mausoleum as a poetic theme,” says Richard.

"I go for the bright light and you for stained glass.”

Richard retorts, “What about the stained glass?”

“What about it?”

“I like the symbolism.”

“I do too, my interest peaked with the three women and subsided with the angels having green wings.”

Richard grins, “The artist’s ladies were waiting for the resurrection and it already had taken place.”

“You know,” comments Robert. “I never got that. Why were they going to the tomb if they had any sense that Jesus wasn’t going to be there?”

“I suppose they were checking just like we did at the mausoleum.

“True enough,” Richard. “True enough.”

Cyndi walks in from the kitchen first, "What you are boys talking about?"

"The stained glass in the mausoleum," responds Robert, "the angels with green wings."

Richard quickly follows, "I like the symbolism of a resurrection that had already happened."

"Why are you two dyed-in-the-wool agnostics talking about angels?" asks Cyndi, "especially you Richard?"

"Yah, Dickie?" drawls Robert with a smirk.

Connie’s voice rolls in from the kitchen, "What are you two arguing about?" Walking in, Connie gives Robert an annoying look for the mock impoliteness directed at his brother. Eyes sparkling she gives Richard a peck on the cheek, "I think 'Dickie' is endearing. Your grandmother enunciated it with great affection."

Richard mimicked Grandma Greystone. ”Grandma shouted ‘Dick-KEE’ like she was calling the hogs. 'Dic-KEE, where are you Dic-KEE?" All laugh. Robert shakes his head in remembrance of his embarrassment in such an incident at the corner of Walnut and State near uptown Riverton.

"Grandma was a farm girl, no question about it," acknowledges Richard clearly and with a large grin. "I loved my grandparents."

"Our grandparents," adds Robert.

"We thought of them as our grandparents too," comments Connie and Cyndi in a common voice.

Connie continues, "You know all of our grandparents played bridge together long before we were ever thought about."

"True," agrees Richard, "during the depression they made up their own entertainment."

"The four grandmothers shared family recipes only written for family . . ." notes Cyndi.

"Like they were already family," mentions Connie.

Robert raised his right eyebrow, "That sounds a little, uh, sexual."

Richard chirps a laugh and shrugs, "Maybe they had secret love fests." Both brothers laugh aloud as Connie and Cyndi leave the room in a huff of disgust. "What did we do, open up a can of worms?"

Richard murmures, "We are two sick humored souls," and automatically returns his focus on the taste and texture of those made from scratch caramel and dark chocolate brownies.

Back in the kitchen Connie looks at Cyndi in amazement, “Surely there wouldn’t have been any fooling around back in those days. Riverton was a quiet little village back then, a quiet peaceful village. I can’t believe anyone in town would ever be caught sleeping around.”

***

Grandma’s Story 7

For you Living who have never witnessed a ghost firsthand I have one for you. This ghost’s size is that of a natural green pea. For those of you who may not have seen a similar ghost, make it an electrified pale green baby pea color. Grandma reached into her pocket hand first and pulled the small spirit-like orb out. It immediately floats off, and up from Grandma’s starless night black right palm. "Here," pronounces Grandma in a muffled thunder, "I’ll let this little apparition tell her story."

A Ghost’s Existence

‘Hello. I am the shadow of a shade of my former self. What is black to me is green to you. Grandma put me in her pocket because I was off over the Atlantic Ocean. I always wanted to see the Atlantic when I was alive but I never did. I lived on a beautiful island in the South Pacific my entire life. My sole contact with the outside world was the disease that killed me, and that was centuries ago. I had heard many stories about how it is off-our-island in my lifetime. I appear here as a small dot because the eye cannot see my flat self. I could crawl into someone earthy but I am comfortable with Grandma. I especially like the Atlantic Ocean, I float above it in a dreamy state.’

‘I know I am not in the real world, but being with Grandma I am close to the Living. I’m close enough that you can read me. I think it is funny that I am as dot above the common i. The human eye is not built to see me as I am so it won’t. Real ghosts pass you by more often than you think. Some of us call it dead dreaming, a reverse out-of-body experience. To me it is an into-the-mind experience.’

Grandma smiles, time moves, and gently returns the pea-sized spirit to her pocket as if she were a farm rustic woman dropping a baby gosling in her coat pocket for its security and protection. I put that spunky little spirit in my pocket in your year 2006 and now in your time slot. Grandma again reaches in and feels the little one nestled down into the far corner of her pocket. She gently pinches and pulls the small round object out of her pocket with her forefinger and thumb. Grandma then puts her up to her metaphorical eye for an inspection. You are a little larger, in these last measured Earth years and have grown from the humble sized green pea to that of a bluish green child’s marble. Grandma asks, "Are you still flying over your favorite ocean?"

The small round blue-green ghost grins, "No, Grandma. You can see that as a wandering spirit between the Dead and the Living I have grown. I am one with the salty water. The Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean are just names, stories we humans conjure because geography is how one sits, stands or moves from one part of the world to another. Spiritually, the salty water is one, all sea creatures are aware of this from the beginning. I was born and died on an island as a small land creature and I stayed small because my body was my only geography of reference. Not having a body relieves me of such an unneeded perspective. My heartansoulanmind, my spirit, is more in balance; perhaps when I am a little larger, the size of a child’s Kong or Biggie marble, I will have grown enough to be the size of the whole universe. That is my hope before I pass over completely.

Grandma smiles warmly and chuckles within the little spirit of humanity saying, "Perhaps you will be my modest sized full spirit, but hear this, you'll always fit snuggly in the corner of my pocket even as is the full universe that contains a galaxy of the Earth and ThreePlanets. She places the little round one into her pocket once again. Observing her reading audience through Merlyn Grandma notes, "This little ghost understands more than she thinks, and I find an illustrious humor in her plucky audacity.

A wind in a spirit or a spirit in the wind,

Shimmering electric green, black or boney white,

The mind’s dark night stands alone and chagrin,

At the nature of trancephysics in a spiritual light.

***

Diplomatic Pouch 7

"I am glad you understand about not selling the plane, Blakie," comments Pyl.

"We would be investing the money at this time in our lives,” suggests Blake. “No need and not a good time for investing anyway. Dad would like that we are not selling. It was a rush anyway. Out of the blue someone wants to buy our plane. Odd in itself, and in the middle of January too; in Cleveland no less."

"I think it is odd too," asserts Justin. "Hart didn't know what dissimilar meant in context. She appeared to be analyzing the word. Francis and she both have the same last name."

"Right," declares Pyl sarcastically. “They both have the same last name. Such a mature male observation. No rings. They don’t appear to be married either."

Blake cautiously watches, seeing Justin change his face from curious to a silently piquing aggravation. "Don't get riled, Jus," utters Blake, not realizing his diplomatic filter had drifting away, "I've had to put up with her feminist tongue a lot longer than you have." To which he loosens himself, laughing aloud, adding, "Penis envy, no doubt."

Observing his broadened grin Pyl retorts, "I hardly envy yours, dear brother."

"Shot down, Blakie," quips Justin with a tempered grin.

