Mid-afternoon.
You had a late lunch at Cracker Barrel and are stopped at Lowes for birdseed.
You did do your exercises earlier and are taking your glucose before or after
meals for variety. Home, filled the feeder, now at Pine Hill Lakes Park and
Carol is on her walk.
1515 hours. This detail has to be boring to readers, I mean,
all I am doing is moving through the routines of the day.
It will mean more when you are dead, boy.
Don’t you think? You need to keep Our Town in mind, consciously sometimes; it
is on your mind unconsciously almost always one scene or another is being
replayed. “Where’s my birthday girl?” That’s one of your favorite introductions
to the next line or two. You have a lot of theatre in your head. All those
years of plays climbed in and didn’t leave. Not to mention The Canterbury Tales
and Paradise Lost – The Inferno and the Aeneid.
** **
Aeneid
The Aeneid —the title is Greek in form: genitive
case Aeneidos) is a Latin epic poem Latin, written by Virgil between 29
and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to
Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly
10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books
tell the story of Aeneas's wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second
half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under
whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed.
The hero Aeneas was already known to
Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the Illiad, composed in the 8th century BC. Virgil took the
disconnected tales of Aeneas' wanderings, his vague association with the
foundation of Rome and a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a
scrupulous piety, and fashioned this into a compelling founding myth or
nationalistic epic that at once tied Rome to the legends of Troy, explained the
Punic wars, glorified traditional Roman virtues and legitimized the Julio-Claudian
dynasty as descendants of the founders, heroes and gods of Rome and Troy.
Story
The Aeneid can be divided into two
halves based on the disparate subject matter of Books 1–6 (Aeneas' journey to
Latium in Italy) and Books 7–12 (the war in Latium). These two halves are
commonly regarded as reflecting Virgil's ambition to rival Homer by treating
both the Odyssey's wandering theme and the Iliad's warfare
themes. This is, however, a rough correspondence, the limitations of which
should be borne in mind.
Journey to Italy (books 1–6)
Virgil begins his poem with a statement of
his theme (Arma virumque cano..., "I sing of arms and of a
man...") and an invocation to the Muse, falling some seven lines after the
poem's inception: (Musa, mihi causas memora..., "O Muse, recount to
me the causes..."). He then explains the reason for the principal conflict
in the story: the resentment held by the goddess Juno against the Trojan
people. This is consistent with her role throughout the Homeric epics.
Also in the manner of Homer, the story proper
begins in medias res, with the Trojan fleet in the eastern Mediterranean,
heading in the direction of Italy. The fleet, led by Aeneas, is on a voyage to
find a second home. It has been foretold that in Italy, he will give rise to a
race both noble and courageous, a race, which will become known to all nations.
Juno is wrathful, because she had not been chosen in the judgement of Paris,
and because her favorite city, Carthage, will be destroyed by Aeneas'
descendants. Also, Ganymede, a Trojan prince, was chosen to be her husband
Jupiter's cup bearer—replacing Juno's daughter Hebe. Juno proceeds to Aeolus,
King of the Winds, and asks that he release the winds to stir up a storm in
exchange for a bribe (Deiopea, the loveliest of all her sea nymphs, as a wife).
Despite refusing her bribe, he agrees, and the storm devastates the fleet.
Neptune takes notice: although he himself is
no friend of the Trojans, he is infuriated by Juno's intrusion into his domain,
and stills the winds and calms the waters. The fleet takes shelter on the coast
of Africa. There, Aeneas's mother, Venus, in the form of a hunting woman very
similar to the goddess Diana, encourages him and tells him the history of the
city. Eventually, Aeneas ventures in, and in the temple of Juno, seeks and
gains the favor of Dido, Queen of Carthage, the city which has only recently
been founded by refugees from Tyre and which will later become one of Rome's
greatest imperial rivals and enemies.
