Notes & scene nine sans conclusion

        Late morning. Some regular upper strength and leg exercises this week. A plan to work on leaves, a Fall necessity with trees. Carol is setting to be off to BART, Blue Ash Retired Teachers with Anne F. for the monthly luncheon. > She is about to leave and you have completed a draft of the beginning of scene nine. 

**

         You are over at Pine Hill in the lot waiting for Carol to finish her longer walk. You spent your time north of the dam in the valley under the shade of trees. You noticed some typos, little buggers that are spelled right but the wrong word. “Minds and hearts are the all,” is your easiest example.

         I think it’s correct on a second to third look. I did have a terrible one the other day. Sometimes I do a quick read over a week’s worth and find errors but I don’t get them corrected. This blog is a working draft, that’s all there is to it.

         It is easy to forgive grammar errors in such an online work such as this as far as I am concerned, old man. This is a runner for the books, that’s the intent, as freebee drafts won’t be allowed once this reaches iUniverse publication.

         I thought maybe it might be better to look into changing publishers for these next three.

         We are both satisfied with what they have done, orndorff. Look what they have to work with here. Their setup is better than what you were going to do. You can buy books if you need them. You want them bound, boy, the same way. And, although you were thinking about changing the color scheme of the covers to full white with blue lettering I don’t think so. It is up to you and the decision is a way off, but I like the encyclopedic look of the three and three more completes the series. Later with that.

         We have a few minutes for a transition let’s work on it and put together what we have. – Amorella.

The latest on Scene Nine

         Lying on their backs the bed padding drifts beneath their minds. Thales toyed with and between Kassandra’s fingers only to slowly and methodically capture the middle and ring finger of her left hand and quietly grasp the two as if they were his own. She moved sensuously in such a way to follow through in a similar manner and grasp the ring and middle fingers of his right hand. His right arm and her left lay hard and close between their bodies while her right arm and his left stretched across their chests to rest. One clasping above the other clasping below. Neither then moved while nearly full moon slowly moved a short distance from east to west above.

         In a natural cadence each unloosed the clasped fingers and rolled on their sides to face one a finger or two apart. Kassandra looked for the slightest of smiles but saw none rise into his lips. She whispered, “With such a pleasant moonlight as this for cover I am surprised you are not more content in my bed.”

         “You were good to touch and hold; content is not so easy with  this present, this wandering mind.”

She smiled and joked, “I thought it was your fingers that have been doing most of the wandering,” she giggled, “penetrating my foggy thoughts as casually as this amorous moonlight.” She frowned and spoke more straight-forward and friend-like, “Still no smile. My bed like my mind is no turntable of slow motion, Thales. It scares me when you are hard thinking with eyes so dark and wall-like.”

         “I worry that Zeus rests just above us. Zeus or the Supervisor sits just beyond the top corners of the walls, close enough to curtain some of this too bright moonlight you just spoke so softly of.”

         Her frown fell into concern as she slowly distanced herself a hand’s width away, “That blank stare I’ve witnessed before Thales. It is frightening enough to capture my love and hold it as a bar between us.”

         He grumbled without a thought and said, “You are a silly woman,” then quickly but gravely added, “I mean, you are being silly, woman.” In the pause of such personal hours his mind roared into her unmoving silence as she turned two fists of distance from him and faced the ever silent beauty of a puff of clouds above rolling shadows across the stone wall as if it were her own centeredness, strong and resilient, a woman who knows who she is no matter what the weather of the soul.

         Thales angrily thought, she does not realize how close the gods are. Is this the Supervisor? Zeus’s older brother or he himself. A blast of lightning will do me no harm. What can a god to do me? Kick me out of Elysium? For what reason? No. I am kept here where I might be a useful foil to the Rebellion. That is not going to happen. I would, could I be, in madness first. What good is a chaotic mind to a god? Willing madness is a first choice.

         Seemingly talking to the stone Kassandra suddenly and directly said aloud, “Thales. You will be lost.”

         The rush of thought froze as existence nearly disappeared into a kernel of Thales’s soul. A lost mind? My soul left bobbling in the wasteland as a simple twig? Parts divided – soul and mind. A soul without fuel. Heartfelt inner lined but unreasoning. How did Kassandra know to say such a thing? Coincidence? Too quiet, she is, as if feigning sleep – it is said that a honeybee can grow mad and desert the hive. No place to go, no orientation to get there in any case. It would be us were it not for our Mother. Our hive is she alone. We are but scattered shades first of her biology and now only slivers of her soul. Bubbles of what was once real. Once popped unknown and unheard. Of no use – even a feigned use would do. Not here though, not with Zeus’s ear above to echo my thoughts to one once loved. He paused in the nearly silent breeze of mind, -- was it so long ago that we, with loving hands and fingers held, rested here? With no center I return to Mother. She is the only goddess. Elysium is but her outer garment we tally within grasping like children to her curtain. Little much is Here and little less is Now. The soul has no energy, no power. It is little more than an illusion, a worn kernel of imaginary self. No one fathered Zeus. Fatherless and unnatural are the gods themselves. We are the only ones – alone and soulless. Scattered minds are hearts are the all. Mother, we are still within, unborn.