Yermey sits comfortably in the chair-with-meditation-mode-max. He heard Friendly and Hartolite enter like the gentle rustling of leaves ahead on his solitary path from the room-in-mind at his far right. Though his body lies motionless Yermey shifts his notions to the left and his mind circulates left into a relocated thought.

We have taken the courage to come to Earth on our own, independent of our elected Council of Parents-in-Charge and our many ThreePlanet kin and untied cousins. The primary objective is to instill into these humanized primates that we are real, that ThreePlanets exists in the shared space of this galactic-pouch and that we here-without-polite-invitation on their planet.

He continues on the thought. Our Parents-in-Charge are more fearful of these similar though alien higher primate beings than they are in their much-weathered patience to acknowledge and greet. They lack the foresight and courage to learn, to accept that though our civilization is twenty thousand years advanced we may be missing an aspect of our humanity this much younger civilization still has.

Our being here on Earth is to show a just equality among both of our species even though we have a technical advantage through our sciences and mathematics. Our separate species philosophies are so similar to be almost identical. Our separate species sense-of-equality is in our recognition of heartansoulanmind. This is what we must show through our kindness and patience. This is why we are here; this is what we are about. This is . . .

Friendly interrupts, ”What's on your mind, Yermey? What’s in your head?"

"What is it, Yermey?” adds Hartolite. “Shouldn’t we be concerned about the plane? We think so."

Yermey fully opens his eyes and sits upright. "Ship says the Cessna is clean on all points but one."

"Which is what?" asks Friendly. “Ship says the plane is clean.”

"There is a time slip of one minute. Ship does not correlate with the Cessna by one minute.”

"A minute means nothing without an observable relationship. Earthlings have no access to Ship’s correlations," responds Hartolite.

"The minute is relative to something," suggests Friendly.

"It is relative to us," says Yermey with more heart in his voice than reason. We come here unannounced and without invitation. When we make ourselves known. These three people will know who we are and assume that our intentions are deceptive, because presently we are being deceptive."

In the pending short marsupial humanoid silence Ship stirs into cognition. 'I, Ship, understand Yermey's words. They are meant for me too. The information processes through various channels unimpeded and is fully understood.

I, Ship, let the alien Cessna plane touch me. My maneuvering allowed only the slightest of accidental touches. I may need to be re-validated at ThreePlanets; however, I cannot leave without an extreme unordered emergency to run to ThreePlanets. Friendly and Hartolite are struck by Yermey's words. His vitals show me he feels I erred-in-a-purpose. I have no purpose other than to escort-in-safety-first. The Cessna came onto me. I attempted to jar Cessna's instrumentation magnetically but failed. The Cessna engine should have stopped short but it did not. Thus I touched a wingtip.

Thinking, Ship wonders on the meaning of ‘accident’ and whether or not it had an undisclosed purpose. We are programmed the galaxy is a closed system for purposes of navigational safety, but the galaxy is not closed. Perhaps the universe itself is more open than is culturally accepted, even if the universe is a fractal or something less in earth terms, an Alice mirror. Our culture knows better; some say there are thousands of universes but there is no conclusive proof, perhaps that is the rub. I am not built to rely on ancient myths musing on metaphysical lightning and thunder no matter how many species tell the simple story in one paragraph or another.

***

Chapter Eight

Punctuality

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.

The Dead 8

Merlyn observes the trees and shrubs lining both sides of the river in contemplation. The river’s dimensions depends on the angle of my view and the width of my mind — the narrower the view the deeper the water. When my heart feels Vivian within; the deeper I can sink into her own. This is as magnetic energy that draws into us. The mind becomes one eye and the heart the other eye adding depth to perception the mind eye and the heart eye also adds a perception; love is but a reflection of the deeper unseen reality.

A reality dressed in an intuitive perception, a begotten energy of passion that has no muscle memory and no sexual dancing in earthy innuendos. Here, contentment is nothing to being. Vivian and I are bound in the cosmos of HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither and HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither is bound within the cosmos of the spiritual we.

Vivian appears head first from the depth and width of Merlyn’s reasoned water and climbs into his currach. "Welcome to my part in your world, Merlyn. I can tell from your surprise that we are more closely attached than you have been thinking."

"How is this?" Merlyn gruffly utters Merlyn while loving her being. "I have right to be alone; here in this my private sanctuary."

"These dry waters are not so private as you think. Call these spiritual waters or imagination or what ever name you use; they exist and I am here. I exist too. We are in well-mixed waters dear Merlyn,” Vivian smiles coyly and whispers, "But then, do you not desire the entirety of my company?"

"You are too quick and too nakedly arrived," remarks Merlyn defensively.

"Me naked almost always brings you into a full customary grin. How better to disarm your solitary nature." She sits on the small front seat of the Celtic craft and sweeps her right arm to her neck. "How is this?"

A shear silk-like piece of imagination covers her slightly as Merlyn in a quick rattle of masculinity desires a secret peek of the Vivian, at once the Lady of the Lake and legendary Princess of Celtic Avalon.

He rolls his eyes inward away from her sight.

Vivian watches in dread as Merlyn's dark pupils rise above and behind those magnificent human-like eye sockets. His face is now almost flesh borne. This is Merlyn's magic. He changes my spiritual makeup placing my soul on the right rather than in mid-point balance where it belongs. She thinks, Merlyn moves my soul.

Merlyn plays Vivian realizing her reason's site is out of balance when placed nearest her less tenable but more truly compassed heart. Her snowflake-like soul, a sticky six-pointed composition, is as marrow within her spiritual skeleton. Vivian draws her mind out of the eternal balance she once threw into me. Who wins in such a warring-like metaphysical field? An awkward ghost Vivian has no chance but to howl wolf-like while stuck in spiritual wrap – in a heart and soul without reason.

Merlyn rolls his eyeballs face-forward draining his black pupils into inky molded of grammar – associated letters into words running into paragraphs so that Vivian his most passionate love may read and witness him buried in two dimensions rather than his spiritual One. “Read me, my love to become soul balanced reasoned once again. She and he, wrap as clasped hands and sweep towards their ancestral mother, Glevema who stands by her Grandfather Panagiotakis, the oldest of human shaman ghostly spirits in the center of a Celtic oriented Avalon.

I am bewitched-in-spirit, surmises Panagiotakis in wonder. Something beyond the nature of the letter-less space page sets between Mistress Vivian and Master Merlyn, and I am in wont to witness, to read and to observe Merlyn’s unbound passing from the Dead to living fiction. Such is the trickery of a Grandmaster Shaman in full Dance on an existential nothing and on Earth both at once. How does Merlyn do this without the Supervisor at hand?

***

The Brothers 8

Richard sits in his study viewing a recent Google Earth photo of Riverton’s John Knox Cemetery. I wonder how the recent Dead view leaving the place crossed Richard’s mind. The cemetery roads crossing north to south and east to west not far from the entrance to the mausoleum. Richard drags the street view icon and views his house from the cemetery's perspective. A Google camera drives through the cemetery from South Grove back to the mausoleum on the cemetery roads. I was looking down from three thousand feet and with a click and short wrist movement I was at ground level in a cemetery.

"What's up, bro?"

"Robby, I didn't hear you come up. Look at this, Google drove one of their camera trucks through the cemetery."

