Notes - reminiscing and Swift / wig / ebook final drafts 11,12,13,14

        Mid-morning. Rain with thunder from the southwest. The backyard run has a good stream thus this is seemingly good for the rooted ground in the surrounds. You had several odd dreams last night but the only one you can remember is that you were late for school. You both had breakfast but Carol is still reading the morning paper. – Amorella

         0918 hours. Such is a usual morning. Hard to believe that for some 37 years I was up between 4:30 and 5:00. Had a daily bath, breakfast, read the paper and on my way to school between 6:30 and 7:00 with classes beginning between 7:15 and 7:25; left school usually between 2:40 and 3:00. I did a lot of reading magazines and books. One of the perks was taking home weekly and monthly magazines from school overnight and full use of the school library as well as local public ones. It was a wonderful time in life. Much busier after Kim was born in 1979 and up through 1985 when she began first grade. Before that, after a year off from teaching, Carol dropped Kim off at a great daycare in Blue Ash in the morning and I picked her up around 3:00 coming home from Indian Hill. I moved to Mason Schools in the 84-85 school year and usually picked up Kim from school as she was out later than I was. Busy and fun life. I still had a school library to use and we had cable and a BetaMax (Sony) video recorder to tape shows we would have otherwise missed.

         It was difficult getting regular reception in Mason in those days, partially because of the ground wave power of the Voice of America’s Bethany Station. Sometimes in the middle of the night you could hear a low volume of Spanish from a corner wall as we lived about half a mile from the VOA. You could pick up the phone most any time of day and her low volume Spanish in the background. After school Kim and I would sometimes watch music videos on MTV and when they were story-like I would point out ‘setting, characters, plot, theme and conclusion’ as if they were short stories. We did the same with children’s books and movies. Anne was one of her favorite. Kim says I did a lot of napping while she watched TV for a half hour or so. I don’t remember that but I am sure she is correct. Carol would come home and we would make supper or go out. She was always busy but I helped out particularly with the clothes washing and drying.  Such were our through the workweek lives.

         You were reminiscing and forgetting to stop your fingers, boy. Erase if you like, but I rather enjoyed your relaxed thoughts. Don’t clean it up, leave it as is; straight and clear out of your head. Post. – Amorella

         0950 hours. No doubt I had said this all before; “changed his stories once a quarter” comes to mind from Swift’s poem.

** **

Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, D.S.P.D.

BY JONATHAN SWIFT

Dans l'adversité de nos meilleurs amis nous trouvons quelque chose, qui ne nous déplaît pas. 
["In the hard times of our best friends we find something that doesn't displease us."]

As Rochefoucauld his maxims drew

From Nature, I believe 'em true:

They argue no corrupted mind

In him; the fault is in mankind.

       This maxim more than all the rest

Is thought too base for human breast:

"In all distresses of our friends,

We first consult our private ends;

While Nature, kindly bent to ease us,

Points out some circumstance to please us."

       If this perhaps your patience move,

Let reason and experience prove.

       We all behold with envious eyes

Our equal rais'd above our size.

Who would not at a crowded show

Stand high himself, keep others low?

I love my friend as well as you

But would not have him stop my view.

Then let him have the higher post:

I ask but for an inch at most.

       If in a battle you should find

One, whom you love of all mankind,

Had some heroic action done,

A champion kill'd, or trophy won;

Rather than thus be overtopt,

Would you not wish his laurels cropt?

       Dear honest Ned is in the gout,

Lies rack'd with pain, and you without:

How patiently you hear him groan!

How glad the case is not your own!

       What poet would not grieve to see

His brethren write as well as he?

But rather than they should excel,

He'd wish his rivals all in hell.

       Her end when emulation misses,

She turns to envy, stings and hisses:

The strongest friendship yields to pride,

Unless the odds be on our side.

       Vain human kind! fantastic race!

Thy various follies who can trace?

Self-love, ambition, envy, pride,

Their empire in our hearts divide.

Give others riches, power, and station,

'Tis all on me a usurpation.

I have no title to aspire;

Yet, when you sink, I seem the higher.

In Pope I cannot read a line,

But with a sigh I wish it mine;

When he can in one couplet fix

More sense than I can do in six;

It gives me such a jealous fit,

I cry, "Pox take him and his wit!"

       Why must I be outdone by Gay

In my own hum'rous biting way?

       Arbuthnot is no more my friend,

Who dares to irony pretend,

Which I was born to introduce,

Refin'd it first, and show'd its use.

       St. John, as well as Pultney, knows

That I had some repute for prose;

And, till they drove me out of date,

Could maul a minister of state.

If they have mortify'd my pride,

And made me throw my pen aside;

If with such talents Heav'n has blest 'em,

Have I not reason to detest 'em?

       To all my foes, dear Fortune, send

Thy gifts; but never to my friend:

I tamely can endure the first,

But this with envy makes me burst.

       Thus much may serve by way of proem:

Proceed we therefore to our poem.

       The time is not remote, when I

Must by the course of nature die;

When I foresee my special friends

Will try to find their private ends:

Tho' it is hardly understood

Which way my death can do them good,

Yet thus, methinks, I hear 'em speak:

"See, how the Dean begins to break!

Poor gentleman, he droops apace!

You plainly find it in his face.

That old vertigo in his head

Will never leave him till he's dead.

Besides, his memory decays:

He recollects not what he says;

He cannot call his friends to mind:

Forgets the place where last he din'd;

Plies you with stories o'er and o'er;

He told them fifty times before.

How does he fancy we can sit

To hear his out-of-fashion'd wit?

But he takes up with younger folks,

Who for his wine will bear his jokes.

Faith, he must make his stories shorter,

Or change his comrades once a quarter:

In half the time he talks them round,

There must another set be found.

       "For poetry he's past his prime:

He takes an hour to find a rhyme;

His fire is out, his wit decay'd,

His fancy sunk, his Muse a jade.

I'd have him throw away his pen;—

But there's no talking to some men!"

       And then their tenderness appears,

By adding largely to my years:

"He's older than he would be reckon'd

And well remembers Charles the Second.

       "He hardly drinks a pint of wine;

And that, I doubt, is no good sign.

His stomach too begins to fail:

Last year we thought him strong and hale;

But now he's quite another thing:

I wish he may hold out till spring."

       Then hug themselves, and reason thus:

"It is not yet so bad with us."

       In such a case, they talk in tropes,

And by their fears express their hopes:

Some great misfortune to portend,

No enemy can match a friend.

With all the kindness they profess,

The merit of a lucky guess

(When daily "How d'ye's" come of course,

And servants answer, "Worse and worse!")

Would please 'em better, than to tell,

That, "God be prais'd, the Dean is well."

Then he who prophecy'd the best

Approves his foresight to the rest:

"You know I always fear'd the worst,

And often told you so at first."

He'd rather choose that I should die,

Than his prediction prove a lie.

Not one foretells I shall recover;

But all agree to give me over.

       Yet, should some neighbour feel a pain

Just in the parts where I complain,

How many a message would he send?

What hearty prayers that I should mend?

Inquire what regimen I kept,

What gave me ease, and how I slept?

And more lament when I was dead,

Than all the sniv'llers round my bed.

       My good companions, never fear;

For though you may mistake a year,

Though your prognostics run too fast,

They must be verify'd at last.

       Behold the fatal day arrive!

"How is the Dean?"—"He's just alive."

Now the departing prayer is read;

"He hardly breathes."—"The Dean is dead."

Before the passing-bell begun,

The news thro' half the town has run.

"O, may we all for death prepare!

What has he left? and who's his heir?"—

"I know no more than what the news is;

'Tis all bequeath'd to public uses."—

"To public use! a perfect whim!

What had the public done for him?