         Kassandra rolled over and re-threaded her eyes into his. “The darkness I see will be a void, Thales. Will you now disappear to be resolved within your own quarters? How does that work? If lost, how does that work?”

         Without a sense of reflected light; silence became his own cloud to hide behind. “I think I am unhelpful to the group. Better were I not involved on this level.”

         In a solid tone of practical common sense, Kassandra suggested, “Let’s let the committee decide, Thales.”

         Perhaps it is best. Though I will tell them as I have told you –  the gods are in on this deeper then we think. They cannot be outsmarted. What judgments can we use when the gods are so close by. I can feel a Presence. God? Something is here beyond our own spirits.

In madness, he thought, we Dead may fall, scattered individuals, into an unspeakable oblivion even beyond the bottomless Tartarus. Either Zeus’s or the Supervisor’s lone index finger is pressed into my mind and human thoughts are being swirled and flushed by this added godly pressure.

         Can Zeus throw a lightning bolt here, in my mind? How do I know I am struck? We have no epileptic-like fits in this Place. No diseases. I think I cannot be struck down. Do I focus on myself or the god or would be god who presses within? It is baffling to think when so struck with such unknown empty forces full of a continuity from before a Beginning. Such kindness not to have a physical body. Yet, the mind races like the sound of chariot wheels behind the power of the strongest horses as a god or  goddess cheers at the sideline. On both sides of the track at once. I am built to defy the strongest of deities so that I might continue to survive.

         The reins are for my own control no matter what horses are driven. It is that I cannot survive in my own mind without forcing even the king of all gods out. To defy a god either named or nameless is to say I exist still. I defy my own mind with solidified reason, the only known weight holding me down and raising me up both at once, is to obey my own otherwise subjected free will.

         In my own mind I stand free to object what is known and unknown in my own nature and in the nature of this Place, Elysium, or such an illusionary Place as this by any other name called. Madness would be scared shitless in such a warring field as this. I exist by my own reason. I defy the gods on one side and madness on the other and race the field to think once again beyond such senseless grounds as these struck by my own enigmatic fears. 

         Thales looks up from the mental floor of blackness below and says, “So fair, my Kassandra, your dark eyes are but beacons for my full resolve – I stand here without madness and without gods both at once." . . . .

**

Notes & a draft selection: intro A of scene nine

        Up with the sun for a change. Picked up the papers, had breakfast while reading the paper and thinking about when an upcoming Seldon Crisis would appear in real life. What would it take, you wonder, to trip the world into change, and what then would the world change into?

         Sounds like a plot for a movie or television more than anything else, Amorella. That’s my thought on the subject. We had ‘V’ last year and this year it is ‘The Event’. I enjoy both – still have science fiction in my blood and I guess I miss my “Pouch Text” stories in the process. Asimov was the best and Clarke not far behind. What is the plausibility? That is the question real life asks, and I say, not much in terms of change in the world. We are still in a Renaissance as far as technology is concerned, thank goodness! A friend and I were talking about how great it is to be alive and retired and having the Internet at our disposal. Conversation and research world wide is wonderful for those of us growing up with short wave radios providing some of the same experience albeit one way for those such as I who couldn’t pass the Morse Code to be a HAM operator.

         Here I am sounding like an old man. I’ve mentioned that story time and time again. Reminds me of Swift’s “Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift”. Funny and true lines:

. . .

See, how the Dean begins to break:

 Poor Gentleman, he droops apace, ¹⁰ 


You plainly find it in his Face:


That old Vertigo in his Head, ¹¹ 


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:


Plyes 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 Fokes,


Who for his Wine will bear his Jokes:


Faith, he must make his Stories shorter,

Or change his Comrades once a Quarter: …

From: “Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift,” by Jonathon Swift, Lines: 80-96, 1739.   [www.ethnicity.rutgers.edu]

         And, I didn’t have to have much memory to conjure up the lines, me with little to no memory at all. I love Swift. Those last four lines are a kicker. As far as being human is concerned nothing much changes and three thousand years of literature shows that if ever anyone wanted such proof.

         You're point being?

         These books with my name on them romanticize our species, and, at times, it is depressing to think upon it. How’s that, Amorella. You want a straight answer and you got it.