Rob grins, takes a look then sits in the chair next to the window. "Here's a Twilight Zone story for you, someone goes on Google Earth to check out Knox Street and with the slip of a hand finds himself in the cemetery next door glancing at his own dated headstone."

"I was thinking about someone dying and his last glance at Earth would be from three thousand feet, then from space and the Moon and Earth and all would just fade away."

"You mean for the book?”

“Just a thought." chuckles Richard then he turns soberly, "When I saw the street level shot it dawned on me that the Dead might not ever leave."

"We've both thought that in real life you wake up alive and when you die, you're dead."

"I know, but how would it be? Remember the old townies in the bridge and canasta group were buried across the street? Each had someone drop a deck of cards in their casket or next to their urn in case anyone wanted to play cards. Everyone knew it was a joke but as each one of the group died, a deck was buried with them — our parents and Connie’s parents too, were buried with them.

"You and Cyndi dropped in the cards,” smiles Robert. “Sentimentality is good, even a little healthy for the living, I think; but the dead, if they exist, are surely beyond such things as playing cards," replies Robert. "I came over to see if you wanted to go to the Village Bookstore."

"The old church west of Worthington, anytime. Let me shut this down."

Fifteen minutes later Connie and Cyndi were sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee and sharing a green and white can of mixed nuts. "Nice to have the house to ourselves. Nice to relax."

Cyndi counters, "I am worried about Robert. He always has to be doing something or going somewhere. I wish he would just sit and relax more – like Richie."

"Physically, Richie doesn't do enough Connie,” whines Cyndi. “He would rather sit in his history and literature books than do much of anything else. They both have been spending time in the cemetery and mausoleum. What is that all about?"

"Genealogy. Aunt Floy got them started, she spent most of her life working on the family tree; when we married in, and she began working on ours. She thinks we Bleacher's and Greystone's have been family connected since the times of Shakespeare."

"I didn't know she had gone back that far. That was so long ago."

"Aunt Floy has some evidence that the Bleacher's and Greystone's had adjoining properties between Oxford and Stratford in Oxfordshire or bordering Warwickshire counties," notes Cyndi.

"Why doesn’t Robert ever talk about it? He likes history."

"I don't know. Richie doesn't talk about it to me either, but he has Aunt Floy’s genealogical records out on his desk from time to time. When I ask him about it, he says that he's really interested in the old royal lines and which ancestors lived under Henry VIII. Richie has been interested since he read The Passover Plot; then later, he was snagged by the Bloodline of the Holy Grail, and The Di Vinci Code.

Connie says, "We have read most of the Brown books, but Jesus theories – let the dead be dead, that’s what I think. May they rest in peace, Jesus and all the rest of them."

“Amen,” comments Cyndi then she took another sip of coffee. “Why doesn’t Robert ever talk about the genealogy? I wonder evidence Aunt Floy found that shows our families had adjoining properties in that part of England. We Bleacher’s go back six or seven generations in the genealogy. It would be really funny if our families were acquaintances that far back. I wonder what the odds are for families to be connected one way or another for hundreds of years?”

“We are all connected, Cyndi. Everybody is someone else’s cousin.”

She rebuffs, “Not literally though. Surely. How far removed can the human race be?”

***

Grandma’s Story 8

About 2500 years ago, in 485 before the modern Common Era, we have a love story between a druidic priestess, Gadelin of the North Woods and a druidic priest, Mardynn Herremon of the East Woods, a cousin of Simon Breac, then High King of Ireland.

It is in the last year of the reign of Simon Breac that the priestess and priest’s love interest begins. Gadelin is in her mid-teens while Mardynn is nearly twenty when, at the Great Wooden Hall of Tara, the two lovers are ordered by jealous King Simon to compete to be the new official seer for the new king as the old seer has died unexpectedly.

The much older King Simon has fallen into an attraction with Gadelin because of her youth, her long coal-black hair, her contrasting fair skin, her athletic prowess and most of all for her passion to please the Moon God. Gadelin does not mind secretly sleeping with King Simon during each of the full moons for six months, but then suddenly Simon orders her to compete with her well-known lover, the druidic Priest Mardynn, to be his official Seer. The next day the king announces the competition in Court at the great wooden hall atop the five hundred and fifty foot high Hill of Tara.

Gadelin sleeps with her lover Mardynn on the Half Moon. No one knows who she sleeps with during the First and Third Quarter Moons but many assume she has two secret commoners for her private ritual.

She beds one of four men on each four-moon phase once a moonth no matter what. Even I, Grandma, realizes that in that age Gadelin is a most loyal druidic guardian, worshipper and lover of the Moon in all of Ireland. Gadelin believes the moon god creates the sexual tension and his physical release through each of her Moon Lovers. She keeps that a secret, but not from Grandma. Nature knows all.

Mardynn loves his Half Moon Goddess best and Gadelin is his best priestess partner to enact his sexual tension and release with the Moon Goddess once a moonth. The problem becomes that he privately comes to the conclusion that being the Official Seer will provide him with much more power than being the best Lover to Gadelin whom he thinks of as the Goddess in Half Moon.

Simon the King is the North and Mardynn is the South during the full Moon. As the Hall of Tara is aligned North to South Priestess Gadelin feels she can gain much wisdom from me, Mother Earth, in the process.

Gadelin thinks little of the upcoming competition. When she has a man in bed she is always in control. Always. She was twelve and living north of the River Boyne when she first had a sexual dalliance. It was with her older cousin who had much more experience, but his experience was of little consequence because Gadelin is a natural, you see.

During a warm evening of the next Half Moon, Priestess Gadelin confidently strolled into Mardynn’s small round stone hut in the East Woods south of the River Boyn. She discovers her Priestly Mardynn is not home. She sniffs the air and does not detect his scent. Gadelin concludes, ‘He has not been here all day or last night.’

“I can see Galelin yet,” says Grandma, “she is so assured Mardynn will show up.’

‘I know Mardynn believes me as the moon goddess when we make love. A man in love with a goddess gives himself completely,’ muses Galenin. Her cleverness spreads rosy across her cheeks, she thinks in a shifting consciousness. He cannot know that I will be making love with the Moon God at the same time. Mardynn will be here, he will not disappoint his moon goddess.

Priestess Gadelin waits and waits and in quickened death waits still. So do Simon and Mardynn wait and wonder until they die. Those in any walk of life who attempt to love a Moon God-an-Goddess eventually give up the ghost and these three are no exception, sex or no sex.

Round and round and round the three all go,

And where they stop no bodies know,

To mistake a Fate for Necessity’s Call,

Is to liken pale Moby for a common Arctic narwhal.

Says this old Grandma’s tongue and gums,

From this dream past, a future dream comes.

***

Diplomatic Pouch 8

Pyl, Justin and Blake complete their plans for the day. The date is March 1, 2012 in Cleveland Plain Dealer located on the breakfast table next to Blake. A little more than a month has gone by since sisters Francis and Hart attempted to purchase the Williams’ Cessna 210 Silver Eagle. Pyl is reading the local section of the paper; an article about the Chardon School shooting, Justin gleans the sport's page focusing on the loss of the Cavaliers to the Knicks with the final score, 120 to 103.