Mere envy, avarice, and pride:

He gave it all—but first he died.

And had the Dean, in all the nation,

No worthy friend, no poor relation?

So ready to do strangers good,

Forgetting his own flesh and blood?"

       Now Grub-Street wits are all employ'd;

With elegies the town is cloy'd:

Some paragraph in ev'ry paper

To curse the Dean or bless the Drapier.

       The doctors, tender of their fame,

Wisely on me lay all the blame:

"We must confess his case was nice;

But he would never take advice.

Had he been rul'd, for aught appears,

He might have liv'd these twenty years;

For, when we open'd him, we found

That all his vital parts were sound."

       From Dublin soon to London spread,

'Tis told at Court, the Dean is dead.

       Kind Lady Suffolk in the spleen

Runs laughing up to tell the Queen.

The Queen, so gracious, mild, and good,

Cries, "Is he gone! 'tis time he should.

He's dead, you say; why, let him rot:

I'm glad the medals were forgot.

I promis'd them, I own; but when?

I only was the Princess then;

But now, as consort of a king,

You know, 'tis quite a different thing."

       Now Chartres, at Sir Robert's levee,

Tells with a sneer the tidings heavy:

"Why, is he dead without his shoes?"

Cries Bob, "I'm sorry for the news:

O, were the wretch but living still,

And in his place my good friend Will!

Or had a mitre on his head,

Provided Bolingbroke were dead!"

       Now Curll his shop from rubbish drains:

Three genuine tomes of Swift's remains!

And then, to make them pass the glibber,

Revis'd by Tibbalds, Moore, and Cibber.

He'll treat me as he does my betters,

Publish my will, my life, my letters:

Revive the libels born to die;

Which Pope must bear, as well as I.

       Here shift the scene, to represent

How those I love my death lament.

Poor Pope will grieve a month, and Gay

A week, and Arbuthnot a day.

       St. John himself will scarce forbear

To bite his pen, and drop a tear.

The rest will give a shrug, and cry,

"I'm sorry—but we all must die!"

Indifference, clad in Wisdom's guise,

All fortitude of mind supplies:

For how can stony bowels melt

In those who never pity felt?

When we are lash'd, they kiss the rod,

Resigning to the will of God.

       The fools, my juniors by a year,

Are tortur'd with suspense and fear;

Who wisely thought my age a screen,

When death approach'd, to stand between:

The screen remov'd, their hearts are trembling;

They mourn for me without dissembling.

       My female friends, whose tender hearts

Have better learn'd to act their parts,

Receive the news in doleful dumps:

"The Dean is dead: (and what is trumps?)

Then, Lord have mercy on his soul!

(Ladies, I'll venture for the vole.)

Six deans, they say, must bear the pall:

(I wish I knew what king to call.)

Madam, your husband will attend

The funeral of so good a friend.

No, madam, 'tis a shocking sight:

And he's engag'd to-morrow night:

My Lady Club would take it ill,

If he should fail her at quadrille.

He lov'd the Dean—(I lead a heart)

But dearest friends, they say, must part.

His time was come: he ran his race;

We hope he's in a better place."

       Why do we grieve that friends should die?

No loss more easy to supply.

One year is past; a different scene!

No further mention of the Dean;

Who now, alas! no more is miss'd,

Than if he never did exist.

Where's now this fav'rite of Apollo!

Departed:—and his works must follow;

Must undergo the common fate;

His kind of wit is out of date.

Some country squire to Lintot goes,

Inquires for "Swift in Verse and Prose."

Says Lintot, "I have heard the name;

He died a year ago."—"The same."

He searcheth all his shop in vain.

"Sir, you may find them in Duck-lane;

I sent them with a load of books,

Last Monday to the pastry-cook's.

To fancy they could live a year!

I find you're but a stranger here.

The Dean was famous in his time,

And had a kind of knack at rhyme.

His way of writing now is past;

The town hath got a better taste;

I keep no antiquated stuff,

But spick and span I have enough.

Pray do but give me leave to show 'em;

Here's Colley Cibber's birth-day poem.

This ode you never yet have seen,

By Stephen Duck, upon the Queen.

Then here's a letter finely penn'd

Against the Craftsman and his friend:

It clearly shows that all reflection

On ministers is disaffection.

Next, here's Sir Robert's vindication,

And Mr. Henley's last oration.

The hawkers have not got 'em yet:

Your honour please to buy a set?

       "Here's Woolston's tracts, the twelfth edition;

'Tis read by every politician:

The country members, when in town,

To all their boroughs send them down;

You never met a thing so smart;

The courtiers have them all by heart:

Those maids of honour who can read

Are taught to use them for their creed.

The rev'rend author's good intention

Hath been rewarded with a pension.

He doth an honour to his gown,

By bravely running priestcraft down:

He shows, as sure as God's in Gloucester,

That Jesus was a grand imposter;

That all his miracles were cheats,

Perform'd as jugglers do their feats:

The church had never such a writer;

A shame he hath not got a mitre!"

       Suppose me dead; and then suppose

A club assembled at the Rose ;

Where, from discourse of this and that,

I grow the subject of their chat.

And while they toss my name about,

With favour some, and some without,

One, quite indiff'rent in the cause,

My character impartial draws:

       "The Dean, if we believe report,

Was never ill receiv'd at Court.

As for his works in verse and prose

I own myself no judge of those;

Nor can I tell what critics thought 'em:

But this I know, all people bought 'em.

As with a moral view design'd

To cure the vices of mankind:

His vein, ironically grave,

Expos'd the fool, and lash'd the knave.

To steal a hint was never known,

But what he writ was all his own.

       "He never thought an honour done him,

Because a duke was proud to own him,

Would rather slip aside and choose

To talk with wits in dirty shoes;

Despis'd the fools with stars and garters,

So often seen caressing Chartres.

He never courted men in station,

Nor persons held in admiration;

Of no man's greatness was afraid,

Because he sought for no man's aid.

Though trusted long in great affairs

He gave himself no haughty airs:

Without regarding private ends,

Spent all his credit for his friends;

And only chose the wise and good;

No flatt'rers; no allies in blood:

But succour'd virtue in distress,

And seldom fail'd of good success;

As numbers in their hearts must own,

Who, but for him, had been unknown.

       "With princes kept a due decorum,

But never stood in awe before 'em.

He follow'd David's lesson just:

'In princes never put thy trust';

And, would you make him truly sour,

Provoke him with a slave in pow'r.

The Irish senate if you nam'd,

With what impatience he declaim'd!

Fair Liberty was all his cry,

For her he stood prepar'd to die;

For her he boldly stood alone;

For her he oft expos'd his own.

Two kingdoms, just as faction led,

Had set a price upon his head;

But not a traitor could be found

To sell him for six hundred pound.

       "Had he but spar'd his tongue and pen

He might have rose like other men:

But pow'r was never in his thought,

And wealth he valu'd not a groat:

Ingratitude he often found,

And pity'd those who meant the wound:

But kept the tenor of his mind,

To merit well of human kind:

Nor made a sacrifice of those

Who still were true, to please his foes.

He labour'd many a fruitless hour

To reconcile his friends in pow'r;

Saw mischief by a faction brewing,

While they pursu'd each other's ruin.

But, finding vain was all his care,

He left the Court in mere despair.

       "And, oh! how short are human schemes!

Here ended all our golden dreams.

What St. John's skill in state affairs,

What Ormond's valour, Oxford's cares,

To save their sinking country lent,

Was all destroy'd by one event.

Too soon that precious life was ended,

On which alone our weal depended.

