Notes

         Up with the sun, fed the cat, policed the kitchen, picked up the papers, breakfast and the paper. Mid-morning and sunny but cold. Reminds you of Bolivian weather.

         Odd how the mind works sometimes. I remember though in La Paz and on the Altiplano the temperature would be dry and cold, then warm up, and when the sun went down, immediately cold again. Today reminds me of that. An odd thought like that then brings up a whole collage of experiences in the Andes and in the far American West too, Nevada and California west of the mountains. Similar weather at times. That reminds me of ice and what I was thinking about last night in terms of the book. The tree is thought and light but another characteristic would be ice, water, and steam. The human body (all bodies) would be as water and ice, semi-solid and in death, evaporation. Physical matter is as ice. Something along that line of reasoning. It fits with Thales anyway as he is noted for his characteristics of “Water”.

         I was conjuring up this tree model with tinker toys or something of the like, toothpicks maybe, and putting the ice analogy in there with it some way. I remember that in the book I used the concept of a comet seeding both ThreePlanets and Earth so the evolution of life would be similar. Example below:

12 February 2004,
 Comets May Spread Life From Earth Around the Galaxy, by Kate Melville.  “These ideas are discussed in detail in the current issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The authors of the two papers are Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe and Dr Max Wallis, of the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, and Professor Bill Napier, an astronomer at Armagh Observatory.

Interstellar routes for transmission of micro-organisms supports the view that life may not have originated on Earth but arrived from elsewhere, strengthening “the panspermia theory" that Professor Wickramasinghe and the late Sir Fred Hoyle had been developing since 1974.

It is known that boulders and other debris may be thrown from the Earth into interplanetary space. Professor Napier finds that collisions with interplanetary dust will quickly erode the ejected boulders to much smaller fragments and that these tiny, life-bearing fragments may be driven out of the solar system by the pressure of sunlight in a few years.

The solar system could, therefore, be surrounded by an expanding 'biodisc', 30 or more light years across, of dormant microbes preserved inside tiny rock fragments. In the course of Earth history there may have been a few dozen close encounters with star-forming nebulae, during which microbes might be injected directly into young planetary systems.

If planets capable of sustaining life are sufficiently common in the Galaxy, the Cardiff based scientists conclude that this mechanism could have infected over 10,000 million of them during the lifetime of our Galaxy.

Dr Wallis and Professor Wickramasinghe have also identified another potential delivery route. They point out that fertile Earth ejecta would, on impact, bury themselves in the radiation-shielded surface layers of frozen comets. A belt of such comets, the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt, lies beyond the planetary system. This belt gradually leaks comets into interstellar space, some of which will eventually reach proto-planetary discs and star-forming nebulae. There they are destroyed by collisions and erosion, releasing any trapped micro-organisms and seeding the formative planetary systems.”  From: www.scienceagogo.com/news/20040111202038data_trunc_sys.shtml

**

         The point is that I have to come up with a reasonable hypothesis for the books as to how the ‘trunk’ of thought and light dwells root-wise to set up a metaphysical system or engine to encompass it. And, I have to find a way to encompass a similar panspermia theory that will allow a similar theory to traverse galaxies across the universe as was as some kind of theory from evolved ‘seeded’ life to move from universe to universe.

         If I use the tree model with an individual leaf as a universe this would work which means last night’s flurry of ‘stare at the ceiling from bed’ thoughts were for naught. It all seemed rather exciting last night, but alas with morning the excitement fades away into ‘just an idea’ and time to move on. The problem is that I still have to conjure up something with reason behind it.

         We can work this out. Take a break, orndorff. I will do something with what you already have here, if you also remember you thought about the Greek basics last night, Hot, Cold, Wet, Dry (from Anaximenes, a student of Thales) and Earth, Air, Fire and Water.  We need to keep it simple, like you thought, yet also encompass ideas of Quantum Mechanics by suggestion, especially entanglements, as, if you remember, you see in the tree limbs behind Christ’s College, Oxford. So, relax. It is a pleasant but cool Saturday morning. Fair skies. – Amorella.