At a banquet given in the honour of the
Trojans, Aeneas recounts sadly the events, which occasioned the Trojans'
fortuitous arrival. He begins the tale shortly after the events described in
the Iliad. Crafty Ulysses devised a
way for Greek warriors to gain entry into Troy by hiding in a large wooden
horse. The Greeks pretended to sail away, leaving a man, Sinon, to tell the
Trojans that the horse was an offering and that if it were taken into the city,
the Trojans would be able to conquer Greece. The Trojan priest Laocoon, who had
seen through the Greek plot and urged the horse's destruction, hurled his spear
at the wooden horse. Just after, in what would be seen by the Trojans as
punishment from the gods, Laocoön was suddenly grabbed and eaten, along with
his two sons, by two giant sea snakes. So the Trojans brought the horse inside
the fortified walls, and after nightfall the armed Greeks emerged and began to
slaughter the city's inhabitants.
Aeneas woke up and saw with horror what was
happening to his beloved city. At first he tried to fight against the enemy,
but soon he lost his comrades and was left alone to fend off tens of Greeks.
Hector, the fallen Trojan prince, had told him in a dream to flee with his
family. Aeneas tells of his escape with his son Ascanius and father Anchises after
various omens (his son Ascanius' head catches fire without his being harmed,
and then a shooting star), his wife Creusa having been separated from the
others and subsequently killed in the general catastrophe. After getting
outside Troy, he goes back for his wife. With Creusa having been killed, her
ghost appears before him and tells him that his destiny is to found Rome.
He tells of how, rallying the other
survivors, he built a fleet of ships and made landfall at various locations in
the Mediterranean: Thrace, where they find the last remains of a fellow Trojan,
Polydorus; The Strophades, where they encounter the Harpy Celaeno; Crete, which
they believe to be the land where they are to build their city (but they are
set straight by Apollo); and Buthrot. This last city had been built iumn an
attempt to replicate Troy. In Buthrotum, Aeneas met Andromache, the widow of Hector.
She still laments for the loss of her valiant husband and beloved child. There,
too, Aeneas saw and met Helenus, one of Priam’s sons, who had the gift of
prophecy. Through him, Aeneas learned the destiny laid out for him: he was
divinely advised to seek out the land of Italy (also known as Ausonia or
Hesperia), where his descendants would not only prosper, but in time
rule the entire known world. In addition, Helenus also bade him go to the Sibyl
in Cumae.
Heading out into the open sea, Aeneas left
Buthrotum, rounding Italy's cape and making his way towards Sicily (Trinacria).
There, they are caught in the whirlpool of Charybdis and driven out to sea.
Soon they come ashore at the land of the Cyclops. There they meet a Greek,
Achaemenides, one of Odysseus' men, who had been left behind when his comrades
escaped the cave of Polyphemus. They take Achaemenides onboard and narrowly
escape Polyphemus. Shortly after these events, Anchises dies peacefully of old
age.
Meanwhile, Venus has her own plans. She goes
to her son, Aeneas' half-brother Cupid, and tells him to imitate Ascanius.
Disguised as such, he goes to Dido, and offers the gifts expected from a guest.
With her motherly love revived in the presence of the boy, her heart is pierced
and she falls in love with the boy and his father. During the banquet, Dido
realizes that she has fallen madly in love with Aeneas, although she had
previously sworn fidelity to the soul of her late husband, Sychaeus, who had
been murdered by her brother Pygmalion.
Juno seizes upon this opportunity to make a
deal with Venus, Aeneas' mother, with the intention of distracting him from his
destiny of founding a city in Italy. Aeneas is inclined to return Dido's love,
and during a hunting expedition, a storm drives them into a cave in which
Aeneas and Dido presumably have sex, an event that Dido takes to indicate a
marriage between them. But when Jupiter sends Mercury to remind Aeneas of his
duty, he has no choice but to part. Her heart broken, Dido commits suicide by
stabbing herself upon a pyre with Aeneas' sword. Before dying, she predicts
eternal strife between Aeneas's people and hers; "rise up from my bones,
avenging spirit" is an obvious invocation to Hannibal. Looking back from
the deck of his ship, Aeneas sees Dido's funeral pyre's smoke and knows its
meaning only too clearly. However, destiny calls and the Trojan fleet sails on
to Italy.