When up a dangerous faction starts,

With wrath and vengeance in their hearts;

By solemn League and Cov'nant bound,

To ruin, slaughter, and confound;

To turn religion to a fable,

And make the government a Babel;

Pervert the law, disgrace the gown,

Corrupt the senate, rob the crown;

To sacrifice old England's glory,

And make her infamous in story:

When such a tempest shook the land,

How could unguarded Virtue stand?

       "With horror, grief, despair, the Dean

Beheld the dire destructive scene:

His friends in exile, or the tower,

Himself within the frown of power,

Pursu'd by base envenom'd pens,

Far to the land of slaves and fens;

A servile race in folly nurs'd,

Who truckle most when treated worst.

       "By innocence and resolution,

He bore continual persecution,

While numbers to preferment rose,

Whose merits were, to be his foes;

When ev'n his own familiar friends,

Intent upon their private ends,

Like renegadoes now he feels,

Against him lifting up their heels.

       "The Dean did by his pen defeat

An infamous destructive cheat;

Taught fools their int'rest how to know,

And gave them arms to ward the blow.

Envy hath own'd it was his doing,

To save that helpless land from ruin;

While they who at the steerage stood,

And reap'd the profit, sought his blood.

       "To save them from their evil fate,

In him was held a crime of state.

A wicked monster on the bench,

Whose fury blood could never quench,

As vile and profligate a villain,

As modern Scroggs, or old Tresilian,

Who long all justice had discarded,

Nor fear'd he God, nor man regarded,

Vow'd on the Dean his rage to vent,

And make him of his zeal repent;

But Heav'n his innocence defends,

The grateful people stand his friends.

Not strains of law, nor judge's frown,

Nor topics brought to please the crown,

Nor witness hir'd, nor jury pick'd,

Prevail to bring him in convict.

       "In exile, with a steady heart,

He spent his life's declining part;

Where folly, pride, and faction sway,

Remote from St. John, Pope, and Gay.

       "His friendships there, to few confin'd,

Were always of the middling kind;

No fools of rank, a mongrel breed,

Who fain would pass for lords indeed:

Where titles gave no right or power

And peerage is a wither'd flower;

He would have held it a disgrace,

If such a wretch had known his face.

On rural squires, that kingdom's bane,

He vented oft his wrath in vain;

Biennial squires to market brought;

Who sell their souls and votes for nought;

The nation stripp'd, go joyful back,

To rob the church, their tenants rack,

Go snacks with thieves and rapparees,

And keep the peace to pick up fees;

In ev'ry job to have a share,

A jail or barrack to repair;

And turn the tax for public roads,

Commodious to their own abodes.

       "Perhaps I may allow, the Dean

Had too much satire in his vein;

And seem'd determin'd not to starve it,

Because no age could more deserve it.

Yet malice never was his aim;

He lash'd the vice, but spar'd the name;

No individual could resent,

Where thousands equally were meant.

His satire points at no defect,

But what all mortals may correct;

For he abhorr'd that senseless tribe

Who call it humour when they gibe.

He spar'd a hump, or crooked nose,

Whose owners set not up for beaux.

True genuine dulness mov'd his pity,

Unless it offer'd to be witty.

Those who their ignorance confess'd

He ne'er offended with a jest;

But laugh'd to hear an idiot quote

A verse from Horace, learn'd by rote.

       "He knew a hundred pleasant stories

With all the turns of Whigs and Tories:

Was cheerful to his dying day;

And friends would let him have his way.

       "He gave the little wealth he had

To build a house for fools and mad;

And show'd by one satiric touch,

No nation wanted it so much.

That kingdom he hath left his debtor,

I wish it soon may have a better."

From - http://wwwDOTpoetryfoundationDOTorg/poem/174539

** **

         We dropped this poem in, boy, because it is one of your all time favorites by word master Swift. Now, post. – Amorella

         0958 hours. This is one of the best. What perception this shows about human nature. I loved it the first time I read it in Dr. John Coulter’s Eighteenth Century Poetry class. I love neo-classic literary tone and wit. 

         Late afternoon. You have completed only one ebook chapter so far. After a nap you did your forty-minute exercises late morning, had left over pizza for lunch and you both watched this week’s “Rizzoli and Isles” and “Murder in the First”. Last night it was the last of the summer episodes of “Endeavor” and “The Last Ship”. Carol is reading her latest novel and you are sitting nearby in the living room. - Amorella

         1718 hours. I would like another chapter done before supper, again leftovers – egg salad, which should still be very good. It is still a rather dismal day though the rain has apparently stopped.

         Post. - Amorella

        1802 hours. I have completed chapters 11, 12 and 13 in ebook final draft.

         Add and post. - Amorella

Chapter Eleven

Trust

The Supervisor has a little saying:

                           Ring-a-ring o'rosies

                           A pocket full of posies

                           "A-tishoo! A-tishoo!"

                           We all fall down!

                           We rise from clay

                           On Judgment Day

                           Be we dead or still alive.

         I, Merlyn, have this little ditty above memorized to the point it sets stemmed in letters out of which each four-leafed chapter dreams grow to clover size. I knead the dreams into a word stream of music for the heart and soul and mind with hope that when read, these stories cast a light into those living with an imagination that casts no shadow.

The Dead 11

         Merlyn sits on his theatrical ruins admiring a yellow sun that has only recently been a part of HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither. He turns towards the large granite hill in the direction of the Living beyond the stone and speaks as if the Living were listen.

         “During this recent tenure on Earth I am embedding in identical twins Richard and Robert. We had the illusions of water, green foliage and blue sky but never rain either until after the Second Rebellion.

The Second Rebellion of the Dead began the night after President of the United States, Dwight David Eisenhower’s live Farewell Address on 17 January 1961. Those already dead did not know of this address at the time but many recent Dead in those days knew the name Eisenhower. It wasn't long before word of the broadcast got around from those who died shortly after hearing it.”

         Merlyn continues, “Wars and plagues had helped pass many people on more quickly in the first sixty years of the twentieth century. The Dead knew and understand. Many ancestors from around the world had lost a descendant during the first sixty years. Technology and weaponry came into existence that had rarely been dreamed of let alone built. The majority of the earthly dead of the many cultures came together and declared to the unseen Supervisor; “’a spirit, ghost or apparition has to return to the Living to tell or show the Living how it is existing beyond the grave.’”        

         “Now, I, Merlyn, a Bard of old Scotland, died in the latter half of the seventh century. I fell into a non-existing sleep and when I awoke I found myself in my native culture’s concept of Heaven, Avalon. One begins her or his sleep with his friends and family, with those whose culture is similar. The earlier Dead of Avalon understand slightly different memories of topographical scenes than my own. Heavenly cultural settings evolve because of Space/Time. All earthly dead share the vision of the same moon and stars though from our own cultural regions. There was no sun before this recent Second Rebellion, but we had a fair blue sky and white fluffy clouds that we shared in the common blue though sunless daylight.”

         “After the Second Rebellion,” says Merlyn, “we shared the same artificial yellow sun and the separate cultural regions are now boarder-less by a new attitude jolted by our neighboring spirits from afar, the vast rivers, fields and mountains of the ThreePlanets system on our Milky Way Galaxy’s far side. People in the twenty-first century would probably say we earned an upgrade.” Merlyn glances over to the forest on the right side of the granite. “This was the Supervisor’s price for our demand to be forever assured that we Homo sapiens were not alone then or now. Surprisingly, we two species are enough alike in spirit to be common friends.”

         Merlyn glances at his own naked feet that don’t really exist. “People wake up where they will be most welcome. Most assume the Supervisor, as SheanHe is titled, understands how these things work. I haven't seen any errors but some say there have been and they were/are correctable. Peoples' spirits need to feel comfortable so individuals choose their own level of personal ease within one's self. This is mostly completed before conscious arrival at HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither, as these recent to sharing our ghostly shores, these ancient alien-like souls call our beloved Place of the Dead.”