         And that brings up one more thing I thought last night, New Moon in April -  when Ahab confronts Moby Dick; and also 23 April, the traditional birth date for Shakespeare. Now, that is all I thought.

         No one gives a ticker’s damn what you thought last night, orndorff. It is not important what you thought. If it fits with the books then it is important here. This is not a blog about your general thoughts, boy. Post this, then get a life, man. – Amorella.

         You and Carol took a picnic over to the banks of the Little Miami for some sun and relaxation. Presently, it is mid-afternoon and you are waiting in the Kroger’s lot on Tylersville while she shops for a few necessities.

         You are thinking a measurement of distance as far as this tree is concerned. We have been using a marker of three universes in terms of distance so why don’t we continue with that. Three out of how many universes, you wonder.

         I like Milton’s use of figures. Relative to whatever it is three times the distance. Very cool. No matter what you come up with it is three times that.

         Then you have to define a ‘universe’, something human beings don’t really have down in terms of size and certainly not shape.

         I like the universe somewhat like a disk, flatter on the top and bottom because of the spin. A Frisbee.

         I thought you wanted it like a leaf, attached to a branch of thought and light?

         Yes. I would rather have it that way, though I still think it would spin.

         Let’s keep this within the understanding of the ancient Greeks.

         Okay. Perhaps I am not concentrating enough here in the parking lot. Too many interruptions.

         Earth, air, fire, water, hot, dry, cold, wet. See if we can stick to those.

        What about parallel thoughts? One of the books used an analogy or metaphor with train tracks, a singular thought. And what about dimensions, that has been used too, especially with the twin Earth the marsupials visited. Earth 1987 or 88 was definitely not the Earth of 2001, and this was just within the Milky Way galaxy.

         You are home. Let’s work on this in a separate document for the time being. Once it is set you can post it. Title it, “Metaphysical Engine”. Post. No more today. You can work on scene four once this business is set to your satisfaction. – Amorella. 

Notes

         The cat turned on the radio again and woke you both up to a bright sunny east windowed room even with the shade down, a rarity this winter. Breakfast and the paper and it is now mid-morning. > Upper body exercises and a short rest. You are still ambiguous about scene four.

         I want to show a connection with scene three but it has too much in it. Plus, I have a question as to where Merlyn is when he ‘sees’ the two threaded strands of light and thought? I just read the NYTimes movie review of Alice by Manchla Dargis and am disheartened by the writer’s thought that :

“. . . first down the hole and then into a dreamscape — unfortunately tricked out with 3-D that distracts more than it delights — where she meets a grinning cat and a lugubrious caterpillar, among other fantastical creatures.”      

         The ‘unfortunately tricked out’ sounds like my books. There is so much in them that surely it is a distraction to the reader. I don’t see it this way, of course, but then I rarely, if ever, consider the reader’s interests and instead stubbornly insist on my way or the highway. In other words, I have bothersome personal characteristics which hang out there between your words, my unconscious translation of your words, and the reader’s eye. And, to me, this is what Dargis is saying about Burton. I did not erase what I had yesterday on scene four. It isn’t much, but while Mario sits in contemplation, I appear to be doing the same.

         “Mario sat in contemplation on a simple wooden chair on the dry bank of the Styx following the stone block construction of the temple gate. I wonder why it is that dead, we still find time for sleep? What makes sleep a necessity Here? The old myths have not been fully correct, suppose we get to the other side and find more Dead. Egyptians, perhaps.”

         I didn’t make the connection between sleep and dreams last night. How obvious. But while Merlyn’s dreams are essential for the storytelling, what use do the dreams provide the other Dead? How do they learn and grow from their nightly dreams? Is the memory of the dream a prerequisite? Do the dreams provide the more personal, subjective, HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither?

         I like your thought “Is the memory of the dream a prerequisite?”

         I misstated. What I meant to say is, is that once dreamed is the memory of it automatic. In other words, the dreams the Dead have, are remembered, and must then be dealt with consciously. Thales did not remember all of his dream however, so I have to follow through with what is here.