        No, orndorff, you got it. Time to put it on paper so you can see such a realistic thought from your head. The romance is satire, old man. You are not so romantic as you like to think. So, stuff that in your pipe and give it a smoke. – Post, while you are at it. – Amorella. 

         Mid-afternoon. Late satisfying lunch at Panera/Chipotle. A stop at Kroger’s on Tylersville as you wait in the parking lot. You are ready to work on the beginning of scene nine, then the conclusion. You are looking to 6500 chapter words or so and you presently have about 4000. Several more scenes to look forward to, boy.

         I don’t mind. It is always new to me. It is a book I like to read anyway. It is always a mystery as to what is going to happen in each scene and it is also a mystery as to how the book will all tie together in its conclusion, which this is at least the first half of the story, right?

         It is the first two-thirds, orndorff, rising action until the last scene or so. Then it is “I know how this is going to end, but I don’t know who or why?” That will be in the next book, the who and why.

         I assume it somehow reflects a parallel with Adam and Eve  and Satan. Original Sin has to play a part, Hubris/Pride, as the seven deadly sins  and virtues are included for moral argument. This is about a moral argument isn’t it?

         The argument of whether it is morally dignified and right to speak to the Living about how things are. It is also about doing this for the right reasons. In here, orndorff, it has to be for the right reasons because it is from your mind, your humanity, that I must tow the story. – Amorella.

         For authenticity?

         No. Because, my boy, I have no other choice. – Amorella.

         Alas, what a sad state of affairs that must exist from your perspective. Such gallows humor. I can’t help but smile at the irony. I think it is irony. Anyway, the situation causes me to smile.

         Now you see a fuller framed picture, old man. I am a Betweener of sorts as I stand (hypothetically) between your naked memory, mind and unconsciousness and the reading audiences’ conscience. Your own consciousness first as you are the first reader. You see, even reasoning it out if I were a minute alien intelligence, or even truly angelic, what other choice would I have? Human thoughts and words in your primary language is a must. Translation is difficult enough in any case, boy, you have said it yourself. So, the story would be quite different from another human’s experiences, but not so much where it counts the most. The story would still be as a series of dreams and open to interpretation as real dreams are. What else would you expect, imagination or no?   > Now that you are home, post. – Amorella. 

         This is good. What it means to me is that I have the Merlyn stories already wrapped up in my head, they just need to work their way out. The bases are covered from imagination (me) alone, to a minute alien, or to a ghost of Merlyn or someone else or an angel of unknown or unknowable origin. Those are the nouns/pronouns that cover the process writing. And, the conclusion of each book is still authored by me. These wisps of thought just make it more fun from my perspective, back to what it was sixty or so years ago, self-entertainment.

         You pretty much have the bases covered, orndorff. Next time we get together here let’s head directly to the chapter six document and do some work.

         Sounds good to me.

         Post for now. – Amorella.

         You have about half of this first section of scene nine. Post it for tonight. Amorella. 

Scene Nine

         Lying on their backs the bed padding drifts beneath their minds. Thales toyed with and between Kassandra’s fingers only to slowly and methodically capture the middle and ring finger of her left hand and quietly grasp the two as if they were his own. She moved sensuously in such a way to follow through in a similar manner and grasp the ring and middle fingers of his right hand. His right arm and her left lay hard and close between their bodies while her right arm and his left stretched across their chests to rest. One clasping above the other clasping below. Neither then moved while nearly full moon slowly moved a short distance from east to west above.

         In a natural cadence each unloosed the clasped fingers and rolled on their sides to face one a finger or two apart. Kassandra looked for the slightest of smiles but saw none rise into his lips. She whispered, “With such a pleasant moonlight as this for cover I am surprised you are not more content in my bed.”

         “You were good to touch and hold; content is not so easy with  this present, this wandering mind.”

She smiled and joked, “I thought it was your fingers that have been doing most of the wandering,” she giggled, “penetrating my foggy thoughts as casually as this amorous moonlight.” She frowned and spoke more straight-forward and friend-like, “Still no smile. My bed like my mind is no turntable of slow motion, Thales. It scares me when you are hard thinking with eyes so dark and wall-like.”

         “I worry that Zeus rests just above us. Zeus or the Supervisor sits just beyond the top corners of the walls, close enough to curtain some of this too bright moonlight you speak so softly of.”

         Her frown fell into concern as she slowly distanced herself a hand’s width away, “That blank look I’ve witnessed before Thales. It is frightening.”

         He grumbled without a thought and said, “You are a silly woman,” then quickly but gravely added, “I mean you are being silly, woman.” In the pause of such personal hours his mind roared into her unmoving silence as she turned two fists of distance from him and faced the ever silent beauty of the stone wall as if it were her own centeredness, strong and resilient, a woman who knows who she is.