Book 5 takes place on Sicily and centers on
the funeral games that Aeneas organizes for the anniversary of his father’s
death. Aeneas and his men have left Carthage for Sicily where, one year after
the death of his father, Aeneas organizes a nine-day anniversary, which includes
celebratory games–a boat race, a foot race, a boxing match, and a shooting
contest. In all those contests, Aeneas is careful to reward winners and losers,
showing his leadership qualities by not allowing for antagonism even after foul
play. Afterward, Ascanius leads a military parade and demonstration,
prefiguring Rome's future predilection for war. During those events (in which
only men participate), Juno incites the womenfolk to burn the fleet and prevent
them from ever reaching Italy, but her plan is thwarted when Ascanius and then
Aeneas intervene. Aeneas prays to Jupiter to quench the fires, which the god
does with a torrential rainstorm. An anxious Aeneas is comforted by a vision of
his father, who tells him to go down to the underworld to receive a vision of
his and Rome's future, which he will do in Book 6. In return for safe passage
to Italy, the gods, by order of Jupiter, will receive one of Aeneas’s men as
sacrifice: Palinurus, who steers Aeneas's ship by night, falls overboard and is
drowned.
In Book 6, Aeneas, with the guidance of the
Cumaean Sibyl, descends into the underworld through an opening at Cumae; there
he speaks with the spirit of his father and is offered a prophetic vision of
the destiny of Rome.
War in Italy (books 7–12)
Upon returning to the land of the living,
Aeneas leads the Trojans to settle in the land of Latium, where he courts Lavinia,
the daughter of king Latinus. Although Aeneas would have wished to avoid it,
war eventually breaks out. Juno is heavily involved in causing this war—she
convinces the Queen of Latium to demand that Lavinia be married to Turnus, the
king of a local people, the Rutuli. Juno continues to stir up trouble, even
summoning the Fury Alecto to ensure that a war takes place.
Seeing the masses of Italians that Turnus has
brought against him, Aeneas seeks help from the Tuscans, enemies of Turnus. He
meets King Evander from Arcadia, whose son Pallas agrees to lead troops against
the other Italians. Meanwhile, the Trojan camp is being attacked, and a midnight
raid leads to the deaths of Nisus and his companion Euryalus, in one of the
most emotional passages in the book. The gates, however, are defended until
Aeneas returns with his Tuscan and Arcadian reinforcements.
In the battling that follows, many heroes are
killed—notably Pallas, who is killed by Turnus, and Mezentius, Turnus' close
associate. The latter, who has inadvertently allowed his son to be killed while
he himself fled, reproaches himself and faces Aeneas in single combat—an
honourable but essentially futile pursuit. Another notable hero, Camilla, a
sort of Amazon character, fights bravely but is eventually killed. She has been
a virgin devoted to Diana and to her nation; the man who kills her is struck
dead by Diana's sentinel Opis after doing so, even though he tries to escape.
After this, single combat is proposed between
Aeneas and Turnus, but Aeneas is so obviously superior that the Italians, urged
on by Turnus's divine sister, Juturna, break the truce. Aeneas is injured, but
returns to the battle shortly afterwards. Turnus and Aeneas dominate the battle
on opposite wings, but when Aeneas makes a daring attack at the city of Latium
(causing the queen of Latium to hang herself in despair), he forces Turnus into
single combat once more. In a dramatic scene, Turnus's strength deserts him as
he tries to hurl a rock, and he is struck by Aeneas's spear in the leg. As
Turnus is begging on his knees for his life, the poem ends with Aeneas killing
him in rage when he sees that Turnus is wearing the belt of his friend Pallas
as a trophy.