         I like the thought as it is stated, orndorff. It has a bit of Alice in it, don’t you think? The tree of thought and light Merlyn envisions can be modeled from the tree at Oxford. Place both photos here for reference.

This tree is the key. Again, it is similar to the tree in the middle of the circle of stones in front of Mother’s home in Elysium. It also serves as the genetic tree of the human species.

See, this is what I am talking about Amorella. Once you remind me I get it, but no one is reminding the reader of any of this. Plus, what is the metaphysics of this tree of thought and light? The more I think on this the better I like it. Lots of quantum entanglements and such. 

Physics standing on end as it were. Maybe this next scene needs to be about the tree so the reader gets a better understanding of its implications in the series. Something with time relative to its own branch or twig or leaf.  Or each leaf a universe like our own. That image has been used before in the series somewhere. This is what I like. Provides enthusiasm for the mind, pumps it up for a big run of thoughts. The metaphor even provides a sense of spiritual force.

Not in these books, boy. Metaphysics is not G---D in these books, not even close. Keep it to metaphysics and human imagination and physics and reason and science. Let’s leave G---D out of it. Angel metaphors are as far as we go as far conceptual bindings are concerned. – Amorella.

You are right, of course. I want to stay clear of that path. Thank you for the reminder.

           Carol is readying herself for a Subway picnic in the car on such a beautiful sunny day. All for now. Post. – Amorella. 

Mid-afternoon and you have direction in your just completed next paragraph in scene four.

“No one seems to ask where the other Dead are [thinks Mario], those of other cultures. Birds of a feather flock together. No birds here though except the ones we see through our life’s memory. Suddenly, Mother must know. Mother must know where the other Dead are. I will go see her myself.”

Here is where we can go into dimensional aspects and discover why Mother is not adverse to bridge building. As mitochondrial Eve she sees herself as the trunk of the species, but science knows better. Human beings existed before your mitochondrial Eve. And, for those who have read the first three books, it is known that on ThreePlanets the Marsupials also had a mitochondrial Eve. So, with the metaphorical tree we are talking about a branch that is split, part on one side of the galaxy and part on Earth’s side, not the tree trunk itself. And, even with this there is the actual trunk as well as the roots below that. See, orndorff, you are having fun already. – Amorella.

Yes, yes. This is good. A dialogue between our Mother and Mario sounds really cool. What a subject. And, with the tree, at least there is a sound logic, a reasoning, a skeleton to follow. Roots to leaves. Awesome! Can we have reason at both ends and any metaphorical angels or angelic-like, or Betweeners like the Saki, faeries, whatever you want to call them, somewhere between the branches? I would like an overview of the whole metaphysical engine here, something I can attach my mind too, something beyond time and space, etc. I am getting pumped for speculation and thought here.

You are so used to writing out your immediate thoughts that that is what you do. You want a schematic of sorts.

Yes, like the outlines one finds for Dante’s The Human Comedy. Then I have a framework that the series can be placed in metaphysically and otherwise. That would be neatified and coolly awesome, Amorella.

            Post this. Take a break, get comfortable. Dig up that outline of Dante, see if we can post it as an example.

Notes

        Busy morning. MRI took most of it, then you filled up, got both cars washed, and cleaned out the garage. It is a sunny but cool day and you decided to make the most of it.

         Psychologically, it is amazing how much better one feels driving a clean car inside and out. It is engrained in our down home Ohio culture. Now if I could just put the snow shovels in the basement it would be a great day.

         Last night, in the bath with jets and bubbles you had a flash on scene four but forgot to write it down and got interrupted with other things.

         Yes, I did. I have been hoping it would come back to me but it hasn’t. It seemed like a good transition from Apollo and Artemis on the other side of the Styx. One thing I didn’t know is that the other side of the river is only half way back to Earth. That certainly complicates matters. I like the concept of Merlyn eventually tying or hoping to tie the threads of thought and light of the two world cultures of the earthlings and the marsupials. That does help bring the six books together. I assume that will come into play in book six.

         It has already come into play in this last scene orndorff. Where have you been?

         I don’t know. Back here on Earth I guess.

         Post this to get started. Hit your emails, relax, and when you come back to your precious iBook go directly to scene four.  – Amorella. 