**

Notes

         Mid-afternoon. You have been thinking and have come to the realization that Kay did you a favor in asking the question and comments because you do not see writing the notes or the books a reality. Writing is a pleasure, a hobby of yours and as it is fiction (to you) it has very little to do with the real world, actually, to you, it has nothing to do with the real world. Thus, when she asked a question in ‘real world’ terms it threw you off center. You have ‘control’ of the books even though I do the writing. You always have the free will to erase, and although rare, you have done so. What do you have to say to this?

         Sounds like I’m a control freak – obsessive/compulsive behaviors. No doubt it is true. I have no real control in the real world and beyond that want none. I have no real ambitions other than enjoying life and friends and family and finishing the books. Do I?

         Not from my perspective. Very funny. Probably one of the reasons you have slowed down in your writing. After all, you wanted only three books, a trilogy and once they were done these are extra. For the record though, once you thought you might become famous.

         That’s true. I thought it would be fun to have a best seller and they would make a movie of it and I would become wealthy and give some of the money away to friends, particularly to those friends who I acknowledged in the front of the book. I wrote it up in my notes at the time as a contract of sorts. I would give them a percentage of the profits. They were kind to stick with me and they helped keep me honest in the notes and in the books. Kay, actually, in asking the question, has done the same kind of thing. I need to keep balanced and not get too caught up in the story or the imagination behind it. The writing makes me free in my head, I would hate for it to become and chain and stone that I have to drag around for the rest of my life. What I have come to realize is that I don’t care about being famous either. The writing process helps keep me mentally alert and active. We have good (well-earned) pensions and have a savings to fall back on. I don’t need anything more than I already have. Being famous sounds like another word for slavery. Too much of anything is a form of slavery in my mind.

         You have an opinion. Later, dude. Post. – Amorella.

         While on Facebook, Jim P. while writing on Michael I’s. wall page concerning Gutenberg’s first translation of the Bible you decided to comment. Here is Jim’s comment then yours:

J: Indeed. KJV is such a dated attempt to reach back to the autograph that its fans really show the superficiality of their attempt to connect with the original. But one ought to be charitable whenever another tries to follow a spiritual path.

R: This brings back a memory. Once in a stay-over with students at the Mosteiro de Sao Bento near Sao Paulo, Brazil in [the] early seventies, a liberal-minded monk once told me in private that the two best modern translations at the time were The Jerusalem Bible (1966)  and the New English Bible (1970). I bought and read them both, one book from one then one book from the other. I was not through the first page of each when I realized any spiritual translations from ancient Greek, Latin and Hebrew can be a tricky business. Both were worth the reading to me.

**

         What is funny is that I felt this first with my heart then with my mind. The setting, Brazil, was with my heart. I don’t remember ever differentiating between heart and mind thoughts so quickly. For me there is an intuitive difference, though both initial concepts Brazil and Bible translations brought a quick inner joy, it was Brazil (the country) that was more heartfelt. Is that why you wanted this included in the blog?

         No, it wasn’t and isn’t. – Amorella.

         What is the reason then?

         The reason is to remind you that you once read both translations, enjoying the ‘battles’ that must have gone on over the word choices. As a further reminder, let’s add an example from each Bible:

The Jerusalem Bible (1966)  - Catholic

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, and God's spirit hovered over the water.

New English Bible (1970) - Protestant

In the beginning of creation, when God made heaven and earth, ^(a) the earth was without form and void, with darkness over the face of the abyss, and a mighty wind that swept ^(b) over the surface of the waters.

a. Or, In the beginning God created heaven and earth.

b. Or, and the spirit of God hovering.

**

         I used to have a two or three page reading sheet of like translations when we went over the KJV of a few passages in the British literature text. It is interesting still and over the years more than a few of my students were curious as they did not know of various translations. It was always fun to show students something they did not know or realize and watch their reactions. Gave me joy, it did.

         So, there is where the joy comes from orndorff, just so you know.

         I didn’t mean to imply I read the Bibles for religious reasons.

         This clarifies it. – Amorella.

         No doubt this is going to offend someone as the implication is not very polite in my mind.

         Give it a rest, orndorff. Post. – Amorella. 

Notes

You were up early as the brigade of trash trucks woke you well before light. Newspaper and breakfast and you are ready for a nap. Later, dude. – Amorella.

         Your Facebook profile response to Kay today is your response, not mine. I felt you tugging for help but Facebook is your place not mine. Here is your response in context with her question/comments:

K: Is consciousness the soul? Or maybe the Holy Spirit in us?