Reception of the Aeneid
Critics of the Aeneid focus on a
variety of issues. The tone of the poem as a whole is a particular matter of
debate; some see the poem as ultimately pessimistic and politically subversive
to the Augustan regime, while others view it as a celebration of the new
imperial dynasty. Virgil makes use of the symbolism of the Augustan regime, and
some scholars see strong associations between Augustus and Aeneas, the one as
founder and the other as re-founder of Rome. A strong teleology, or drive
towards a climax, has been detected in the poem. The Aeneid is full of
prophecies about the future of Rome, the deeds of Augustus, his ancestors, and
famous Romans, and the Carthaginian Wars; the shield of Aeneas even depicts
Augustus' victory at Actium in 31 BC. A further focus of study is the character
of Aeneas. As the protagonist of the poem, Aeneas seems to constantly waver
between his emotions and commitment to his prophetic duty to found Rome;
critics note the breakdown of Aeneas' emotional control in the last sections of
the poem where the "pious" and "righteous" Aeneas
mercilessly slaughters Turnus.
The Aeneid appears to have been a
great success. Virgil is said to have recited Books 2, 4, and 6 to Augustus; The
mention of her son, Marcellus, in book 6 apparently caused Augustus' sister
Octavia to faint. Unfortunately, the poem was unfinished at Virgil's death in
19 BC.
Virgil's death and editing of the Aeneid
According to the tradition, Virgil traveled
to Greece around 19 BC to revise the Aeneid. After meeting Augustus in
Athens and deciding to return home, Virgil caught a fever while visiting a town
near Megara. Virgil crossed to Italy by ship, weakened with disease, and died
in Brundisium harbour on 21 September 19 BC, leaving a wish that the
manuscript of the Aeneid was to be burned. Augustus ordered Virgil's literary
executors, Lucius Varius Rufus and Plotius Tucca, to disregard that wish,
instead ordering the Aeneid to be published with as few editorial changes as
possible. As a result, the existing text of the Aeneid may contain
faults, which Virgil was planning to correct before publication. However, the
only obvious imperfections are a few lines of verse that are metrically
unfinished. Other alleged "imperfections" are subject to scholarly
debate.
Themes
Nearly the entirety of the Aeneid is
devoted to the theme of conflict. The primary conflict is that of Aeneas, as
guided by gods such as Jupiter, Apollo, and Venus, Aeneas' mother. Aeneas is
representative of pietas (a self-less sense of duty), against Turnus,
who is guided by Juno, representing unbridled furor (mindless passion
and fury). Furor is also personified in the character Dido, however
although her furor conflicts with Aeneas' pietas, she herself is not pitted
against Aeneas. Other conflicts within the Aeneid include fate versus
action, male versus female, Rome versus Carthage, Aeneas as Odysseus in Books
1–6 versus Aeneas as Achilles in Books 7–12, calm weather versus storms, and
the Gate of Horn versus the Ivory Gate of Book VI.
Pietas, possibly the key quality
of any 'honorable' Roman, consisted of a series of duties: duty towards the
gods (hence the English word piety),
duty towards one's homeland, duty towards one's followers and duty to one's
family—especially one's father. Therefore, a further theme of the poem explores
the strong relationship between fathers and sons. The bonds between Aeneas and
Ascanius, Aeneas and Anchises, Evander and Pallas, Mezentius and Lausus are all
worthy of note. This theme reflects Augustan moral reforms and was perhaps
intended to set an example for Roman youth.
The
major moral of the Aeneid is acceptance of the workings of the gods as
fate through the use of pietas or piety. In composing the character of
Aeneas, Virgil alludes to Augustus, suggesting that the gods work their ways
through humans, using Aeneas to found Rome and Augustus to lead it, and that
one must accept one's fate.
Selected
and edited from Wikipedia Offline
** **
1622
hours. We are home. We read the book in an honors quarter course at Indian
Hill. I don’t remember which course, but it was required reading in my class.
You taught your literature classes in the
style you were taught at Otterbein, mostly the sophomore year of which one two
semester class was British literature. You took about sixty-eight hours of
literature at Otterbein, twice what you needed for a teaching major. All of
your classes from Honors freshman through AP Seniors were variations in depth
of the college sophomore classes. The tone, at a minimum was traditional
(classical) college prep. This underlies the Merlyn books because you would be
a fool to do otherwise were you telling these works to an angel. Why an angel?