        What you wrote you don’t like, so erase it. Tomorrow, you’ll start again, or later tonight. Enjoy the evening.

         It is difficult not feeling guilty, for not writing.

         You are not writing these books out of guilt, orndorff.

         I don’t mean it that way. I was always taught that you have to work, to do something to show your worth. I don’t know where I learned that, but probably it is somewhere in my Presbyterian upbringing. It is by our works that we are saved, something of that sort. I don’t agree with it exactly, but psychologically I think that we save ourselves by attempting to do good works, that is doing work for the betterment of humankind. Teaching literature was my tool. Retired, I suppose one can say these books are written in the selfish self interest of having an objective that keeps me content.

         For the longest time, in early teaching days, I felt guilty for not working in the summers. I did teach summer school several summers but was still left with three or four weeks where I enjoyed myself, but going to the store when others, particularly men, were busy with work of one kind or anther, I didn’t feel productive.

         If you got to the point were you were obsessed by writing this series I would stop. There are times during the last twenty or so years where you would scribble in a notebook, a few words every day or so and that was it. Guilt for no reason is not a good thing. Nothing in your writings will support it. People use guilt to motivate people and while it may work on some, it will not work on you. Friends keep their friends in line, a balanced line, one that you try to adhere to except for your eating habits from time to time. ‘Be moderate in all things.’ It is Greek enough and certainly fits to be bound one way or another. Knowing yourself, is another, and that’s partially what these book bindings are about. Post. Later, dude. – Amorella. 

Notes & Draft of Scene 3 of Chapter Four

           Late mid-afternoon. You have been working on scene three. You feel a need to make a transition from Merlyn to the Rebellion but do not know how to do it but by dream, a device you have used too much you think. Post this and what you have. This scene can be concluded later. – Amorella. 

Scene 3

         Even from their backs, I know these ladies, thought Merlyn, Clotho, the spinner; Lacheis, the measurer; and Atropos, the cutter of the thread. The huddled old women turn towards and becomes Clotho alone and Necessary beautiful. “Hello, Merlyn,” says She.

         Merlyn says, “The lifeline is thin and golden.”

         “This is where you exist.”

         Merlyn smiled for the first time dead and said, “Elysium is a thin line indeed.”

         Clotho cautions, “Invisible is the line, Merlyn, the golden color is as sunlight.”

         “The light of is, was, and shall be.”

         "How perceptive, young Merlyn."

“I understand Reason is stuck in Grammar’s fold, dear lady.”

“Light doth close time as a singular.”

“As Queen I can run the line as were a great chess board.”

“Your declaration, not mine,” Clotho replied while gaining the semblance of sunlight herself.

“Thought and Light dance as once I danced with Mother Earth,” uttered Merlyn indeed only onto himself. Again, he smiled and realized a truth, ‘I am become a personification, a basic poetic element, a stretch of reasonable imagination, yet with full consciousness of heartansoulanmind. He paused in thought, grammar without time will take some getting used to. A board without squares, at least a full measured universe in size and scope. To see what was and to see what may be.

Clotho’s voice within, “In your dreams, Merlyn, only in your braiding dead man’s secret dreams.”

"I thought will be but may be came instead."

“Merlyn, welcome.”

“I must have swum here,” he replied. “And, who are you?”

“Arthur.”

“Where am I?”

“In Avalon, where else? You will enjoy this Place of the Dead where things are born again. It is the Fortunate Isles, like home but with contentment and peace.”

Merlyn, displaced in mind, considered his new, most delicate, most important charge. This light of dreamland is far wider and grander than I had imagined. A tree, a reality, with more roots in thought and branches in light than there are dreamers to have created it. This game of chess lay well beyond Arthur and Avalon and the Greeks heroes of Elysium. I continue to dance a quite thin line indeed. I have suddenly come to an understanding, and find myself, Merlyn the Bard, knowing absolutely nothing. What a pickle to find myself in. With nothing to stand on, I find myself a float, a bobber cork on a fish line, that’s what it feels like, to be tugged at from below or pulled from above.