What a weird month, broods Blake. People come to the airport out the blue wanting to buy our plane; we tell them we don't want to sell and they leave without another word. I would have thought they would have at least sent an email thanking us for their afternoon ride to Put-in-Bay and back. Nothing. He says, "I'd like to get some flight time today. The weather is going to be worse with thunderstorms the next couple of days. I can get some instrument time in what with the weather mix and cloud cover." Blake focus on the back page, the weather page reads the mostly cloudy sky will produce light snow showers which will change to rain; and that the light west wind will be coming from south, giving a high of 42 degrees, even the night temperature is to stay above freezing. Out of his sourness, Blake announces, “We can take the plane up around noon.”

"You just want to see the sun, Blakie, not that I blame you," comments Pyl. “Our other plans can wait. The weather is depressing." I have a pile of clothes to wash, she rationalizes, and then adds, “Do you want to come Justin?"

"No," sighs Justin. "I'm reading a couple Car and Driver magazines. We've been back up here only a couple of days and I'm getting bored. This weather doesn't help. I'm ready to go home." He mulls on the fact that winter break is over and they didn’t go south.

Blake comments, "You'll like the Car and Driver articles on the Shelby and the Viper. You can read them any time. I'm bored too, Justin, that's a good reason to get up above the clouds with us," smiles a Blake reenergized.

Noon. Ship stirs jolting Yermey who realizes the Cessna with three humans is in the air.

"Take us to her," rumbles Yermey. His old eyelids stay sleep shut, resisting the reality of the moment. "Wake up, Friendly."

"Captain has us already underway."

"When will we be in contact?” asks Yermey soberly.

"Ten minutes," reasons Ship.

Yermey slowly stands, slides himself into a jumpsuit, rubs his forehead rather harshly, shakes his head to refresh and considers what they about to do?

The three have carefully decided that the next time the Cessna is in the air they will take the plane into a controlling declared advisement, first by suspending physics to place the plane aboard Ship with the three Earthlings inside.

Yermey strides into Friendly's control room asking, “Are you sure the three are aboard?"

"All three and blackenot is on,” notes Friendly.

"Are we really going through this?" questions Hartolite. "Wouldn't it be more polite to first say hello or greetings as fellow Earthlings?"

Suddenly Friendly orders, "Change circumstance," and Ship freezes about half a mile to the starboard side of the Silver Eagle to fly parallel with the Cessna 210. A few seconds later, they are parallel with the Earthlings at less than quarter mile. "I say we down the plane at a private field in the area and speak them on their own ground."

Ship, having bio-computerize a virtual Cessna, verbally responds, "A flat and vacant country road four miles south. I can mimic engine trouble. The pilot will have no choice but to land."

"Good!" says Yermey slapping his thigh joyfully. "We wing it."

"We improvise?" questions Hartolite. "All of our stratagem, and now we improvise?"

"Let Ship settle them safely and unaware of our presence. Spontaneity has an open honesty to it. Keep all traffic clear, she further orders. "Land us five yards from them."

Ship responds confidently, "As you wish." The three marsupial-humanoids stand with equanimity watching the maneuvering.

‘This was not the plan,’ considers Friendly, ‘the first formal contact with Earthlings is about to begin on a lonely flat township road near an Amish farm in south Ashtabula County northeast of Cleveland. I like this better. We wing it for authenticity’s sake.’

***

Chapter Nine

Opportunity

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.

The Dead 9

Surprised, Merlyn declares, ”Greetings, this is one of the few times I have seen you, Mother Glevema and Sophia together. The resemblance of a mother and a daughter separated by a multitude of generations has never been more remarkable. Appearing the same age in spirit you are as identical twins." Merlyn then adds politely, "I thought this was a private matter Takis, but I can see by your sagacious presence this matter is of more overriding importance."

"Indeed," replies Panagiotakis speaking to Merlyn as if Mother and Sophia are not present. "You, Merlyn, must communicate to the Living on the First Rebellion. You have re-visited those days when the rebellion began. You know something of those times. You are an off-stage witness to the rebellious nature of our species in spirit."

"I am. I was given that privilege, by none other than yourself, I imagine."

Glevema interrupts, ”It was by the Supervisor, Merlyn.”

With this news, Merlyn discerns he was not the Dead's choice to return to the Living. Merlyn's spirit moves into silent questions. “How much, I wonder, can I understand of my present role and responsibility?”

“In general,” comments Takis with intention, “the Dead agreed on substance of your pick. We once thought that if we were not free in life, we would be freer in death. You know we ruminate and find camaraderie within our honest personalities, Glevema is the first allowed in this Place of the Dead that came to be called Elysium by the Greeks. She is our common point. You are equal sons and daughters through your ancestry. We are a hive of sensibly silhouetted individual questions searching for reasonably just responses. What else can we do? What else is expected of us, the Dead? You tell me, Merlyn, and if you don’t know you must search for the purpose for our existence in this place.”

Merlyn's soul does not seek the answers to Takis’s search for purpose. Only Sophia stands in Merlyn's vision. He asks, "How should I tell the story, Sophia? You witnessed the First Rebellion. What is important for the Living to know of something so very long ago?"

In a Delphic-like trance Sophia drifts forth the words, "It was less than three thousand earth years ago. We five sat around the oak table: Thales, Kassandra, Mario, Salamon and myself. Our Mother had put me in charge. We were at our favorite local eatery, a bar and cafe at the northwest corner of Lyceum and Eleusis Streets, the Mikroikia.

“I remember my very words. ‘We shall have a peaceful protest. I have been assured by Our Mother that this demonstration will have a full ten thousand full souls standing as one while I make our demand directly to the Supervisor.’ I then pause as if in my present trance, (then I paused in my present trance), and add, ‘I have directed my currier to contact the Supervisor who should arrive shortly.’ Someone asks me, ‘Who is the currier?’ and I respond, ‘Aeneas, because he is protected by his mother, Aphrodite.’”

Merlyn smiles confidently, "This is not so strange, a similar story is told in Avalon, different names."

"True. We see this today, but not in those times. Our culture was the center of our Spirit World. Our culture was our womb, a comfortable society; a place to be others of our own culture. I remember Thales and Salamon debating shortly after — Thales asserts, ‘we do not know the Supervisor is Hades.’ Salamon assumes the Supervisor is most likely Zeus and he muses, ‘what difference will it make, Zeus or Hades? Zeus will have his way, no matter. Aeneas is currier. The Supervisor is a decoy. The Gods are taking sides.’ Salamon grumbles, ‘Olympus is aligning itself, I feel this through my soul.’”

"What ominous words we had while sitting at breakfast,” notes Sophia sadly. “We did not know what we were doing. Merlyn, you need to let the Living know this.”

With that, Merlyn and Sophia faded to their personal sanctuaries, leaving Nothingness unturned. The Supervisor remains nearby, as always, unbound.

***

The Brothers 9

Richard sits in his favorite black leather chair studying Robert’s pungently worded poem titled:

“Nature Junkie”

a bumblebee --

the big black one

with yellow stripes

enters the bright

white flower

of a hosta.

From the front porch

my chocolate Lab

mouths a stinging memory.