K: Maybe that is taking the meaning of consciousness more to the side of knowing what is right or wrong and not so much the awareness aspect.

K: You have me thinking!

R: I don't think of the consciousness as the soul, but it is within our human spirituality (spirit) - at least in my mind. Consciousness is a condition as is the heart and as is the mind. I feel better writing on such things within context of my books as the books are 'the spirit of myself in words.' That was/is the original intent. Nonfiction ordered into fiction for the unconscious storytelling.

R: You have put me (as friends do from time to time) into a wordless place. I know next to nothing, less every day. Knowing less allows me to be more conscious, and strangely, being more conscious allows me more freedom to think (hopefully more clearly). Heartansoulanmind together represent our humanity. That's what I think, but this is not something I can know. Alas, Kay, I am a closet romantic in neoclassic clothing. Don't tell anyone. ;-)

**

         You look at your response to her honest question and comments and find yourself uneasy without me as a guide.

         I am not so free when answering these questions directly either to Kay or to myself because . . . .

         Because why, boy?

         I don’t know.

         Post. – Amorella.

         Papa John dresses in a specialty was invited for supper and the news. Too many TV shows tonight so you’ll pick and choose what to watch and what to copy. Back to the question ‘why’. Here is how I see it. No confidence because spirituality whether human or beyond is not something you can address because you have no idea. In your case, a blank mind is helpful in that it allows me to circumnavigate a bit as imagination, alien, angel or Betweener from your perspective. You don’t have to cross the mind or the galaxy as I can find the wherewithal to do it for you in the comfort of your favorite medium – words.

         I am ever thankful too, Amorella. Writing is a joy to me. I don’t have the ‘guts’ to come up with some of the things you do. But as it is always in context with the books I am fully relieved and comforted by the imagination alone. I think that has long been the case. I would as soon find myself in a story than take a walk down the street.

         That’s all tonight, boy, more than enough said. – Amorella. 

Notes & a draft selection from scene nine

         Yesterday’s blog was a real eye opener. I don’t think right even on paper. I mentioned pennies when pennies weren’t an option as I had previously said there were no pennies. I did not catch this until I reread it. Thoughts unfiltered from mind to fingertips. I am so used to this process of thinking with my fingertips that I forget what I am doing. Before sleep last night though I thought, ‘well, this is the way it is, so if I can find a way to use the material, with Thales doing the thinking, I might as well put my misplaced thinking to some kind of legitimate work. So, if I could drop the pennies and the jar and make it relevant to something Thales would consider, then why not. At least I can’t be accused of making the scene up.'

         That’s the idea, old man, put your thoughts to use. We can work out something, but not at the moment. Too early, plus I’m busy. Later, dude. Post. – Amorella.

         Mid-afternoon. Carol is making turkey vegetable soup and reading the Sunday paper. The cat is spying on blowing leaves in the evergreen shrub running parallel to the living room window and you are evermore relaxed after a nap and a warm jetted bath with bubbles. An easy-going Sunday afternoon with retired folks.

         First, set yesterday’s blog in a separate document and we’ll work on scene nine in sections. You have a sectional first paragraph, why not post it?

         I don’t know what comes before or after. Besides, the words just rolled out. I even spelled Tartarus correctly. It is like I am sitting in Thales mind transcribing as he is thinking. I don’t have a clue what Kassandra said though.

         Suddenly you are interrupted by a thought relating to quantum mechanics – that cause and effect is not necessarily a natural law in the quantum domain. This coupled with the fact that you are writing this scene in a quantum-like flavor of plot.

         Yes, it is interesting how that is. Separate lines of plot in the Merlyn books converge not always as expected. I’m sure it makes the reading difficult because unlike in a murder mystery this is continuous. One thing doesn’t always lead to another.

         So, here, in this scene you get to play along like the reader as order is not what it seems. This paragraph is not a section though. More to come. Relax now that you have had a couple bowls of Alta’s famous turkey soup for your late lunch. Add the paragraph and post. – Amorella.

Partial unordered section of scene nine:

Kassandra’s outbreak caused Thales to discouragingly wonder on his recent reasoning abilities. In madness, he thought, we Dead will fall as scattered individuals, into an unspeakable oblivion even beyond the bottomless Tartarus. Either Zeus’s or the Supervisor’s lone index finger is pressed into my mind and human thoughts are being swirled and flushed by this added godly pressure.

**

         Some afternoon chores are done and I am trying to think what I could substitute for invisible pennies and a glass jar and believing they were real (sort of though they were digested).

         Not that easy, orndorff. You can’t just drop a few words and put others in place. The point is that you were thinking that what was imaginary and  thus invisible was real while others saw nothing.