***

         Clotho, the spinner glanced forward to Avalon to see where Merlyn had entered, and back to Elysium to the Rebellion’s start. She transposed herself once again twice more, becoming Lacheis and Atropos who will be ready to cut the thin, sun-yellow line if needed and to leave it dangling, or to tie a knot in another sun-golden line of thought and light, for good or ill, it will happen or not. Merlyn holds the designing knot with odds so lean that only the long slender fingers of Necessity can hope to tie and bind.

***

        Supper at the Brazenhead Pub, the news, and now time to write. Go to your Olympic characters. Let’s stir the pot a bit with a conversation between brother and sister.

         The scene is completed. I am surprised by its tone. It is a long way from the beginning to the end of scene three.

         That is the point. I doubt the marsupials’ Ship could go so far in such a short period of time. This puts a trip across the Milky Way galaxy to shame does it not?

         Only in galactic humor, Amorella. The marsupials may be amused by such a comment but we are beyond the galaxies and universe here.

         Several of them, orndorff. This will become clearer as the story moves on.

         What is the purpose of this possible confusion for the reader. It seems needless to me to drag the reader through such physics of thought.

         You enjoy it.

         I must admit that I do. I loved to get my classes going on some outlandish thought or another. A few would show a sparkle in the eye I would not see without it.

         To deny this in your work would be a travesty to your sense of being. The content is flowing from your heartansoulanmind. To be here is to be with the Dead. – Amorella.

         Still, it seems a little much.

         It is you that are a little much, orndorff. Live with it.  Post the rest of the scene. – Amorella.

***

The rest of Scene 3

In the median between Olympus and Earth, on the opposite side of the Styx and bridge-building, sit twin gods on a rock, looking north across the great river, watching the temple gate being built block by block.

Artemis speaks first, “I feel somewhat angelic here, sadly viewing the Dead at work on a cause to help their children, their descendants. I am caught by their sense of healing a rift. The temple dedicated to Asclepius is a nice touch.”

Apollo smirked, “Two-faced or four, you cannot help humankind as I can.”

“I hunt for the goodness in their nature.”

‘Sarcasm rolled, ”Good luck with that, dear sister.”

“Why are you so upset with my sympathies, do you not see their plight.”

“Attempting the impossible. These creatures have done it before. They are useless.”

Artemis frowned at his logic, “But they survive physical death, they are immortal as are we.”

He added, “It is a form of self-deception, this place, Elysium.”

She smiled through his weaknesses, “Are we not real?”

“Of course we are,” he said stubbornly, “We gods were here first.” Apollo then commented, “They follow us.” And, in a moment, “I look across this vast separation and see no bridge.”

Artemis thought, my brother is mistaken, they came from Earth, they did not follow us from Olympus. She said, “Perhaps the bridge is not in a prophecy.”

He belittled, “Too many desires, too many deceptions. The species do not have the will.”

She chastised, “Human beings were once alive. We have never been.”

“No need for a god to be born of a woman.”

She interrupted, “Why is it their necessity?”

Apollo mumbled defeat, “I do not know. I do know I am the Spirit of Truth, I am the messenger from the gods to humankind, from almighty Zeus himself. I sense no communiqué coming here to the Dead. Nor a directive to the Living either. If an epistle is bolted I will grab and read it to anyone who will listen.”

Artemis glared at her younger brother. “You announce without understanding. They, even the best of humanity, received your notices garbled or in mistranslation. The human mind is not built to hear a god directly.”

In cocksure expression he said, “It shows how little these prophecies are necessary.”

Artemis mirrored her brother’s earlier smirk and pulled from her quiver a sharpened arrow to drive her question home by then asking, “What then is your worship’s worth to the ache or joy of humanity, brother dearest?”

***

Notes

         Up at seven via the cat who surmised via the sun, it was time. You got dressed and Carol helped you put on the ‘boot’ so you could pick up the papers. It takes a while to walk with a two inch wedge under your right heel but at least the boot comes off and you don’t have to have surgery. Confirmation of this will come next Monday after an early morning date with the MRI at West Chester on Thursday.