         Merlyn continues, “Communication among the Dead is not difficult as long as one is polite first and honest second. For some this is a difficult undertaking. The Dead have no tongue to slip on. The individual spirit is a personality with selected memory. The words are driven from the heartanmind and in that order.” Merlyn chuckles, saying, “If one does not quickly adjust to this singular humor sheorhe misses half the irony in being among the Dead in the first place. Those with unenlightening problems with this social arrangement of heart first and mind second tend to remain more at home in herorhis private sanctuary.”

         Merlyn gives a more serious in-your-face look. “The humor as the marsupial humanoids see it, is that no one is fully hidden in the private sanctuary, because each has to deal with herorhimself. The poet John Milton had it right-on but few give his words any real notice in the modern world. ‘The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.’ Such is the humor here.”

         Merlyn looks about his spirit, his heartansoulanmind, in silent contemplation. I have this granite stone, woods, meadows, flowers and a river and now a common sun, moon and stars for fishing the unseen swimming thoughts coming down from the far mountains. My lean-to shelter in this heavenly rest is little comfort without the witness of friendly souls who come and go from time to time. One of best of joys in this Place of the Dead is visiting old and new friends and family.

***

The Brothers 11

Driving north on State Street in his red 2005 Volkswagen GTI Richard sees Rob stopping on South State in front of Stoner Inn, a place rich in Riverton’s Underground Railroad history. Richard pulls over and parks directly across the street, rolls down the window and shouts, “Hey!”

“Hey!” echoes Rob. “Meet you at your house.” Rich nods and turns left at the next street. Within three minutes, they are parked in the driveway.

Excited, Richard says, “You've got Connie's 1998 Jag! Awesome. Hmm. Surprised she lets you drive it."

“Want to go for a ride?”

“Why not. Where are you heading?”

“Hardware."

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

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

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

“Nature’s a conspiracy,” says Richard.

“How’s that?”

“I think it’s a trick, a deception.”

“That's your definition of reality?” responds Rob in sarcastic tones.

“Yeah. Reality is not what it appears to be.”

“It sure is when you are performing surgery,” voices Robert.

“Reality is what you bleed in.”

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

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

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

Richard shrugs but says nothing.

         “Were you going to say something, Richie?”

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

*

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

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

        

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

         "Yep."

         Richard comments, "I love that old table."

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

         Richard responds, "I know, Cyndi."

         Rob states, "I like the train set. I'm reworking the scenery for Uptown Riverton in the late fifties when we were in high school."

        

         "That's a good idea," lauds Richard. How things were in old Riverton rushed through his mind. "The peace and calm of growing up in the fifties."

        

         "Hardly. The Korean War, the hydrogen bomb, the Cold War, color prejudice."

        

         "The Beats," injects Richard, “I loved the Beats – and cheap gas. I remember buying it once for 19 cents a gallon." 

         "I think that is as cheap as we ever saw it."

        

         Richard smiles at Cyndi, "I see the paperback over on the table, what are you reading?"

        

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

         "I loved that book."

        

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

         "The House on the Strand was very cool, a Twilight Zone type of story about a man who was in love with two women, one in the fourteenth century and one in the twentieth."

         Richard adds, "Rebecca was better. It begins with: 'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.' Hitchcock made it into a movie. The first line is an iambic hexameter. The last line is almost an anapestic tetrameter: 'And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea.'"

        

         "House on the Strand was better because . . .."

        

         Cyndi cuts him off, "Don't tell me Robbie. I haven't finished it yet." Her soft smile lingers. "You boys want some crackers and cheese?"

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

         "I usually sit there," comments Richard dryly.

         "You always sit here. You can sit at the head of the table at our house if you want. I don't care, and I'm pretty sure Connie won't."

         Richard muses quietly. It doesn't make much difference who the head of the house is to Cyndi either. I remember how reality is depicted in The House on the Strand. The house, where a drug was used to induce the main character into choosing between two realities, one in the fourteenth century and one in the twentieth. He, like the Merlyn in my books, who I think would rather return to his seventh century dead than stay in my present living. I wonder how the word ‘freedom’ is defined by those really Dead? I wonder what is more important freedom or respect? I can’t imagine the Dead deciding such a question.

***

Grandma’s Story 11

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

                                   *

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

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

                               *

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

                                *

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

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

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

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

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

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

                                     *

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

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

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

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

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

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

                                     *

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

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

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

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

                                   *

Grandma notes with a knowing wink, ”This is the David and Bathsheba story the way some of the Dead have expressed it, isn’t this right, Merlyn?”

Being born human can be a chain of much strife,

A free human may unshackle this chain slave in life;

Accepting what one is, a piece of humankind --

With common and humble roots to grow in the mind.

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

A full flowing fiction between the Shoreline and Strand.

***

Diplomatic Pouch 11

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

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

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

         "Where are we?" asks Justin.

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

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

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

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

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

         Restraining anguish, Pyl responds, "Calm down, Justin. Let’s hear her out."        

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

         "No, you are not."

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

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

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

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

         "Not well cooked," notes Yermey as he quips in a fun face, "We are not cannibals nor would we drop selected human parts on our dinnerware."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

         "The marsupial-humanoids, as you will come to call us, are single family social household run in a single family sense of economics. We do the chores of the world and we receive an allowance and/or family care for this. We are the same species thus we are family. I, Ship, consider myself adopted.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

 Chapter 12

Consorting

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 12

         Merlyn rolls his mind’s eye forward towards the Elysium. It is only a moment ago, he thinks, that I begin, soaring eagle-like within these nebulae surroundings, mountainous gas bubbles, places undeterminable in or out of space and time. Away and behind is my early refuge, Avalon, appearing as a large cumulus in form. The pleasing reddish hues of such a cloud reminds me of the Malus domestica, the pleasant apple-like pigment for which our Celtic Realm of the Dead, Avalon, is named. As I further in distance, looking back my once Celtic heaven appears a well-weathering giant Cumulonimbus, ever so majestically shaped as a broad-winged eagle in angular flight.

         Though moving ever more closely he observes a prodigious distance to his target, a small cloud hanging like a prolonged thin fissure of sanguine mist engulfing a diamond-like flash of well-centered sparkle from a sun-yellow unknown. This picture-centered-on-his-soul rests above a large moon-white light at the far end of the dark cavern of non-dead spirits in a gravitational hold. This is the edge of Elysium, reckons Merlyn, and I am as Hercules on his travel to the Garden of Hesperides, I fly to stand in Classical Greek immortality. I rise up to glide in on the golden speck, the other apple in my ghostly eye.

         Much closer to his goal Merlyn wanders into a nebulous cloud similar to his own spirit. Merlyn wonders, ‘what does it mean to hold the weight of the world on one's shoulders like Atlas when I weigh nothing? We are all here, countless consciousness in less than a human’s breath sucking in earth’s air. What then is the weight of the Earth and Sun and the abundance of other Stars and their surrounding worldly planets? From Here to There is but a grammarless thought. Time exists in the consciousness of fear and reasoning, in this spiritual flight from one culture’s dead to another’s. We are as little spirits, sprite and faery-like, defusing or condensing as a gas and unknowing what we can do about it but to grow liquid and eventually solidify until the All becomes an End unto itself.  

         What good will our primal Mother’s blessing is in this newfound enterprise? I feel no burden, even though seemingly elected to tell the tale. Living or dead, ears have to hear; eyes have to read; the mind has to reason. Holding one's heartansoulanmind with bone and muscle is one thing, without such biophysics it is quite another. One is free to remember. I hold on flying without the slightest of burdens. I am but one, Merlyn, and what I encompass is my own definition of who I am and by such excluding who I am not. It seems G—-D is Beyond-What-Is as well as Beyond-The-Before.