         Somewhat like MacBeth at the dining table when the ghost of Banquo enters. I have had imaginary ghostly encounters before but no one else was a witness. I assume they were imaginary. Only proof counts in such situations. No proof, no ghost. I am probably not following you presently, Amorella.

         That is more like it, boy.

         So, Thales thinks Zeus or the Supervisor is in his head and he’s having a conversation while Kassandra is a witness?

         Why not?

         That’s crazy, Amorella. No wonder she thinks he’s nuts. I don’t want Thales a madman.

         Was MacBeth mad?

         No, he was stressed and confused with power and ambition. If he were mad it wouldn’t have been a tragedy (at least in my mind). Besides, Thales doesn’t want power or ambition.

         How do you know?

         Originally this is what I put down for his character before the first chapter:

[Thales is the] male figure most trusted by Number One [Sophia]. He is quick-minded, intelligent, and gifted with leaps in logic. He is prophet-like in anticipating the Supervisor’s next move, but with this gift he dances close to madness, a terror in his mind as he assumes he and perhaps all the human dead will fall into Oblivion should madness prevail in the Place of the Dead which is built within Reason’s Walls. In the blink of an eye he secretly falls in love with Number Four [Kassandra]. He thinks it is a trick of the Supervisor who has somehow got into his mind. He is secretly concerned he is Supervisor’s mole and he will be the downfall of the Rebellion.

**

         I see Thales as a cross between William Blake and Captain Ahab. I personally identify more with Mario. Ahab is not crazy and neither is Blake. Both men, one real and one fiction, have recognized an invisible ‘truth’ in nature and also in themselves.

         All for now, orndorff. Post. – Amorella.

          Selection from scene nine: 

. . . Kassandra’s outbreak caused Thales to discouragingly wonder on his recent reasoning abilities. In madness, he thought, we Dead may fall, scattered individuals, into an unspeakable oblivion even beyond the bottomless Tartarus. Either Zeus’s or the Supervisor’s lone index finger is pressed into my mind and human thoughts are being swirled and flushed by this added godly pressure.

         Can Zeus throw a lightning bolt here, in my mind? How do I know I am struck? We have no epileptic-like fits in this Place. No diseases. I think I cannot be struck down. Do I focus on myself or the god or would be god who presses within? It is baffling to think when so struck with such unknown empty forces full of a continuity from before a Beginning. Such kindness not to have a physical body. Yet, the mind races like the sound of chariot wheels behind the power of the strongest horses as a god or  goddess cheers at the sideline. On both sides of the track at once. I am built to defy the strongest of deities so that I might continue to survive.

         The reins are for my own control no matter what horses are driven. It is that I cannot survive in my own mind without forcing even the king of all gods out. To defy a god either named or nameless is to say I exist still. I defy my own mind with solidified reason, the only known weight holding me down and raising me up both at once, is to obey my own otherwise subjected free will.

         In my own mind I stand free to object what is known and unknown in my own nature and in the nature of this Place, Elysium, or such an illusionary Place as this by any other name called. Madness would be scared shitless in such a warring field as this. I exist by my own reason. I defy the gods on one side and madness on the other and race the field to think once again beyond such senseless grounds as these struck by my own enigmatic fears. 

         Thales looks up from the mental floor of blackness below and says, “So fair, my Kassandra, your dark eyes are but beacons for my full resolve – I stand here without madness and without gods both at once." . . . .

**
         You are not impressed, old man.


          I am not that old, Amorella. 


          No more tonight. Post. - Amorella. 

Notes

         Carol bought doughnuts from Buskin’s this morning for breakfast as a Saturday treat. Front hose sprang a leak so off to Lowe’s, Walmart, or Anderson’s Ace Hardware for a fix as well as a new lawn sprinkler.

         You were just checking out your Observatory Clock app on the iPad and notice that the national local time in Mason, Ohio is 11:36 while true local solar time is 10:08 and you are thus quickly reminded of an example of the fiction driving your culture and the world for that matter. You are not a time purist as such, but people who are defiant and say they would never give up their individual rights for anything the government might do have already done so. A matter of perspective to be sure, but an important theoretical point that can be put to use in this coming scene. Presently you are waiting on Carol to finish the check books before heading out for new lawn equipment. More later, post. – Amorella.

        Going on twenty-two hundred hours and you are wondering on Thales’s mental health not unlike you have wondered upon your own from time to time. As you did not talk until you were into your third year family was concerned, as you developed an active and engaging imagination before five they were also concerned, as you enjoyed sitting in the clothes closet with the light out and the door closed for a half hour to an hour at a time, they were concerned. As you picked and counted imaginary pennies off the wall and put them in a jar they were also concerned, but when you took the empty jar uptown Westerville to buy something, they were really concerned. What do you remember of that incident, orndorff?