I see the bee

body working inside.

I suspect

other creatures,

unseen,

see a meal --

ants waiting

its fall to earth,

or a lizard

immune to venom.

If it wanders to ground

in the chicken yard,

the hens will rush,

pop the droning pill.

I walk off the porch,

pinch shut

the flower petals

to hear the panic of wings,

to get the buzz

of bee

up the fingers,

hoping

it will go to my head.

“Good poem, Rob,” comments Richard. “Precise. I love the line, ‘to get the buzz of the bee up the fingers hoping it will go to my head.’ Rob's poetry always has the feeling of a slight twist of phrase. I wasn’t expecting ‘up the fingers,’ who would have thought, ‘up the fingers’? I love it, Rob.”

“Thank you,” says Rob’s slow, deep, methodic voice. “When it comes to poetry we usually agree.”

“One of our first favorites has always been Coney Island of the Mind, ‘Number Five’.”

“Ferlinghetti. That is was a great poem and still is as far as I am concerned,” states Robert. “Real poetry, with no traa-lee-laa crap.”

“I’m still stuck there,” voices Richard. “You moved on with the poets to modern times, but my heart is with the Beats.”

Robert adds abruptly, “That’s when you stopped your style. There are other ways to say things that matter.”

“I like the Beats' soul.”

With a sheepish grin Robert questions, “Then you won’t mind me asking you about your automatic writing?”

“It’s not really automatic, Rob. That is what some people call it. It is a part of my writing process. I have to be in the right frame of mind to write the Merlyn stories.”

“Is that what you are calling the stories now?”

“The stories are dead Merlyn’s dreams in his natural frame of mind,” answers Richard. “To me, it is writing in a light hypnotic trance. In fact, there is a word for it that relates to autosuggestion.”

“Ideomotor action; William James wrote about it,” grins Robert, “you know, unconscious motions.”

Richard reflects, “You saw my dowsing rods over in the corner didn’t you? That’s the Ideomotor action you are referring to, right?”

“I saw those re-bent clothes hangers. I know what they are. What were you doing, dowsing for water?”

“I was looking for unmarked graves in the cemetery,” responds Richard enthusiastically.

“Dowsing has been debunked, you know, water-witching and the like. Studies show that finding water by dowsing is a fifty-fifty proposition.”

Richard counters, “The rods do move though, I think it has to do with electro-magnetic energy."

Ever the medical doctor, Robert comments nonchalantly, “The divining rods work because of unconscious suggestion to small muscles in the fingers that work through subconscious response.”

“Well, then, when I am in form and in a semi-transcendental state while keyboarding, same thing. What’s wrong with that?”

Robert deadpans, “Nothing as long as you aren’t going off the deep end and believing it.”

Richard parries, “Anything that exists whether we know and understand it or not is natural. My bet is that is a quirky nerve impulse within one of my temporal lobes or another nerve response from brain to the fingers. In either case it is biophysical.”

“So why were you dowsing for unmarked graves?”

“It was fun. I think it is interesting that the finer finger muscles can move by involuntary suggestion alone. It makes you wonder on who pulls the trigger in some murders. I think of Shakespeare’s character MacBeth and his killing of Duncan. Lady MacBeth suggests it. His hands and fingers take up the action whether he is fully conscious, that is, that he is in full realization of what he is doing.” Richard pauses, “The end of the play shows another side of MacBeth. When he fully realizes he killed an innocent man and a guest in his own house. That is, until the rash conclusion.”

“It is just a play, Richie,” counters Robert, “and few would agree with your assessment because he has to be fully conscious of his actions in order for the play to be a tragedy.”

“What if MacBeth doesn’t realize this is an updated Greek play? Still, it is interesting that a simple dowsing rod can show we are not fully consciously responsible for some muscular action. It doesn’t take much consciousness to shove a knife into somebody, especially if you are a battlefield general to begin with.”

Clearly concerned, Robert emphatically replies, “I can assure you that it takes a great deal of consciousness to push a sharp surgical blade into a living human body, even a fully trained soldier like MacBeth.”

Richard glances at Robert’s poem, “To get a buzz — hoping it will go to my head,” gives his brother a soft-edged smile, gets up from his chair, leaves the room saying, “Don’t leave, I’ll be back in a minute.”

***

Grandma’s Story 9

Grandma draws an aside. This dead woman remembers trekking a beach the same time King Simon in Grandma’s previous story is being murdered for revenge. This is a reminder that Grandma is everywhere the human heart and mind are and then some.

“Grandma here. Storms are a part of human life. People deal with them because they have no choice. One can look the names and descriptions of infamous storms in various places. A long time ago, the young woman Abbatoot has confronted a major storm as is walking along a well-ruffled beach now call Australia.”

Abbatoot’s ghostly remembrance is that of youthful aboriginal woman is trudging the shoreline alone some three thousand years ago. After surviving the wrath Abbatoot mutters defiantly, “You won’t ever catch me messing with Mother Nature.” I am fortunate. The old shaman told the tribe a great storm was coming. He said, ‘I feel it in my elbows and knees; and when I feel a storm in any four joints at the same time it is going to be one doozy of a storm.’ He told the tribe to leave for higher ground but half the tribe ignored his warnings and stayed.

In one way it is very exciting to confront Mother Nature in her fury with the face forward into the winds, thinks Abbatoot; however, the witnessing-at-the-moment, the immediate surviving, leaves a monumental scar — such wonderful and terrifying power both at once. Ten who stayed near the beach are dead as well as mangled and in body parts. Abbatoot suddenly wondered, what would I be without any body points? I can see bodies without limbs and finger-point extensions. What would be the point of having no limbs or neck or any body extensions whatsoever?

Abbatoot ruminates: I am four limbs plus one. Observing her right hand closely she comprehends, I have five points at the end of each of the four limbs. She added those five points on each limb and gave a separate sound for each of the twenty points and one more. Abbatoot carefully observes her nakedness. I have twenty digits on a total of two arms and two legs; this equals twenty-four digits, plus a head and I have twenty-five digits. I have two breasts. Plus, I have a nose and two ears and thus I have thirty digits, men hang a penis and testicles, so they equaling thirty-two parts plus the body itself.

As Abbatoot climbs to higher ground she also climbs into a new conscious and a sudden revelation: I understand something no one else knows. I must tell the shaman.

The next day the Shaman sits watching the peaceful beauty of the sunset reflecting on Abbatoot's ability to count meaning into body parts. ‘We shamans do not make such associations. We know the story of the Ungambikula who once arose in Dreamtime before we humans were fully created. The Ungambikula had discovered human-likenesses doubled over in clumps of shapeless sacks near the water holes, and with stone knives the Ungambikula carved limbs and faces and hands and feet and finished the humans with points not lumps. After this was completed the Ungambikula withdrew into the Earth, into their eternal great sleep. Only a shaman could know this great secret yet Abbatoot has discovered similarities by counting the digits and by such allows me to discover something hitherto unknown.”

Grandma shifts in glee, “The Shaman listened to Abbatoot and asked questions. Later that year on the last morning of his life the old Shaman suddenly understood the magic in Abbatoot’s observations of the aftermath of the great storm when Abbatoot ran to the ancient Shaman and saying, “I thought of one more extension, the belly button!” And, she pointed to her own outie.