         No complaints. It is not so bad. The rupture appears to be about four inches up on the calf rather than down in the heel area. At the doctor’s office in Montgomery the diagnosis was “a torn Achilles’ tendon”. At South Pointe Hospital  ER in Cleveland it was “a ruptured Achilles’ tendon.” At the specialist’s office in Mason the diagnosis is “a ruptured Achilles’ tendon at mid-calf”. Upon checking the dictionary the difference between torn and rupture is that a ‘tear’ of tissue is by force while a rupture is a tear of tissue without force. I assume a sports related injury would be a tear but an old man falling back a step onto the concrete garage floor would be an accident. 


         In any case, I feel much better having looked up the two words as it may have bugged me into consciousness even after death if the Merlyn books were real. I have a difficult time with words when I don’t understand their exact meaning in context. It would be worthy of doubt and debate for a long time, not obsessively, but from time to time I would wonder about it until I looked up the words and was satisfied with what I read. I assume this is not an abnormality. Surely most everyone is interested in discerning differences in word meanings, otherwise there would be no commercial enterprise in selling dictionaries.

         You have been running errands with Carol as the driver. She has a hair appointment in less than an hour. You are ready to do some work and then read a new magazine or two as well as get caught up with some other magazines. > Ah, wanting to write and writing are two different things. Nothing comes to mind though you put the fingers to flourish across the keys.

         I am stuck with no setting, Amorella.

         You would be surprised how often that happens among the newly dead in these books. You sense how that feels.

         It is more unsettling than anything else. Nothing to stand on.

         That’s the reason ‘floating’ or ‘bobbing along’ is popular.

         You know how to raise a smile, I will say that.

         Take a break, watch the rest of CSI Miami that aired last night. Carol is about to leave for her appointment. Take a nap. There will be time to work on this. A setting will come to you I promise.

         I can’t help thinking of the desolate heath and (Shakespeare’s) MacBeth’s witches. Then I am reminded that some of my ancestors were killed by MacBeth, some quite famously so. But, I have compassion for the man, the real MacBeth. I’m sure it was a terrible time for all the Celtic tribes in the Isles.

         Post this so you will be rid of it and better able to move on later this afternoon. These three ladies are, after all, from Greek format, not from Shakespeare’s.

         I never thought of a culture as a programmed format before. The juxtapositioning is interesting. It is though. Cultural conditioning is a format, a base for communal thought to rest in. I am immediately reminded of Beyond Freedom and Dignity by B. F. Skinner. I used that in one of my classes but I forget which one, maybe a short lecture or so. How is it possible to escape a format such as this?

         I think of it simply as ducklings trailing behind their mother.

         You mean, being human, that is, having humanity is a format?

         Why not? All creatures have to survive and procreate first.

         I know, but --

         Is surviving as a species beyond your sense of dignity?

         Surviving sounds rather mundane to me. I am not sure why actually, but it does.

         You need to do some thinking, boy.

         I mean mundane in the sense that surviving is a given, that is what life attempts to do. Culture, though, seems more than a few steps higher. Surely it is beyond the common instinct of lesser animals.

         Human culture should be beyond common instinct, is that what you are saying here?

         I think we are morally bound to raise ourselves higher. I know not everyone agrees with that and it sounds so didactic. This is all rather embarrassing to get caught up in such thoughts. Amorella, it comes down to this, people have been preaching one thing or another for thousands of years and it hasn’t changed our species moral fabric all that much. It leads me to the darker gallows’ humor scenario. And old Jonathon Swift pops into mind. A misanthrope if there ever was one. And, alas, from time to time, I see myself that same way.

         Well, that’s settled. Post. Take the break.  – Amorella.  

        Twenty-one hundred, twenty three hours and you are at Kroger’s on Tylersville for essentials.

         I thought I would have time to work after NCIS but now this and I still have the toilet to fix. I forgot about that. I don’t see how I can do anything on this scene three tonight. I don’t know what to do anyway. It seems like we were busy with errands of one kind or another today. Walmart again, then ink (which I have to install on Carol’s printer tonight). The printer is two years old and it runs out of black ink for the first time, so I am not complaining, but here we are.