Because of a quotation found at the Shakespeare and Company Bookstore on Paris’
Left Bank:
1647 hours. Who would have thought I could not only look up
the quotation I could find a photo of it. I used to have this as one of my
quotations printed above the blackboard. Awesome.
Therefore, you see, though an angel may be
waiting beyond death, there may also be an angel (of sorts) to read your Merlyn
books. This way you have your bases covered. That’s you orndorff, following the
old Boy Scout motto. What do you think? – Amorella
I envy daughter Kim who actually set foot in the bookstore during her
junior year of high school while on Madam Gwyn Goode’s French Class Trip to Paris in
November 1995. I remember making references to Sylvia’s bookstore several times
in Honors American literature classes at Mason. Obviously some of this is
embedded within myself but not to the extent that any of this would have influence
on the content of the Merlyn books. I disagree with you here Amorella.
I don’t care whether you agree with me or
not orndorff. This is my opinion that’s all. You don’t have to agree with much
of anything and that also is a part of who you are. Do you want me to
elaborate, boy? – Amorella
1703 hours. No need. I catch your drift. I am not proud of having a rebellious streak that is many times unwarranted and undeserved by family and friends.
You were not easy to raise young man, and
you are not always easy to live with now. Post. – Amorella
2329 hours. I completed final Chapter Six.
Add and post. - Amorella
***
Chapter Six
Grammar
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 6
Merlyn soon finds himself slipping into dreamtime, slipping into
dreamtime, slipping . . . while lying between the rock and great Oak. On
introspection Merlyn considers being dead a pleasant existence, no aches or
pains unless I want them. All sensory data is psychosomatic. I think in my
native Celtic tongue but when I want to be heard I appear to be understood by
others in my presence. Irish, Latin, Greek, English, Norse are freely
translatable from one to the other simultaneously from Ogham, the Celtic
alphabet
This
alphabet has letters based on reasonably forked branches mimicking naturally forked
tree branches. Merlyn’s sometimes kenning-like poetic thoughts produce the
alpha-an-beta, and in this poesy not all the Ogham tree letters are known to
humankind, and never were, and therein the mystery lies the hidden meaning.
Once dead and now living Merlyn reaches an understanding; ‘I sound the poetry
of the old letters which are heard by the Living by their eyes alone.’ In this
sounding sense the dead within are but whispering to continually aging
dilatable eyes. Considerations may misconstrue even before translation. Swift
do I see echoed incongruent lines, which were once the intimacy of the Bard’s
great ear in Act I, scene three? With these three lines and unknowing the
author, his plays or anything else but reason and imagination, recreate the
entire play.
“o, what a noble mind
is here o'erthrown!
. . . and I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
. . . now
see that noble and most sovereign reason,
like sweet bells
jangled, out of tune and harsh;
. . . o, woe is me, to have seen what I have
seen, see what I see!”
Merlyn reviews in black and white. “Some facts
in the world are similar to the above literary 48 word slice and dice. One has the
lines but no construction before or after. No context but a 48-word
observation, a momentary reality; a sliced truth in one human being’s original
moment. This is a human metaphor of the Big Bang. What are the chances
some other human would gather the correct coded lines before and after?
What would be the pronounced purpose and meaning? Why such a creation of wordy
stars each shining its own dynamics of light?”
Merlyn
continues, “A lot of people affected my living -- family, friends,
acquaintances, and perceived enemies. People are not an indifference to me.
Living or Dead each is a piece on the crystal board. Each is in herorhis own
squared area of consciousness or lack of it. All have a shared square area of
the same heavenly blue sky randomly decked with clouds of similar fluff.”
Within
my soul two heartfelt friends float above the rest. Both were living druidesses
who snaked and coiled their way around my very soul and so I think it were so.
Brigit
of Iona was a human reincarnate of the earlier Brigit, who was thought by some
to be a goddess. She was not. She was a female sage, a physician and a smith as
was her druidic father, who also had been a physician and a smith. I was placed
to dangle on the bottom of her moon silver charm bracelet. She stirred my fiery
passions into her hot and throaty caldron and had the summary of my Celtic
faith for an immediate dinner.