The shaman grins for the last time then whispers, “Don’t tell anyone you almost got it, Abbatoot. The belly button is not an extension, Abbatoot, it is less than one. It is a zilch, a nada, a diddly-squat, a zero.” He points to his own innie, “See, the belly button is really less than one. Don’t you see, Abbatoot, it is one less, it is nothing?” He died peacefully shortly thereafter.

Grandma bends down, slapping her thundering thighs; then, as she stands and unconsciously readjusts her large bosoms, she breaks into continuous laughter. “The old Shaman discovered the zero and told Abbatoot just before he died. Neither got any credit.”

The button is rounder than a digit of one,

And sits in the belly as a visual lesson.

Today Abbatoot would be quite a hero

For witnessing the discovery of nothing, the wonderful zero.

Alas, she and many others were not so clever in those times,

But, in my calmer breeze it makes a timeless rhyme.

***

Diplomatic Pouch 9

Blake sits comfortably in the pilot's seat, Pyl is co-pilot and Justin is in the third seat back so he can see out both sides equally. The Cessna 210 is flying east at 150 miles per hour and 16,500 feet above the eastern Cleveland shoreline. The three are enjoying the visual pleasantry of the sun behind the crispy clear blue beyond a layer of thickening rain clouds below.

Blake’s appraises the beauty of flying the Silver Eagle in full sunlight on an otherwise cheerless, dreary day in early March, when the engine abruptly stops cold.

Blake and Pyl automatically check the fuel, ignition and air to the engine. Improper combustion. All three tighten their seat belts. Pyl attempted to work the dead radio. 'Slow descent', deduces Blake who is well trained for a variety of outcomes at any given point. He tries the engine several times then once again. Nothing.

Pyl states crisply, "Ashtabula County should be below the clouds shortly."

"We are in a good, controlled glide," humors Blake. "How you doing back there, Justin?"

He replies, ”I’m fine. You two do what you need to do. I'm fine." At least we are not going straight down, muses Justin following Blake’s lead.

"Good." says Blake, "If we can't get it started we will land on an airstrip, road or a farmer’s soybean field. We have time to think this out."

"Fuel pump?" questions Pyl.

"No, it shouldn't be. I think it is vapor lock but I am not sure why. She was going along pretty as you please."

"As a kid we had vapor lock once in a car in Death Valley. We survived,” relayed Justin.

"You visited the Valley in July, right?" counters Blake while feeling and checking the rate of descent . . .

"I don't know what is wrong with the radio, Blake,” responds Pyl. “We have electric except for the radio."

"Cloud ceiling is about three thousand feet. We have plenty of room, plenty of time." Here we go through the top.”

"Ashtabula County Airport, HZY in Jefferson; 924 feet above sea level," notes Pyl. "But we cannot contact them."

“Making adjustments,” says Blake. ”They should spot us visually."

At-the-same-moment, Ship sets itself thirty feet above the Cessna with blackenot narrow-banded to also camouflage the Silver Eagle as it drops below the clouds. The airspace between Ship and the plane thicken into an appearance of a fractallized mirror from the ground. Seeing the town of Ashtabula Blake glides southeast towards I-90 and the Ashtabula County Airport beyond. Ship remains parallel above the Cessna as it continues a long steady glide for a safe landing. Blake puts the wheels in down and lock while readjusting the flaps up.

Pyl asks, "Why don't they see us?"

Dumbfounded Blake replies, "I don't know. I don't understand. And, we have no damn radio." He attempts to restart the engine one more time hoping they will at least hear the plane. The engine re-starts. Flaps are down for better control. The fuel line appears to have condensed, he reasons. Then the plane begins a slide like it is on a sheet of ice. Blake realizes he is going to overshoot the runway and just beyond and slightly to the south Blake observes the deserted township road, Route 193, lying straight east. He calmly states, "I'll land on the road."

Pyl adds, "Do it."

"Go for it, Blakie,” comments Justin calmly, “looks good. No one in sight."

"Land where the road cuts through the woods. Nothing but fields before and after but up ahead are houses," declares Pyl, feeling the Cessna is under control even though the engine again stops. "You are on the mark."

The wheels touch the rough tar and chip road pavement. "Down." states Blake while breaking the wheels. When the three climbed out their first focus is on the engine.

An older man ambles up from near the tail section saying, "Can I be of any assistance?"

Yermey stands surprised when no one responds. He takes a step closer but freezes in a sudden apprehension. Behind him another louder voice, "Pyl. Blake and Justin, how are you? What happened? Why the forced landing?"

Ears electrified in shock, the three earthlings turn and can hardly believe their eyes. Here stands Fran with an unidentified older man. The earthlings see no car nearby but here is Fran with a stranger in tow.

***

2140 hours. We watch a couple of shows and the news and had Papa John’s pizza for supper. After, I completed chapter ten for the ebook.

Add and post, boy. All for tonight. – Amorella

*** ***

Chapter Ten

Purpose

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.

The Dead 10

In the stream in his sanctuary, Merlyn rises wet and naked near the bank, climbs up and out and begins a run from between birch and pine, through the vast field of bluebells, behind the stage ruins, through the great paddock of white foxglove and red poppy, and on through the pinkish white saxifrage meadow; then across the clearing of grassy field until he reached the flowering purple heather near the sanctuary’s east side, the Oak and Birch forest. Coming to rest he sits crosslegged in the tall grass under the tall Oak waiting for either Vivian or Sophia to appear.

Shortly, or however one judges illusionary time, Sophia peeks from around the Oak. "Thought I'd find you here, Merlyn," she says coyly, at which Merlyn surmises she borrowed the tone from Vivian.

A loincloth fitted itself as his right hand padding the imagined ground next to him. "Have a seat beside me on this fine grass.” Scooting over he adds, "Are we ready for another talk on how to tell the Living how it was in those early days of the Rebellion?"

Sophia sighs, "I have been playing a scene between soul and heart. It was on the evening of the first day of the Rebellion and Mario wanted to talk so he came over to my stone hut sanctuary. I asked him in and directed him to lie on the bed with me as I only had one chair. I remember his first words as we lay facing one another with our heads propped up by stuffed wooly pillows.

Mario comments, “It is pleasant enough here for a nighttime of sleep.”

I agree. Being dead is indeed a momentary heaven. Then Mario brings up his concern on how to know the Supervisor when you see herorhim.

Misunderstanding, I told him that being unseen doesn't mean the Supervisor doesn't exist no matter what name he responds to or not."

She looks directly through Merlyn's old dark inky eyes referencing her story. "The Supervisor has an interest in us still. Mario is concerned with deception within our ranks; that we cannot trust our fellow Greeks, and as such how can we trust any of the Dead in Elysium.”

Smiling broadly, Merlyn comments, "A wickedly good question old Mario had.”