         This flight shows me there appears to be no end to the Dead and no stopping the Living. A maturing spirit is part of what being humane is, or so I imagine it to be, thinks Merlyn as his spirit slowly condenses within the Shroud of Elysium.

         Consciousness re-fixes on the common ghostly ways of others. I stare, determines Merlyn, at the natural common consciousness of two-cart-wide stone-padded road. I know this; it leads to our Mother's House.

*

         Unrealized by Merlyn, Mother awaits his arrival, as all mothers since knowingly wait for their own children, every last ethereal child once born in Space-and-Time to be home and reunited with the spiritual root of all the mothers in all the universes hanging like single lights on the Life-Tree rooted to twins named Zero and One. This is a sense of the one myth that unites all such once embedded humanoid spirits, be they marsupial, primate or any other. A myth Mother begins to chant the most ancient of ancient stories, first created by a humane spirit in the first of many following universes, “Thunder”.

         “Long, long ago only two Qualities exist, Mother-Before and Father-Space. Both are cloaked in a Silence that would have stirred the Dead. Father-Space wears himself warm cuddling with Mother-Before. In the coziness grows pregnant with Joey-Time in the charity Father-Space’s friction. Joey-Time rouses to become the daughter of Mother-Before and Father-Space. Joey-Time, the catalyst of growth in the Silence, would have stirred the Dead back to life. Joey-Time crawling from Before causes a Lightning unseen. A bruise from the Lightning appears and two identical swellings mold into identical twin Spirits. Immobilized, the twin, Zero Singularity is drawn into Before while intoning a sadly mysterious melody, One, her twin dances to the melodious harmony in the trial and tribulation of Space-an-Time in its mushrooming germination.

***

The Brothers 12

Richard sits in the winter blue wingback living room chair, looking on the west wall at a thin black-framed historic portrait of the Stoner Inn on South State. I continually forget, he considers, how much this small village was a part of the Underground Railway. In the 1850’s, George Stoner used to smuggle slaves in the back of his stagecoach to the Inn where they stayed in the basement until they could move north to Canada.  Bishop William Hanby was a conductor on the old Underground. Here I sit in comfort a few blocks away doing next to nothing beyond the habits of a comfortable retirement.

We are slaves of a different sort today. No more Ohio River to cross, no more underground railway north. Where can we go to be free other than in our heads? Grandma Greystone used to say that we kids should study hard and learn what is important in the world because no one can ever take your education away from you. Grandma was born not more than ten miles north of here in Delaware County in 1888, the year of the Great Blizzard. His memory adds, ‘I always wanted to be a conductor on a railroad to freedom but I was born ninety years too late.’

Richard retreats into the family genealogy — we the Greystone brothers and the Bleacher sisters — both sides of our grandparents, were born and raised in Delaware County. Riverton used to end at the Franklin County line; now the city stretches up several miles, almost to Freeman Road in Genoa Township in Delaware County. He glances at his watch and asks, "When is Robert getting home?" No response.  I thought the girls were in the kitchen. They are always in the kitchen. He got up from the semi-comfortable wingback chair. His tone more unchecked, he shouted, "Cyndi! Connie! Where are you?"

         "What do you mean, where are you two? We are not your children to boss around, buddy man," snaps Cyndi as she opened the basement door.

         "Why didn't you answer?"

         "We were in the basement,” replies Connie following Cyndi from the stairs.

         "What were you two doing down there?"

         “What do you think, Richard," rebuts Connie.

         "I thought you were both in the kitchen."

         "Why, because we're women?" quips Cyndi.

         “You guys are always in the kitchen. I’m in the kitchen too. What’s the problem?”

         “When we are in the kitchen we are working not sitting on our duffs playing chess or writing," replies Connie.

         "Or playing with our computer toys.” adds Cyndi. "You'd think you and your brother would do more around the house. We give you lists and you never do them. You said you were going to clean up the basement but we ended up doing it.”

         "Rarely, you rarely do chores, Richie and neither does Robert,” says Connie.

         "Rob isn't here to defend himself," comments Richard.

         "Robbie's at that medical conference," pipes Connie.

         “Why? He didn’t tell me he was going to a conference.”

         Cyndi responds more kindly, "He's still interested in surgery, Richie."

         Her tone stood sulking and defiant so Richard follows, "You're saying I'm not interested in anything?"

         "You like your history,” responds Connie. “You have always liked history and genealogy. “

         "You don't need to side with this old goat,” smirks Cyndi.

         “I’m not, but he does like history and both boys like writing poetry.” Her eyes thread a protective look into her sister.

         Cyndi declares, “We are not always in the kitchen, Richard. We work hard to keep order in our homes.”

         Connie smiles, “And we do try to provide happiness.”

         A consolatory tone rises, “You just didn’t answer. I didn’t know where you were.”

         “Why didn’t you just get up and come looking?” asks Connie constructively as she heads to the living room with the others following.

`         “Did you think we were upstairs ironing clothes?” comments Cyndi.

         Richard mutters, ”I just wondered where you were, that’s all.”

         Within a moment or two Robert enters the side door, strolls into the kitchen greeted the three with, “Hello, everybody! I’m home. It was a great conference at Tower Hall. We saw very exciting new work on invasive aortic valve surgery. Only a three to four inch incision.” Silence. Robert walks into the living room. Connie and Cyndi are sitting on the separate ends of the couch waiting for Richard to speak civilized.

         Seeing the situation for what it is, Rob smiles with added delight, ”What’s the argument, Richie, are the girls getting your goat?”

         “We are too cooped up,” replies Richard with a forced smile.

         Cyndi comments dryly, “You are not a prisoner here, Richard.”

         “And neither are we,” adds Connie as she looks to Robert.

        

***

Grandma’s Story 12

Grandma sits comfortably, cross-legged on a sand dune and begins speaking as the large yellow sun rises to her back. This story takes place about twenty-six hundred years ago and this particular setting requires the ancient trade route between old Egypt and ancient Ireland. But first, the two young people involved are Princess Teah Tephi of Egypt and Prince Eireamhon of Ireland.

Eireamhon calls Teah his princess. Supposedly, Teah Tephi is really the daughter of the last king of Judah, Zedekiah. Zedekiah had allied himself with the Egyptian Pharaoh Apries. Many Hebrews went with King Zedekiah to Egypt but eventually the Hebrews were sent to exile in Babylonia as some have already read.

The story is that a Pharaoh Apries hid Zedekiah's daughter Teah Tephi, and she keeps a title of princess to the Pharaoh for her protection. Whether she was truly a daughter of Zedekiah, only her mother and Grandma knows.

When Teah left Egypt, she took locks of hair from her family to keep her company and a few small stones from her original home in Judah. Though Teah was told her father had been driven into exile, she came to believe her father had died in the desert or drowned. The stories always make Teah suspicious and doubtful, and this is one of the reasons she didn't mind leaving Egypt one for Ireland. She feels that as princess she can always return to Egypt if she so desires and that not even her husband Prince Eireamhon is going to stop her from doing so.

The boat follows the trade routes of those days, Teah smiles and says to her Prince Eireamhon, “I brought my Judah with me,” and she shows her husband three small rocks. Her eyes widened with enthusiasm, “I will keep these. These will bring us luck.”

The prince smiled rhetorically, secretly believing the Irish will think she is a fool for bringing these stones from her homeland, or worse, they will secretly treat the gift as an insult to our own Irish stones. He politely suggests, “Put them in a sheltered place so they will not be lost.”

Eireamhon wants me to hide them, realizes Teah. I can tell when he is lying. He is trying to show himself to be cleverer than me. He cannot make a fool of me. I will not allow it.