The
second was Vivian who designed a silver and golden brooch to capture my reason
with the heavy breathing in and out through her tangling net of erotic charms.
A crystallized madness she became in my imagination alone. I touched her and
she me. She was already a haunt beneath my boneless bag. I was a much older
sack of skin.
Both
women were equally a damnable pleasant witchery. Priestess Brigit and Priestess
Vivian druidically placed me, Merlyn, a once shining jewel, into a rolled
leathery piece of ancient pre-Celtic phylactery. Scroll-like I was wound and
unwound from mind to soul and soul to heart. Unthinkingly we became a spiritual
ménage à trois.
Merlyn
peered into the elementary considerations of his being included in the highest
first order of druidic shamans. The same druidic hierarchical setting in which
he would also place Brigit and Vivian, a position off the Board, Betweeners who
are Elsewhere. We were off the Board and became a trinity of thought and light
and consciousness. Now we are the
Board, but only two in collusion with thought and light and human consciousness.
The Brothers 6
The
brothers walk to the hillside that dropped to the bottoms and river at a
fifty-degree angle, looked down into childhood memories and then back towards
the mausoleum. "Let's go in," says Robert.
Richard
glances to the right, the north corridor closest to the entrance and sees the
three pieces of stain glass at the west wall. “Look at the crypts,” he
comments, “lots of marble.”
Robert
replies, “I think our relatives are interred in this next section. The last
four on the second-shelf up.”
Both
walk to where they could see the names. “James and Mabel are on mother’s side,
and Ron and Beatrice and David and Jessie are on father’s side. Rob says, “I
wonder why they are all buried together on this shelf.”
“I
guess they were good friends,” adds Richard while assessing the mystery of why
they would be good friends? I didn’t know they even got along. Ron and Beatrice
were dead before we were born but we heard stories. I remember the others well
enough. I don’t remember coming to the funerals though.
As
they turn toward the center of the mausoleum Robert notes, “The mausoleum was
built in the twenties for friends and relatives I would imagine.”
“True
enough.” Richard glancing over to
the large centerpiece, “Look at the angel with the emerald wings, just above
her right hand is an orange Star of David. I wonder why she and her robes are
tinted green. Look at the dark sky behind her; it is like she flew through a
storm to talk to the child at her feet.”
“Interesting,”
responds Robert matter-of-factly. “Is the child Jesus or Moses?”
“I
don’t know.” Richard moves back to get a better focus for description. “He’s
wearing a red robe but he is looking at her open left hand. Above her wingtips,
on another plate, is the orange double eagle in a green background. A larger
copy of the two side pieces’ double eagles.”
Robert
browses into the opposing long east chamber and at the marble wall of the
hallway between the four chambers. “The sunlight from the east chamber is still
shining in like we are on an Indiana Jones movie set.”
“I
like that naked bulb hanging from the ceiling in the center here,” asserts
Richard. “A nice piece of copper hanging above it but the outer bulb is missing.”
With Robert on his left, he turns to peer into the other west chamber at the
south section of the mausoleum. “This chamber is a lot shorter. I had forgotten
that.” He looks up and quickly counts, “It has twenty crypts on each side.”
Robert
comments, "I like the marble design of the chamber as a whole. It is
appealing.”
Richard
adds, “And from out here in the hall the colors that are most striking.”
“Why
don’t you get a key made instead of using the loner from the city,” suggests
Robert. “And we can come back anytime.”
Robert
steps aside to better observe, “With decorative markings above that. The rest
are typical stained glass features. You see more purples at a distance. It is
all rather somber.”
Richard
jokes, “Don’t forget where are we Rob?”
Both
chuckle. They turn ambling from the south stained glass window and the five
stacked marble crypts on both sides then walk passed the dark walnut podium
with the black cross carved in its center, up the marble hall past the two
north chambers and out the creaking brass door that has to be pulled to shut
tightly for locking, and which Richard diligently locks. We had not really
panned the southeast crypt chamber where the sunlight streamed in. It had
appeared eerie from a distance, thinks Richard, and maybe it was too bright to
look into comfortably, but we didn’t. It is hard to believe too much light
existed in a corner of the mausoleum. We probably missed something. He said,
“This key is a copy.”