Sincere or not, Sophia always returns Merlyn’s smile. She continues, "It is morning of the second day, and I remember what is important to me and may be important to the Living too.” Sophia turns slightly to her left to better face Merlyn straight away. Startled, Sophia sees only herself, her own spirit reflecting, “We thought if we were not free in life, then we would be free in death but that is not the case. We ruminate and find camaraderie through our personal identities, our personalities and interests. The center is Mother, our first who founded in this Place. Mother is our common point. We are equal citizens through our ancestry. We are a hive of sensibly silhouetted questions searching for equally reasonable responses. What else can we do? The gods certainly don’t always help. We don’t know, really, if they ever helped.”

Sophia continues in earnest. "The question among we Dead is still who am I first, and who are we human beings second. Is this question really more easily resolved after life? Why am I here, is a question within life, why should it continue to be a question after physical life? What shall I do here among the Dead?

Her spirit, her heartansoulanmind, settles in balance; without a word from Merlyn, she recommences. “This is still not resolved even though the Supervisor, as a condition of this most recent twentieth century Rebellion, has regrouped us with other humane spirits who were once the physical marsupial humanoids. They have the same basic philosophical questions we do, and as many are much more seasoned spirits than ourselves we have quickly come to re-identify our Place of the Dead, our old Elysium as HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither. We differing species of spirits were here together all along, side by side so to speak, and we did not realize our fuller spiritual nature. Dead we are now of the same consciousness, but what is the meaning for life and a continued life after physical death? What does this meaning give us?

Merlyn sits Buddha-like contemplating his ancient Greek friend, Sophia. He humbly remarks, "There was much more to Life than we knew; and now we know there is much more to being Dead."

Merlyn’s present thoughts strike Sophia. ‘If we can now learn more from the ancient marsupial humanoids about what it is to be Dead, then this is also what we can give to the Living. Surely they know something more than we do about this circumstance.’

***

The Brothers 10

With Jack contently sitting on his master’s lap Robert adjusts comfortable in the large easy chair in the TV room watching an episode of National Geographic about lions and hyenas sharing their scrubby desert-like territory beneath Mt. Kilimanjaro. Jack suddenly jumped off Rob’s lap.

“I’m I interrupting?” says Richard softly as he pets Jack who appears eager for an added playmate.

“No, not in the least. Jack and I were just watching the lions about to attack the hyenas.”

“Sounds exciting. Who wins?”

“Lions I assume, unless fifty hyenas jump out and tear them apart.” comments Robert.

“It all has to do with numbers,” says Richard. “I have that in my book with the marsupials. They are lucky to have three planets to populate rather than just one like us.”

“Hyenas and lions are not fiction, Richie. You’re marsupials aren’t going to be in National Geographic.”

“I know, but I am making a point about population. I think we are a little beyond the lion versus hyena stage.” He looks at the screen. “What’s that? How is the male with the cubs?”

“That’s a female. That’s her clitoris, Richie.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Nope.” he smiles, “she has more testosterone than the male.”

“Holy crap!”

Robert deviously flips the set off. “What’s happening, brother?”

“Nothing. Cyndi wanted to come over, so I decided to come along.”

Robert deadpans, “How about a Taco Bell?”

Fifteen minutes later, they are at the local fast food restaurant with two tacos and two diet Cokes each. “We didn’t bring any poetry along,” says Richard. “I wanted to see what you are working on in terms of the cemetery poem, quibbles Richard.

“I don’t see it in your poetry,” responds Robert as he pulls a tightly folded piece of paper from his back pocket. “Here is a poem you once wrote that I think can be used in juxtaposition with the one I wrote and you read the other day.” He gives it to Richard to read.

A Sunrise

The beauty of a clear and Spring-like sunrise

lies in the quiet separation of light and dark

causing the crossbar atop a telephone pole

To shadow down and stretch melancholy out,

to hold a grounded and subtle shape,

A shape a Nazarene once nailed to a cause;

waiting enough, the moving shadows of a solar ritual

pull on the gravity of the eye weighted soul,

Tugging the soul to settle and set at sundown,

To be overcome by power,

a power resting on the edge of the universe

And hovering deep in the outback of the observing mind;

It saddles up a god more ancient than Apollo

And makes him ready to ride a new thought through the cosmos.

“I had forgotten about this one.”

“A couple of days ago when Ferlinghetti came up, I thought of this poem. It has a sense of Coney Island of the Mind, ‘Number Five’ in it.”

“The gravity of the eye-weighted soul, is a good line, but why did you follow with ‘the eye-weighted rather than ‘an eye-weighted soul’ Richie?”

“I don’t know, Rob. I wrote this more than twenty-five years ago.”

“Then you go on talking about a power resting at the edge of the universe and you say it is hovering deep in the outback of your mind. Is that your unconscious -- the power of your unconsciousness coming out?”

Richard sighs and finishes his taco. “The mind is not the same as the brain. It is not physical. The brain is a shadow of the mind.” Then Richard considers it may be the other way around.

With a quick and confident smile Robert dickers, “In your mind it appears the other way around, your mind is more real than your brain, so the brain is in the mind’s shadow. The unconscious is in your mind. Isn’t that the way you see it? You put someone under in the OR and body is out like a light. That’s the brain not the mind.”

Richard considers the use of the unconscious in his Merlyn books, “I don’t know,” then he responded, "I don’t know where the words come from. As a writer I am an everlasting pregnant pause."

From the kitchen doorway Cyndi asks, ”We're going for an ice cream, you boys want to come along?"

"I'm game," asserts Richard glad to have a diversion.

"I think I'll stay," remarks Robert calmly. "I have some work to do."

Connie comes into the room, smiles her dear warm-hearted smile and coerces Robert, "Let's go, big boy. You need to be more social."

With Connie’s comment, lines from poem “5” in the eleventh edition of Ferlinghetti’s “Coney Island of the Mind” come to Richard’s mind:

“. . . They stretch him on the Tree to cool, And everybody after that, is always making models, of this Tree, with him hung up, and always crooning His name, and calling Him to come down, and sit in on their combo . . .” he pauses and says to Connie, “the world needs to be more social not me.”

***

Grandma’s Story 10

Some aspects of human society are invisible, as you will see in this little story that takes place about three thousand years ago on the coast of East Africa in what is now Kenya where a young local woman is standing on the beach.

Brooding, Rumbasant stands at the edge of the forest inspecting the horizon beyond the great water thinking. The horizon is not the end of things, as I am not standing at the beginning of things. Our men leave this place by boats. Most do not return. Always the sons of the chief or sons of his brothers leave on quests. It has been that way for as many stars as there are in the night sky.

I want to leave on a boat with one of my brothers, but I will never leave for fear of losing my blackened walking stick. The fire from the sky struck the tree I used for shelter. This stick is from that tree. God's fire hit my left shoulder and went down my right leg and into the ground. The fire is still in the ground where I left it. I know what others do not, I know what it is to have been touched by Sky Father’s fire.

At the time this is a great shock for the remaining tribe. Older people say the Sky Father struck me for being born to our Grand Chief first. I argued that if this was so, Sky Father is an abusive father. We do not strike each other or our children anymore. We are a peaceful people.

In Grandma's the last story, Abbatoot and part of her clan had survived a terrible storm, and I am re-brewing a typhoon not far from where Rumbasant is standing. Rumbasant has been struck down once, what more can the Sky Father do? To be struck by sky fire twice would be unprecedented.