The two arrive at Tara in Ireland, not to far from present Dublin. Princess Teah is presented to the High King and she says,  “I have a present for you from my own country of Judah. This small stone is from the stone pillow upon whose head, Jacob, our ancient patriarch, rested at Bethel. Jacob was the grandson of our first patriarch, Abraham. It was at Bethel while resting on this stone pillow Jacob had his visions of angels.”

The High King appears interested because Ireland too has its ancient and magical stones. He asks, “How big of a stone is this piece broken from?”

She stretches her arms to measure its size, about twenty-six inches. She moves her hands in to sixteen inches, and then raises her right hand above the other about eleven inches. Then she adds, “The stone weighs over three hundred pounds, and this is a small piece of it."

The king continues cautiously, “Does this stone have power?”

         “Since Jacob dreamed of angels while sleeping on it,” replies Teah shrewdly, “it is surely possible an angel’s touch is still within the stone.” She pauses dramatically and adds, “No one knows for sure.”

         The king responds, “Perhaps we should construct a replica of the stone pillow and strike the small stone to it so that the angel may move from the small piece to the larger one.”

         “This is an excellent idea,” chimes the Princess.

         When the replica of the reddish stone was carved to her specifications, Princess Teah is struck by the fact that this stone pillow is very much a copy of original she once saw in Judah and wonders if it is the original. She cannot tell the difference. In a great secret ceremony, the king strikes the larger stone with Teah's small stone chip. “As this was a pillow witnessed by Angels,” the king decrees, “it shall rest under the high king’s throne for our protection and good fortune.”

*

         Stories create their own traditions, grins Grandma. The replica sitting under the High King of Ireland's throne eventually finds its way to the Scottish kings where it becomes known as the "Stone of Destiny". More time passes and in 1952 Queen Elizabeth II of England is crowned in a chair with that very stone underneath. Some stories are beyond belief. Only Grandma Earth knows the truth, and the truth lies inside each person’s own mystery. Don’t search too long and hard though —

People can spend their lives considering stories and things,

And thus so miss the sweet songs the little bird sings.

***

Diplomatic Pouch 12

  

            Pyl glances at Blake who appears dumbfounded; then to the plane which has no apparent damage. She thinks, no problems when the wheels left the road and we became airborne. Where is that road? It is only moments late or so it seems, and the road, the county airport, Lake Erie -- where are they? I have my husband, my brother, and my Daddy's plane. I should be thankful.

           Nearby and uncertainty Justin feels irrefutably alone, silent and thinks, I don't know where we are and until I do we cannot hope to escape. Surely we are being set up, duped like we are on a set for a Mission Impossible film. Pyl and Blake are my responsibility. We need to assess our situation. I have to come up with a plan. We have to . . ..

           Friendly’s voice reassures, "Again, we welcome you onboard our vessel. Ship, that’s what we call our vessel, also welcomes you. We will show you where you are."

            "Come this way," directs Yermey. "We can climb the flight of stairs to the main deck. Where we are is in the annex."

            "What you may call a basement," comments Hartolite.

            "Or a storage area," continues Friendly. “Yermey, one step at a time up the stairs for our guests please."              

            Blake carefully counts the stairs, there are twenty-two. The room appears large and hospital clean in perhaps a forty to fifty-foot square. He sees machinery set at an odd angle of about a thirty-degree tilt off center and beside it is a large box towering perhaps fifteen feet straight up. 'I cannot tell,' he wonders, 'how wide this room is. It almost appears to be an optical illusion.'

            "Come ahead, this way," says Yermey. "Over to this area where we can observe better."

            Blake follows mostly out of polite routine. A whiff of acidic scent reminds him of being in a factory that molded exothermic sleeve forms used in the construction of steel castings, but the floor we are walking on has blended grasses of two to three inches in length growing just as the Annex.  However the grass feels shorter and soft, like I am walking on a golf green. Shortly, Pyl and Justin stand beside him as Friendly and Hartolite walk slightly to the left and stand next to Yermey.

            The six view the room from a new angle. No one can see the door they entered from. They cannot see another entrance or exit. The walls and ceiling slowly illuminated to an eye comfort level where all could better view the whole room and what fills it.

            Blake's eyes focus on the first thing he sees upon entering the control room – the two-stacked black metallic-like technological containers in what he assumes is the northwest corner. The size and shape reminded him of two top and bottom washer dryer combinations with round see through side windows to the front of both. Each window is surrounded by a four inch or so aluminum colored band. The cabinets are otherwise clean of buttons or dials. I estimate this machinery is six to seven feet high and three and a half feet in width and this room suddenly appears to be in southwest corner of the ship, but I don’t know how this is so. Are the windows really Ship’s eyes? Where is the instrumentation?

            Blake’s eyes focus along the north wall to a second set of aluminum colored metallic or pliable boxes set beside one another. On the horizontal rather than the vertical they appear the same size and clean only the windows, similar in size to the other machinery with round cornered windows.

            On the northeast corner is a large blue container the size of a large refrigerator. It has one large oval window with an aluminum-like band surrounding. The height of the oval is over seven feet and it drops to within two feet of the bottom of the box. The width of the oval band is within a couple of inches of the sides of the machine. I have no idea what this technology is or what it is for. There are no tables or chairs or desks. I wonder what is on the other side of those windows. There is always something on the other side. Blake's thoughts are interrupted.

            Friendly's says calmly, "We are all here. Where would you like me to begin?"

            Blake starts, "I see many apparatuses. Please start with the one in the northwest corner." He points, "The two odd-looking blue box-shaped objects that look like windowed washing machines stacked neatly on top of one another. What is the technology? What do they do?”

***

Chapter 13

Spice

The Supervisor has a little saying:

                           Ring-a-ring o'rosies

                           A pocket full of posies                                   

                           "A-tishoo! A-tishoo!"

                           We all fall down!

                           We rise from clay

                           On Judgment Day

                           Be we dead or still alive.

         I, Merlyn, have this little ditty above memorized to the point it sets stemmed in letters out of which each four-leafed chapter dreams grow to clover size. I knead the dreams into a word stream of music for the heart and soul and mind with hope that when read, these stories cast a light into those living with an imagination that casts no shadow.

The Dead 13

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

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

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

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

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

         "Says you," interrupts Vivian.

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

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

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

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

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

         "I watched you leave."

         "I did not know that."

         "Your soul took you."

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

         "Only your soul could move like that."

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

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

         Merlyn laughs aloud, "Leathery."

         "Do you remember me touching you?"

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

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

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

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

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

***

The Brothers 13

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

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

         “I feel better in socks.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What do you have, Robbie?”

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

“How about stopping at the college bookstore first?”

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

My poem,” replies Robert in a deadpan manner.

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

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

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

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

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

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

         Richard replies quickly, “I’ll drive.”

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

*

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

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

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

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

         “Nuked or plagued,” adds Richard.

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

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

         “New Zealand would be a good spot.”

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

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

***

Grandma's Story 13

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

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

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

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

***

Diplomatic Pouch 13

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

*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

       1809 hours. The format is not correct, but I will not work on this until the book is completed and I can make sure it is all uniform at that time. This appears to be a spacing problem.- rho

          2132 hours. We had egg salad sandwiches for dinner and watched the news along with “Major Crimes” and “Covert Affairs”. We stopped after and Carol is reading a new book since she finished the other this afternoon, Apple Orchard by Susan Wiggs. Carol said she wanted to read something different than her usual, so she did. I completed another chapter and would just as soon drop it in here.

         Be my guest, boy. No more tonight. Post. – Amorella

         2138 hours. I will re-look these chapters tomorrow. I am not finding many difficult errors to correct. I am probably missing some along the way.