         Good question. I remember my father was upset about something but I didn’t understand what it was. I remember my Grandmother Orndorff was upset too, but I didn’t know why. Then around that same time my mother and I had a really quiet talk and she asked me how many pennies were in the jar and I told her the number I had counted. I remember smiling because she was interested and I was proud that I could remember the number. It was probably over a hundred pennies or I wouldn’t have been proud of myself. I liked counting. Then she asked me very quietly and concerned-like if I could see the pennies in the jar and I smiled and said no because they were not real, something to that effect. I remember I smiled because I thought she was joking. 

            Obviously there were no pennies in the jar because it was a small empty Mason jar I think or a glass fruit jar from the grocery, something like that. That’s about all I remember of it then there was never another word about it. I think I grew self-conscious about the incident and decided to put the jar and pennies away because something disturbed me about it from then on. I never understood but for a long time I thought I had done something wrong but I didn’t know what it was, but I connected it to the jar. I think I put the jar in the back corner of the closet. Wow. I haven’t thought about that incident so closely for over sixty years. 

           Funny, because when I was thinking and writing I could almost see mother bent down and talking to me. It was a very odd situation and circumstance and I was mostly perplexed about it. I remember thinking and thinking and I remembered taking the jar uptown. I can see me walking up from the corner of West Park and Knox Streets, and when I crossed the street at the corner I was thinking how it was fun taking my jar of pennies uptown with me. The jar had become a kind of pet, like a doll or stuffed animal, and I was taking it on an adventure with me because he was my friend. It was not at all complicated in my mind, the jar was full, I had fed him pennies just like the goldfish got food. I liked playing by myself, I was always coming up with some form of self-entertainment.

         Well, that’s what I remember, it just rolled out. I don’t trust it though even though it sounds about as well as I can remember the whole incident. Since the jar was a pet of sorts I am assuming his name was J. This is because B was the name of my favorite blanket when I was two or three. I liked naming things by letters of the alphabet. I can’t think of anything more, and some of this may be invention like I said, but it is the first thing that comes to mind.

         Yes. This is what came to mind. And, the truth is not what I was searching for. I wanted you to see the reasoning, which is still with you, old friend. This above is indeed a remembrance but some wiring in your head is still, as it were, crossed.

         I don’t agree at all. I know the pennies were not real and never thought they were, at least not that real, not real enough to spend. Besides when they went into the jar they were in jar’s stomach, inside, and couldn’t be seen. I mean when I put food in my stomach I couldn’t see it anymore. It is things like this that make me question myself. I have to have readers who glance at the writings once in a while to let me know if I am traveling to the point along the edge of sanity. I feel I have been there a time or two, but an objectivity or detachment within always brought me back from the edge or what I thought was the edge at the time.

         I suppose you are going to use some of this in this scene and I need to know where it is coming from in advance so I won’t be so uncomfortable. Still these have been a strange few paragraphs, I’ll tell you.

         Post, orndorff. Leave it as it is. All for tonight.- Amorella. 

         But I see some mistakes.

         Leave it anyway. 

         Being honest is one thing, but sometimes it is hard when authenticity means so much to me. - rho

Notes & Purgatory-like set up in book

        You wonder on politics and religion in HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither.

         For polite company’s sake, I was always taught to avoid both. No one seems to win in any of the arguments. Perhaps some concede from time to time, but belief and opinion are on the down side of reason. Passions prevail too easily. Such mighty winds can blow. Pride and arrogance staff themselves high for open sailing into such high wave-slapping waters. I don’t see such divisions in the book, other than the cultural divisions, most of which are geographical so far. I don’t want to open it up into a Dante-line interpretation, but what gives in these books on two such great matters of politics and religion? 

         When it comes to book six (the twentieth century & the second rebellion of the Dead) I cannot imagine all the factions and how they will treated, if at all. Fortunately, the twenty-first century won’t be included. It would be madness to allow each individual to be in herorhis little pocket of political and/or religious friends, particularly if their passions lead them to the ends of the political and/or religious spectrum. Alas, Dante’s Inferno remains in mind. I am too old and too tired to dwell on all these aspects.

         I have a simple solution for this plausible problem, as far as the books are concerned anyway. > Mid-afternoon. You are at the Little Miami River Park and just had a Subway picnic under a pleasant California sky. A walk in the park coming up. Colder tomorrow, back to more typical Ohio weather from your perspective.