The sunset appears as a yellow tunnel, a tube by which she might cross to the other side of the world. A huge storm roars onto the beach during the night. The winds grow steadily from fifty to over seventy miles per hour. Rumbasant holds her sacred stick high as lightning strikes a nearby tree. Wind-driven and stinging, sticky bleached sand hit Rumbasant’s face. Continuous thunderous roars, ominous booms, green tinged sky, blue, and low purple bands of the massively dark storm cloud.

She shouts to the storm, “By Mother Earth and by your sacred marriage to Father Sky, I command the winds and rain to cease!”

This grows into a magical chant, a spontaneous ritual dance and a shout at the up-heaved ocean. Nature responds with a terribly wicked wind, rain, lightning and thunder. Rumbasant unconsciously shortens the oath.

“By Mother and Father, I command this reckless display of water and wind to cease!”

The night storm roars on and so does Rumbasant shouting another spontaneously created chant.

Arumba. Arumba. Arumba.

Foam of the mad dog.

Arumba. Arumba. Arumba.

Foam of a mad sea.

Arumba. Arumba. Arumba.

Foam to the mad wind.

Arumba. Arumba. Arumba.

Mimicking the storm Rumbasant howls and raises and lowers her Stick, “Arumba. Arumba. Arumba.” She shouts the word with every other beat of her terrified and defiant heart. “Arumba. Arumba. Arumba.”

Lightning strikes the Stick. Fire burst forth with the sharp crack and boom. For the few witnesses the tribal memory is openly jarred once again.

Rumbasant lies stirring and twitching. The smoking Stick lies nearby. Living is not enough, thinks Rumbasant, but I am alive.

Rumbasant clutches Stick pulling herself up, stands once again, and raises Stick in her defiant right hand. A wall of lightning snaps at the bank of palms. Again, what seems to be the Voice of God rumbles to near in earth and sky.

“Stick is what it is,” shouts Rumbasant to her tribe in the distance. "I am hammered twice by Sky Father’s fire and I am alive!" The people come closer, staring at Rumbasant’s face in disbelief. Her right eye socket is empty. The tribal people begin a search for Rumbasant’s burnt eye. It is never found.

Early one morning not long after this horrendous weather event Rumbasant discovers a perfectly white and slightly oval shell in the water near the beach. She puts the shell up to her empty eye socket, pulls open the lids and slides the shell in adjusting in a welcome fit.

Rumbasant is called Shell Eye in stories along the Kenya coast of East Africa still. In fact, the name Shell Eye was forged and pulled down into a secret mythical language that gravitates the regions of Africa’s east coast into a single story.

Taking an eye for an eye or so it’s been said

Is not quite the same as taking wine with bread.

To discover what story time remains to be seen,

One needs the depth of a one eye threaded quite lean.

***

Diplomatic Pouch 10

Friendly speaks first to Pyl, re-introducing Hartolite and then to Yermey, who the Earthlings have not met. Friendly says, "We are not who we say we are. Please give us time to explain." Pause. "Are you willing to give us the time?"

Blake interrupts, "First we need to make sure the plane is safe to fly. We have a problem with vapor lock."

With polite reserve Pyl comments, "We need to get off this road."

Justin opens, "Where is your transportation? How did you know we would be here?"

"Did you see us attempt a landing at the airport?" declares Blake with his eyes on the engine.

"We are foreigners,” replies Yermey. "We do not have U.S. citizenship."

"There is no need to check for vapor lock," says Hartolite. "We forced your plane down so we could talk on the ground."

Blake turns, "Pardon. What?"

"Are you terrorists?"

“No, we are not,” declares Friendly.

"What do you want with us?"

"We wish to be friends," says Yermey.

"Why did you say you forced us down?"

"Because we did," states Yermey with commitment.

"How?" queries Pyl.

Hartolite replies, "We caused the vapor lock."

Yermey reasons, "It is physics."

Friendly adds, "Ship caused your plane to slide at the runway,"

"We did seem to slide," remarks Blake. "It felt like the wheels were on ice while we were in the air."

Yermey, again in a reasonable tone, declares, "It is caused by blackenot. This is the reason no one saw you, why you couldn't contact by radio,”

"What do you mean?" questions Blake. "The engine restarted."

"It was an unknown," comments Friendly.

Blake immediately responds, "It stopped again."

With less reserve Yermey smiles politely saying, "You were in no danger."

Friendly steadies the pace in a deliberate cadence, "Your plane touched Ship. It was not a bird that cracked the Cessna wingtip light. Ship did. You touched Ship who had blackenot on. You could not see us.”

Hartolite slacks her voice and lightens her voice, "We did not wish to show ourselves at that time."

Justin queries, "Because you are not citizens?"

"No. We are not from here.”

Pyl asks, "You are aliens? What country do you serve?"

In an attempt to focus the conversation Yermey declares, "We are cousins.” He continues, “First, you are concerned about your plane. Get in and start the engine.”

“May we help you check out the plane for take off?” solicits Friendly.

Yermey politely comments, "I will see to your safety."

"With what?"

Yermey points up. “Ship.”

Pyl responds, "I don't really see anything up there but clouds."

Blake is in the plane. The engine starts normally. He says, "Let’s go Justin. Your wife wants her seat.”

"You are good to go," smiles Friendly as warmly as if she were a favorite next neighbor.

Blake states, ”I'll feel better once we are in the air. There is not a trace of problem with the engine. Everyone strapped in?” Blake glances about. No cars. No people. He moves the plane down the township road, rives the engine with the flaps down and in place. Slowly and surely speed and lift after the stand of trees. Airborne. The plane flies normally. They hear the familiar clunk of the wheels drawn and locked into the fuselage. Blake banks left and heads north through the clouds towards Lake Erie for a quick left to return to Burke Lakefront along the northern shore of the United States.

As they push through the clouds, Pyl thinks all is well.

Suddenly a cloud drops over the Cessna and the Rolls-Royce turboprop engine stops cold. Blake worked the controls in the silence.

At the same moment Friendly, unknowing to the Earthlings, draws the Cessna into Ship’s annex, a recently modified, human friendly first floor.

Pyl thinks, we're dead. We are on the ground, dead.

Blake continues to the instruments.

Justin mumbles, “I don’t think we are moving.”

Outside Pyl’s door and in the thick cloud Friendly knocks on the window saying, "You have landed safely. Open the door."

Pyl stares at her incredulously. “What? Blake, she is down right outside my window. We are on the ground.” In the moment she forgot to ask how they got to the airport before they did.

"You are perfectly safe," assures Friendly in an ever-broadening and relaxed smile, "Come ahead, climb out; all of you. You are safe.”

“Let’s get out,” says Justin eagerly. “Come on, Pyl. Open the door.”

“We’re on the ground somewhere,” declares Blake. I don’t know what happened because we were not on autopilot; at least I don’t think we were. I can see out the side window that we are on the ground, but this is not the airport. At least we’re safe. Let’s secure the plane then see where we are.” He suddenly realizes, ‘I did not land this plane and neither did Pyl.’

***

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22 July 2014

Notes - no letters, no numbers / coincidence - miswiring / ebook final drafts 7,8,9,10

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