*** ***

© 2014 GMG.One – Richard H. Orndorff

Chapter 14

Continuity

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 14

         Merlyn lay on his bed in his hut encapsulated in private spiritual environs of heartansoulanmind and grumbles, "I am no more a princely pebble than the commonest of headstones." This questioning place within is no different, than when I was alive. Once in life a young druidess came to my lean-to shelter deep in the oak forest and said, "I am searching for wisdom while attempting to define love. I was told to seek you out, thus here I am."

         I remember smiling, mostly in surprise. I say, "What is your name child?"

         As clear as a mountain stream, she politely and melodiously replied, "Vivian. My name is Vivian."

         In a forest of hard wooded honesty I say, "Why did you repeat your name just now? Are you not sure who you are? I state directly to her clearly green-rimmed dark pupils, "You have to define yourself, Vivian, before you can define either wisdom or love." How I remember those young dark Celtic eyes. That was so long ago but her innocent youth is still here.

*

         Such is a memory, but what does it mean for a human being not to be innocent? Why is Mother Nature innocent? Why are the lesser animals innocent and why are we humans considered corrupt?

         Attempting to maneuver the future for our own betterment, is that innocence? That's what these two rebellions of the Dead were about. We Dead lost the first Rebellion and we Dead won the second. Physically surviving life is not innocent not matter what the age. None of we Dead are so innocent, yet we survive in spiritual form. Why? We continue whether we wish it or not. We make do even now in this HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither. Even when we appear to sleep in stone it is only a dream, a wishful thought of being solid again. What a strange thing it is to have continuity within Nothing or Neither. For millenniums people were anxious about what happens after death; now, we are still anxious because nothing happens unless we decide to direct it.

*

         A voice whispers from the corner of the roof down to the earth-like floor beneath his bed. "Hello, Merlyn. I can't sleep either. Do you want some company?"

         "Is this Brighid, daughter of The Dagda?" asks Merlyn.

         "No, this is Brigit, once your love, Merlyn."

         "Before Vivian."

         "And after."

         Love does not go away among the Dead, remembers Merlyn. Love does not run nor does it linger. Love is a moment never completely lost thus it has no right to recovery. Love is always surrounded by respect and innocence.

         "I read your thoughts, Merlyn," whispers Brigit. They are always lined in kindness to me.

         "You could always read me. I think that is the reason we parted in life."

         "Only physically, Merlyn, and here we are together."

         "How is this that we remain true to friends and lovers in this place?" He feels her right arm touching his back as he lay on his right side.

         "I am forming as are you."

         "Wishful thinking," murmurs Merlyn half asleep.

         "Just as in life, my love. People are married to wishful thinking."

         "In life people are married too many are married to the thought," responds Merlyn and suddenly felt his patience growing and his back and her arm disappear into the night.

*

         Merlyn turns opened his eyes and sees the empty wall with no roof above. He blinks, views the stars above and concludes such is the lot of we who are Dead. And, in a moment Merlyn lies fully as such, a sarcophagus, a human spirit entombed without time until Vivian’s once living voice flares in the sluggish darkness:

                  “I am Priestess -- Guardian of the Great wheel.

                           My blood flows in rhythm with the white of the moon.

                                    I hug the Oak bark hard and kiss the bright sun to yellow.

                  Slowly. Apollo ignites me, and I conjure hot with wild timeless winds

                           Blowing among ancient marble – tall stately columns

                                    Rising solid above our grassy Mother on this and other worlds.

                  I am invisible to all those who are outside my head,

                           I am boundless reality beyond the walls of the known universe.

                                    I am Priestess -- Guardian of the Great Wheel, I am Vivian of the Lake.

*

         Jarred awake, dead Merlyn replies. ‘Can memory alone be an enchantment? Is love alone endless? Here, what does endless mean ?Where do we Dead go to find such answers?’

***

The Brothers

         It is an early clear morning in late August and Orion is up in the southeastern sky. By afternoon high school and college football and band practices have begun in Riverton. While Richard thinks on why the New Year doesn’t begin in September like it should, Robert sits beside him on the back deck looking off into the clump of trees on the back of his corner lot at Main and West Streets.

         “I like the trees,” says Robert. “A couple are already turning.”

         Richard smiles contentedly, “Buckeyes, no doubt."

         “I’ve new a poem in hand.”

         Ignoring the statement Richard asks, “You started reading my book yet?"

         "I finished the first chapter.”

         “What do you think, Dickie?”

         “In the book, who is Grandma Earth exactly?”

         “She . . . I’m not sure exactly. She introduces the stories,” says Richard.

         “Is she Mother Nature? That’s what I thought at first, but your side notes say she is the black actress in Gone With The Wind.”

         “Hattie McDaniel. That's right, I mentally modeled the character of Grandma after her. I didn't know it was a margin note.”

         “It is a draft, Richie.” Robert glances at the browning summer bluegrass thinking he should have watered it more like Connie had suggested. He asks, “Whatever happened to Hattie McDaniel?”

         “I don’t know. Her caring portrayal in the film is what I wanted to express.”

         Robert declares, “Grandma as Mother Nature doesn’t give a damn. Look at all the natural disasters. Millions of people killed.”

         “She’s indifferent, just like we are.”

         “Speak for yourself, Richie.”

         “She’s indifferent just as I am. I made her up. What else would you expect her to be besides myself?”

         “But, you once told me Grandma is modeled on the commercial face of Aunt Jemima."

         “People know about Aunt Jemima. She is still on the box, Richard pauses and shuffles in his chair, “Well, she’s updated today. Most readers wouldn’t know the name Hattie McDaniel, and I didn’t know how to reference Gone With The Wind in context with Aunt Jemima.”

         “Aunt Jemima’s supposed to be a cook too isn’t she?”

         “I don’t remember,” replies Richard in a ruffled tone.

         Robert speaks lazily, “The first chapter is still a bit unorthodox, but I realize you are writing for a very limited audience.”

Suddenly, Richard asks, “Do you want to fly out to Vegas again this fall or wait until spring?”

"The last time the four of us went to Vegas you spent most of our last free day playing nickel slots Richie.”

“That's because early on I lost a hundred dollars playing quarter slots. It isn’t nearly as much fun as nickel slots." Richard hesitates, "Where are Cyndi and Connie?"

“We’re coming!” shouts Connie. “We’ve whipped up a special treat.” 

Upon coming into the room Cyndi asks, “What have you two been talking about?"

"I hope it's double chocolate and caramel brownies," replies Richard.

        

"We made a fruit bowl," smiles Cyndi. "It's a lot healthier than brownies."

"But not nearly as good," replies Robert. The brothers laughed.

The girls sat somber-like for a moment.  Connie notes, "You two should be more health-minded." Then Connie comments, "I'm not going to Vegas again unless we rent a car and drive to the Grand Canyon or one of the other national parks."

Cyndi adds, "Richie you lost over two hundred dollars playing those dumb quarter slots."

"I thought you lost a hundred," says Robert.

"Why did you tell him that Richie?"

"I figured it out," says Cyndi happily, "when he started playing the nickel slots."

Robert pipes, "Jeez, Richie, you should be more honest.”

"Richie's better at fiction," snaps Cyndi. "Isn't that right, Connie."

"Not always. Why, again, I did I marry you Rob, and not Richie? Seems to me you had a pretty good line," giggles Connie.

"Better than my brother's," intimates Robert coyly.

The four sit in a comfortable silence with a small knowing family smile relaxing on their faces. Finally, Connie speaks just above a whisper, "We each know who each is and who each is not."