         It is not like you to make excuses, orndorff. Survival take time. Things to do. One priority that you are pretty good at is taking care of your own, that is, you and family first. Relax. If you have time and we can write tonight fine. If not, tomorrow. The toilet needs fixed and the printer needs ink for what Carol has to do for the Blue Ash Retired Teachers’ luncheon on Thursday. She has errands tomorrow too.

         Maybe I will have time to begin the scene. I really do want to see the setting of the three, Clotho, Lacheis, and Atropos. I do have the earlier scene now posted for reference.

         You fixed the toilet and plan to do the ink tomorrow morning. You also have the bed to make as Carol washed the sheets and neither of you has made it. She is watching The Good Wife, one of her favorites. Enough for tonight, post what you have, make the bed, then sleep in it, orndorff. – Amorella. 

Notes & a Draft of Scenes 1 & 2 of Chapter Four

        You are up at four hundred hours as you could not sleep after three.

         I woke up thinking I would like to live long enough to finish these three books so I could go back and correct the first three. It would be satisfying to have written six books that I had bound and were good enough to pass on to my grandchild as a demonstration of commitment to a concept of a better imaginary world if nothing else. I will have at least learned something of an understanding about myself (and about the species of which I am a part) and put it to paper. To me this is an accomplishment in life, and if not an accomplishment, it is an objective or at least a goal. Personal best, and all that.

         It is realistic and accomplishable, certainly as a goal. As you are awake why not make use of the time. > You finished the first scene of chapter four and it is not yet five. Post and go back to bed. – Amorella. 

         Late mid-morning. Up and breakfast of cereal and a banana. Doctor’s appointment at thirteen-thirty hours. You are curious as to this second scene as you conjure up a brain and spinal column swimming up the Styx to the pond mentioned earlier in the book.

         Almost time for bed after a busy day and a long nap as well as two TV favorites, Chuck and ‘24’. Let’s see what we can do for scene two.

         Another short scene, Amorella. Strange, just now I almost wrote Merlyn’s name rather than your own.

         Good. Tomorrow, scene three will make up for the shorter scenes. We return to the three who took the tip of Olympian gold. They the story will then unfold.

         Ho, ho. I like the sound of this. Looking forward to it. 

Chapter Four
© 2009 The Rebellion by Richard H. Orndorff

Scene 1

You are about to witness the death of Merlyn the Scottish bard in AD 610. How this is relevant to the birth of the first rebellion is beyond belief but not beyond reason.

Old Merlyn is sitting on the earth under a favorite tree in the woods, and he is leaning back against a favorite piece of stone for support.

He muttered, “I will leave this world sitting up.” A few more breathes and it will be done. Shortly thereafter his last words, “The pawn is taken.”

The only one listening is Mother Earth. She feelsanthinks, old Merlyn coils like one cooling cat. A final unconscious bodily curl to keep the belly warm. Unneeded. Unnecessary.

                                                               Scene 2

         Floating in a banana peel. A nutty aroma. Away, away rolls the clay. Out of one corner and into another, and another. A ceiling. A floor. An old wooden door. Consciousness dancing fully long legged in twilight. Unconsciousness un-trapped. Heart in an upside-down  bowl. Rolled out flat with a hole along the right edge. Unknotted mind.

Here I am. Intact. Inside out. Thrice thrashed and open for business. Hello. This is Merlyn untagged with quotation marks.

Merlyn?

Who is this?

A friend.

Thales? Thales of Miletus?

The same.

I studied you and your students, Anaximander and Anaximenes.

While we were studying you, Merlyn.

What did you learn?

You are not a pawn taken. You reached the eighth rank. Chess pawn promotion. A rule unbroken.

What piece will have me?

Your queen.

What is the game?

Life and Death. Observe. The Game has already begun.

What is my color?

No one knows, Merlyn.

And, so it is that Merlyn has arrived. He assumes the Place of the Dead is the Fortunate Isle, Avalon, but here in this Place, Celt and Greek become one, a transformation of a boarded promotion unknown, even to Merlyn, and time has come and gone and come back again.

***