“Make
me one, would you?” declared Robert, “I’m going home.”
“I’ll
head on up to the house,” says Richard. “I like walking in the shade of these
old trees and through campus.” The twins walk their separate ways, Richard to
the east and Robert north. Elsewhere their twin spirits settle like a campfire
and burn on what their young lives had come to be.
Grandma's
Story 6
Hello,
Readers. I have another story from the Dead for you. It happened long ago on
the large Isle off the coast of France not far from where the town of
Canterbury would rise. Rolling hills and woods and streams and the coast not
more than a day’s walk. Bracc had long black hair with roughly built limbs and
a log like trunk. He had neither a comfort stage-like appearance, nor an
unusual one such as a mask or prop that would benefit him in his storytelling.
No
listener expected any of the stories to be objectively true because stories are
not like a hunter pointing to a deer and saying, "Dinner."
Storytelling goals and objectives are the premise on how the individual might
better survive on his own.
The
shaman takes young Bracc aside saying, “I will give you a project and a story
will come from this that is entirely your own.”
Bracc’s
face lights up, “I am ready, master. Give me the project, and I will test
myself.”
The
shaman orders, "Tell a story in gray,"
Bracc
stoically treads a path to his wondering-on-things cave near a rabbit warren.
'Death is black but sleep is gray like stone. White and black make gray. I love
dreaming about building higher and higher stone walls. Stories like stones are
gray in dreams.' Bracc smiles like dawn and declares, “I shall thus color my story in gray.”
*
Two
full moons pass. Bracc stands looking out at his first audience. This is what
life is, he reflects, me standing alone while the others are content to sit.
Tonight I will make Erca proud to be my mate and to have brought our child into
this world. He begins. "The
Living touch the Dead in many ways. The Dead cannot be seen but they can be
heard whispering from time to time. This is a story One-of-the-Dead told me in
passing.
People
were suddenly amazed young Bracc would attempt such a difficult story. The
audience of friends and acquaintances sat with anticipation. Most were
skeptical because Bracc appeared too young to have heard an unknown story from
the Dead. Even Erca, holding their two-month old son nearby is dubious, as she
had heard some of Bracc's strange tall tales.
Bracc
pulls his wooden story engine cube from the camouflage of green foliage and
balanced it upright in his left hand and said, "What do you see?"
An
elder replied, "It is a gray box with six sides."
"Yes,
a box of six sides can easily be explained, but what of the color, gray? One
might say it is a pigment mix of black and white. Black is the night sky,
white, the ever-changing moon enumerable stars, sparkling jewels dancing across
a black velvet sky. Nature in the heavens does not mix gray. Clouds may be gray
but they interrupt the heavens like a gray stone wall. What then is gray if it
is not a mix?
Another
elder jokingly comments, "I can only see one side of the box."
"We
have heard and seen a trickery of words in such a simple device before!"
shouts yet another in the audience.
Bracc
stands suddenly realizing the man is right. There is nothing new in telling a
haunting story of gray ghost in the box. He realizes, I am a travesty. His face
give him up and reddens. Bracc glances to Erca whose eyes were now cast down as
she instinctively shelters their child.
Bracc's thinking grows ridged and stone-like. He surmises, I shall be
remembered as a storyteller nevertheless.
Bracc
quickly confesses, "I deceived myself to even think that I could reinforce
a story with tricks and devices. The dead cannot talk with the living. This
story is my imagination alone. But it will be remembered." Bracc stands in
a singularity of mind fully naked and empty. Bracc collapses and dies on the
spot.
Bracc's
last thoughts are loosed in the genes of both the storyteller and those first
listeners. Why? I am Grandma, in your DNA as well as the newest of newborn.
Bracc and Erca are
now long reposed
With sons and
daughters since surrogated;
Grandma's mouth would be forever closed
But for the strands
and molecules correlated.