Uncharacteristically, Robert breaks into the laughter first. The others follow suit. Robert puts the card table and opens it on the deck. Richard brings out the chairs. Connie pulls the deck of cards from the top right kitchen drawer. Cyndi put the fruit bowl away and grabs some beer from the kitchen. Connie picks up snacks. The rest of the afternoon at the corner house is a replay of the remembrance of youth in fun and the games.

***

Grandma’s Story 14

         I, Grandma, am standing on a ridged Chinese mountain summit about five thousand feet high and a bit above an austere stone shelter where three people are spending their summer. This is a love story. Shushu is a rather pleasant young woman from one tribe who usually gets her own way. Her love is Ch’ang who is from an adjoining tribe. Her great aunt, Lili, is the shaman of both local tribes and is also on the summit. The stone hut is Lili’s for the summer months, and she invited Shushu and Ch’ang. Lili knows this private love story of Shushu and Ch’ang of a different level. Here is Lili to tell this story.

*

         Shushu loves Ch’ang and though she can do something about this love she chooses to do nothing. Likewise, Ch’ang chooses to do nothing. Together the two become as a single room, like this shelter where Grandma and I, Lili, presently stand. To help show the two their separate individual personalities I have Shushu be the centered doorframe in the West wall and Ch’ang be the door frame centered in the East wall.

         Two thousand feet above the river, love, by its own initiative attempts to construct a bridge between the two doorframes. The river below runs from West to East. Love is a condition in this story; it cannot build the bridge high or low between the two stubbornly individual friends. Hearts build bridges not love.

         The walls of this stone shelter, the West wall and the East wall are the strong rigidity in the would-be-lovers unconscious hearts. The centered doorframes are the exacting souls of both Shushu and Ch’ang, but they do not know this while they are alive. I, Lili, take a moment to smile warmly then she unexpectedly transports herself to the center of the stone shelter where within her tranced line of sight she can see through the two opposite door frames at once. In life one cannot see through both doorframes at once due to the Nature of Things, but I am an ever-dancing shaman. I dance the centerline of the two common souls connecting these two stubbornly independent hearts of Shushu and Ch’ang.

         Each doorway is a green Dragon of Plenty and Bounty. Each soul-framed doorway is equal. Each doorway and doorframe is invisible in the Nature of Things. Each wall is invisible in the Nature of Things. I, Lili am also invisible in the Nature of Things. Grandma Earth is visible in the Nature of Things but soul lines are not.

*

         This is what I, Lili, thought those many years ago and this is what I think today. You see, I made my embroidery that summer in life. In it I am the centered small red dot. Shushu is the West dragon facing me. Ch’ang is the East dragon facing me. When a living human being stares at the red dot long enough she or he sees not a red dot, but the tip of the tail of me, Lili, the Red Dragon. It is then that their souls, the mirror imaged twin dragons, Shushu and Ch’ang, form into one dragon. Shushu and Ch’ang become an illusion of one. Their separate hearts and souls become one. The doorframes are seen, felt, experienced. There never were any doors or walls only frames.

*

Grandma nonchalantly steps down off the stone walled shelter to where a heart and soul connect. She begins a little mountain jig. For in time and not, Grandma’s coal black feet move into a high river dance. Standing straight and tall those black feet dance. Grandma’s black arms and hands stay ridged on her hips as Grandma sings above the dancing feet, “I move in human feet stomping. I dance in Nature seen and unseen.” With that, Grandma jumps to the river below where Lili re-appears. Both dance together one in the other until the river ceases to flow.

River dancing with Grandma in the Sorcerer’s dreams

Have a past and a future, without the difference.

Words dancing in stories of schematics in themes

Of balance and cadence and conscience and prudence.

***

Diplomatic Pouch 14

         Yermey says, ”And this is my room, Pyl. It looks much like the others."

         Pyl replies, ”This is all very standard and orthodox. Like I mentioned in the other living quarters, everything is built either in floor, walls or ceiling. There is no need for a chair if you are not sitting."

         "Right, you did mention that earlier, but then the other rooms had furniture on display." Poker faced, Yermey adds, "I did not realize I was going to be showing you my apartment."

         "The other two apartments were for the women. I thought yours might be more unique," she teases.

         Yermey responds, "You mean more masculine like a wolf’s den?”

         "A quick question. You all appear professional; are you also friends?" asks Pyl.

         "Pardon?" He pauses then smiles, “with benefits.”

         She changes the subject. "How long did it take you to get here? Even with faster than light generators it would take years. What do you people do on route?”

         Yermey appears embarrassed as he searches for the words.

          Pyl quickly changed the subject. “Can you pull up a chair? I would like to sit." The chair expanded from the wall next to her. Pyl asks, ”That was fast, what did you do?"

         "You requested the chair. Sit. Please,” answers Ship.

         "Ship understands my English?"

         Another chair silently rises from the floor. Yermey sits more comfortably facing Pyl. "Ship knows everything about you, Mrs. Burroughs."

         "Oh."

         Yermey explains matter-of-factly, "Ship knows everything about each of us for our own protection; that is, for our own safety. He is built to save our lives under any circumstance."

         Perplexed, she wonders aloud, "If he could only save one of our lives, whose would he save?"

         "You ask a lot of questions." Yermey says, "Ship how would you handle this hypothetical dilemma?"

         Ship answers directly, "I would save your life, Dr. Burroughs. It would only be polite as you are a guest of ThreePlanets while you are on board."

         Pyl is immediately taken back. Ship said, guest with a sincere authenticity I would not have expected from a fellow human I had just met. Without hesitation she looks eye-to-eye at Yermey, "Who are you people that would give so much authority and polite moral fiber to a machine?"

          Yermey responds with a slight smile.

         Pyl gathers herself, "Ship sounds so human; he strikes a cord in my own humanity."

         "Good. I mean this is completely unexpected,” replies Yermey in a warmer voice than he intends. “We two don't really know one another that well, yet you are connecting with Ship in a human-like way. You are bonding with Ship first. Isn’t this interesting?”

         Pyl catches the twinkle in his older eyes while thinking I see a blemish of modesty and humility in this arrogant man.

         Ship speaks, "Yermey, give Dr. Burroughs a glass of cooled Earth water, and tell her about how your species was not always so fortunate as it is today."

         "Yes, of course. I'll have water myself. Earth water, how's that Dr. Burroughs, a cool glass of Earth water?" The crystalware of cool water appeared from an opening slot on the wall. Two small tables rise from the floor near the chairs on which to set the glasses.

         Pyl takes a sip and watches Yermey's eyes and body language. His formality quickly fades and she senses his emotionally driven skin speaking silently.        

         Yermey begins, ”Twenty-one thousand years ago we were similar to Earthlings in the mid-twentieth century. We lived on a singular planet in five mostly separate, climate driven cultures. A great incurable plague arose and out of necessity ten ships were built to take two hundred people to the two nearly uninhabited satellite science centers so we might run from there to the two nearby close planets. This exercise was done in secret. We had no choice. Planet One was left to survive on its own until we found a cure. Science later determined that exactly one hundred people survived the plague." Yermey raised the forefinger on his right hand, exactly, one hundred,” he signed as if he known each, and he did by memory. Everyone has to memorize the names of those one hundred survivors. It is a rule on ThreePlanets.

         "We continued our science and technology,” adds Yermey, “but our economic focus became the survival of our children. We reverse engineered our society to always enrich our children first. We serve our children and in turn as we grow older, our children serve us. We are one family, one species, on ThreePlanets. What you call government we call Family Services. We mean the term literally.”

         How naive, thinks Pyl Burroughs unconsciously struck by his uncommon sincerity and innocence. Humanity and fear rise in juxtaposition within her heartanmind within leaving the conscious thought,  ‘If these people have no weapons as they say, they need to leave our planet immediately. If they stay these innocent alien marsupial species will be eaten alive one way or another.’

***