         As for the passions of politics and religions, this is the Merlyn books’ solution. The individual must decide what is more important, the human community or no. If no, sheorhe has to think about it first, time-out, so to speak. Some would call it Purgatory and that is close – it consists of one (as an individual) waiting ‘Outside but in the Front Yard,’ so to speak. Tolerance is survival for the Dead. This Rebellion is not about such things as politics or religion among the Living, it is about the Dead going home, about the human community as a whole, both the Living and the Dead.

A balance must be struck, duty and responsibility to the group, the species as a whole, are mandatory so that both the Dead and the Living can grow from it. No small group thinking among the Dead. One works for the community as a whole. Service. What do people think humanity is for but service to others? The Dead know better on this score.

In the Merlyn books the Marsupials have the idea, although you scoff and think that it is a pie-in-the-sky scheme no Earthling would ever accept (even in fiction). That may be true, but the Marsupials do (because to survive well, with dignity as individuals and as a species they have no choice) let the chips fall where they may. Individuals were created by the group first, by having a partner, i.e. parents or a parent who grows to survive and procreate because of a social group. It is the way things are in the real world and it is the way things are among the Dead.

Only for the Dead survival is for further growth not physical survival, unless the individual decides to give it up think about it (alone) for a few thousand years or so. Time-out is what it is. Adults who act selfishly and immature create the mess in their mind and they as individuals have to learn to outgrow it. That’s how it is and will be in these books for consistency’s sake if nothing else. – Amorella.

I think it is a little heavy-handed, Amorella, but these are your books in that sense, so I’ll go along. I have to give up some things myself in order for you to write. I do understand the 'individual alone' business in that you are born alone as an individual and you die alone as an individual. Makes reasonable sense that you are a lone individual when dead.

You see, nothing new under the sun. Consistency is one of the keys for getting things done. Focus is another. This is how you have come to write. This is how people survive life. No exceptions, boy, but you already know that. Later, dude. Post when you arrive home. – Amorella.

         Stopped at Kroger’s near King’s Island on the way home. I assume we will still walk but who knows, maybe I will mow the grass instead. I am glad this is just fiction. I don’t think I would like the idea of being in ‘time-out’ for a couple of thousand years due to arrogance or just plain stubbornness. And, if the stubbornness is because of some sort of ‘human’ principle of ‘free will’ that would be even worse. 


         I can’t help but think of Milton’s Satan here and “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” –> Amazing. It works. Amorella is making the concept work. My mind must be in two different time zones. I don’t pick up on things until after Amorella hits me over the head. At least in the books it is a form of Purgatory rather than Hell where the stubborn may decide to wait (of their own free will). More humane. I like that. I like the front yard concept too rather than waiting in the back. Amorella always thinks things out better than I do. 

          Careful with using the word 'always' boy. Your daughter listened to your lectures. She'll be on you in a minute when she reads this. - Amorella. 

          Later, after a light supper you and Carol watched copy of Part Two of last night’s 1993 episode of Inspector Morris on Dayton PBS and also last night’s The Mentalist. Almost twenty-two hundred hours and you have been searching ‘Hades and Purgatory’ mostly in Wikipedia.

         I have found little, but I like Dore's illustration from Dante above. I did not know the Catholics now accept Purgatory as a state of mind and not a place. The Romans thought Hades met Purgatory, at least some of them. I am sure this is going to come up when the Dead begin rejoining a single world of the Dead. “Where are the others?” is a question that has already been asked somewhere in the first three books but who knows where. It has also been implied that some, who do arrive in Elysium (or one of its counterparts) aren’t comfortable so they return inside their ‘abode’ for who knows how long. Until they are comfortable in the environment I suppose. Some find it difficult to forgive themselves out of anger or one or more of those ancient seven deadly sins. 

         Perhaps that will come up in this pending scene nine with Kassandra worried that Thales will disappear and return to the Purgatory-like setting until he can get his mind back together. I don’t want to imply that mental illness puts one in Purgatory though in these fictions – purgatory is a place to resolve one’s personal problems first – dealing with one’s own sins  or supposed sins first. A place for quiet reflection not torment at least in the ideal. An uncommon wakeful sleep with hope of eventual self-understanding and then self-forgiveness. Although Thales thinks Zeus or the Supervisor is spying on him or using him and he doesn’t want to be used or tricked by the gods but how does a human defend herorhimself against this, especially if it is true as Thales imagines it to be? One cannot win and is doomed to do the god’s will no matter what sheorhe decides what to do. Anyway, that is it for tonight.

         These are your considerations, old man, not mine. This is your attempt to adapt to my thinking in terms of character and plot. You feel more comfortable doing this but it is somewhat like watching the weather forecasters for next week’s weather, mostly for mental comfort and personal control. Perhaps we will work on this scene nine and your anticipations will be cleared by tomorrow’s present. – Amorella.