Diplomatic Pouch 6
After
an efficient walk around the plane and inspection of the controls Friendly, as nom
de plume, Fran, glances over the instrument and screen rich Cessna Silver
Eagle control panel and pushanpulled the start toggle fumbled then pushed the
toggle to the up position. Embarrassed that Pyl was watching she quickly smiled
and commented, "It's been awhile." Then glancing at her watch and the
clock on the console thought, we'll be in Cleveland before dark.
"We
all do silly things, Fran," comments Pyl with a smile and then with
enthusiasm commented, “I love this
plane and I remember this Cessna was Dad's favorite." She winks,
"Isn't that right, Blakey?"
He
feigns a grumble, "Yeah, with Dad, Pyl was always the favorite."
Justin
looks to Fran’s sister Hart, who was sitting next to him saying, "Pyl and
Blake come from parents who were a bit dissimilar."
"Pardon,"
replies Hartolite.
Justin
comments, "Dissimilar, you know, diverse."
Hartolite ponders the specific
definition with . . . families that are ‘dissimilar' and ‘diverse’? Does Justin
mean ‘heterogeneous’?
With
the flaps down Friendly revs the engine and confirms the rpm status, verifies
the alternator and voltage. They pick up speed and with a lift of the nose, and
the flaps set for a slow climb southwest Friendly tapped the brakes to stop the
wheel spin and retracts the wheels. Nearing the Ohio shoreline in the climb
Friendly yokes left. The Silver Eagle continued a steady ascent with Catawba
Island, then the Marblehead lighthouse below the right wing and Kelley's Island
and greater Lake Erie set down below the left wing. The plane proceeds its rise
due east until leveling off at nine thousand feet with a speed of 140 mph.
Friendly feels her body immediately relax. "We're good for Burke,"
she comments. "Beautiful day, beautiful scenery, one beauty of a plane."
Pyl
smiles in response and mentally projects the plane and the pilot are as
one-in-the-same.
The
flight proceeds. Pyl falls into a catnap. Awakening to the drone of the engine
she discovers Justin and Blake had fallen asleep too. Pyl let be. She leans
toward Friendly, smiles and quietly says, "I can tell you are in love with
this plane. I am in love with it too." Pyl closes her eyes in a ruse.
Pyl
recollects on her thoughts. This tension began yesterday with the bird cracking
the left wingtip light. Blake initially said it felt like the bird lightly
tapped the wingtip light. I asked if it was a bird. Justin said it sounded like
a piece of gravel hit the wingtip. When we inspected the wing at the hanger
Blake said the gray remnants were bird guts but there wasn't any blood mixed in
it. The gray matter reminded me of soot.
Pyl
sits in silent deliberation, Fran Parker is clearly in charge. The only flight
mistake she has made was the attempt to push the toggle switch in and then
pull. She didn't fumble with the toggle to push in and then pull out. It was
smoothly done, almost unconsciously, like she had done it a thousand times
before, like I would turn a car key down to the right to start the engine.
Pyl
adjusts herself in the seat and relaxes with her eyes closed until she hears
the thump of the wheels being lowered. She notes her watch seeing the time is
4:48. She looks at the time on the interment panel, it is 4:49. That's odd, she
thinks, we were synchronized when we left Put-in-Bay. Pyl pulls the cell phone
from her purse; it also showed 4:48. "What time do you have Justin?"
she asks.
"We
checked our watches at breakfast. Just what you have, 4:48."
Pyl
responds, "The plane says it is 4:49."
Blake
says, "I have 4:48 too. Now it's 4:49."
"The
plane says it's now 4:50," noted Pyl.
"I
have 4:50 too," replies Friendly.
Hartolite
looks at her watch, it also shows 4:50 but she lies saying, "I have
4:49."
Polite
chatter ruled during the smooth landing and exiting. Blake and Pyl quickly
inspect and secure the plane.
While strolling into the Burke Terminal, Ply speaks, fully resolved, to
Blake alone, "I don't want you to sell our father's plane."
***
