Notes - and notes / 'The Dead -2' / feeling dead /

         Mid-morning. Breakfast and the Sunday paper. You are presently in the shade at north Pine Hill Lakes Park. Carol is walking. You still have your exercises to do. Last night you forgot to upload the last notes from last evening. Here they are:

*

         You and Carol had the last of the turkey soup for supper. For lunch Smashburgers at Carol's request. You both love their Smash sweet potato fries over Five Guys fries, that's what it came down to. After watching the national news on CBS and NBC you watched another DVRed episode of the British comedy, "Outnumbered". You laugh aloud at least once at each viewing. Carol is on the phone with Linda in Tampa and you are fussing about readying with more organized color coded documents and folders for chapter two. - Amorella

         2043 hours. I have no idea where to begin the material for "The Dead.2". I should have a folder for each of the four sections to put the chapter documents in order to follow as to their sense.

         For "The Dead" only. The rest are already set. You are apprehensive because the page is blank. Relax. We'll begin. - Amorella

*

         You did spend some time proofreading and correcting on your iPad without iCloud you did not have the opportunity.

         It is very enjoyable to see the work on iPad because it has a different look and feel, plus with the built in keypad it is perfect for corrected grammatical and structural errors. I will continue to go through the chapter and will not publish it as a chapter on the blog until I have.

         I am surprised you found iCloud so much to your liking as you didn't think it would be much use to the likes of yourself. - Amorella

         I couldn't get it to work properly then when I downloaded the newest OS, Mountain Lion, it came prepackaged and automatic. The first thing I noticed after loading was that my yellow notes only on my iPad were on my MacAir desktop. I thought, "very cool" but I did not see how it was going to come into play with book four which is what I was still working on. Once I got the hang of Page and recognized its convenience (yesterday) it is great. Who would have thought? Now that I have 'grammar' on full I am fixing more errors that I generally don't pay that close attention to. All for the good and my 'rush' to contentment.

         You will have to mention the 'contentment' to muse Laney. - Amorella

         She is busy with Xavier beginning classes, besides I think she and the family are still heading off to London shortly. I'm sure she has enough on her mind without me barging in. I would rather create a copy for her when the book is complete -- actually to send an ebook version to each of my first readers when completed. That will be soon enough. If they want to follow along they know it is being written and put on the blog. I pestered those kind people for three years when writing the published version -- all those notes plus manuscript. At least it wasn't on paper. I thanked them for their kindness and patience. I don't know what they might think of my writing personality. With them, I do care. I'm glad I'm cleaning this one up for the likes of the older Owen and Brennan. As a retired teacher, I should have done this the first time, but I didn't. Earthy honesty was more important than politeness. Those books are still there if anyone wants to read a rawer version. That time has changed for me. I just hope I have the time to complete these revamped works. I have had more life experience (perspective) and have learned more about the Dead (for the books) in the last three years, which should also add dimensions and refinement to the new version. Then I will be satisfied and content that I finished my life being myself, perhaps being less than honest but more polite. Being polite makes people more comfortable including myself. What else can I say?

         You have no need to say any more than you have. You feel better already. Work at the pace you have begun, to do otherwise would constitute arrogance and pride and a twisted justification for your having been born. Your stubborn will made the decision to live in those days and months immediately following birth. Don't blame your parents or the environs of a world war. The decision cannot materialize (so to speak) unless you are not fully acting on in your own physical existential sense of being. The body is built to 'understand' its situation. Unconsciousness, the whole of the anatomic system, the sense of will 'understands' the situation also. "I am alive. I must grow and mature if I wish to continue living." It appears to be built into all living consciousness. That's what your philosophy suggests. - Amorella

         1123 hours. We are sitting in the shade at the McDonalds on Kings Mills Road and the corner of King Road that goes past King's Island Amusement Park. We each have cold drinks and split a Hershey's bar with almonds we had had in the freezer. Carol is reading a Money magazine and I am going to work on "The Dead" section.

         After the walk you stopped by home and Carol talked to Mary Lou. You are going up to Westerville's Bob Evans for lunch with Uncle John (on this coming Wednesday) who has an appointment near St. Ann's. Cathy and Tod are heading to Florida to see Tod's parents after the hurricane so you hope to stop by and see them too. Why don't you post then go ahead and work. I'll be in your fingers, boy. - Amorella

          I have completed the section. Well, the sense of the scene. Never in a million years would I have come up with such a narrative. I find it quite amusing but I don't know if readers would. It is a bit naughty in its nature and even worse, Freudian.

         Which adds to the delight, does it not? Place what you have below, the post. - Amorella

         This is devilish wicked, Amorella

         It is a human piece, boy. Let it go at that. This Merlyn is no supernatural fellow. He misses his Vivian, that's all. Had he thought to call you by your childhood name, Dickie, he might have saved all this. Alas, Richard came to mind instead.

         1715 hours. Humor saves my day. What else can I say.

*** ***

Chapter Two

The Dead (draft)

         Merlyn sat on a mind-made stone stump wondering what thought balls were about to hit the table. I have witnessed much having been dead since the late 600's. Anno Domini is what we were taught. Druids learned Greek and Latin back then. This is what society expected, and this is what we did. He noticed the white cue ball materialize on the nearby billiard table for first time.

         Quite an eclectic setting I've nested in here, smiled Merlyn -- the makings of a clearing and billiard table with the stump I'm sitting on, a small stream trickling nearby by the please of ears that do not exist. Blue sunless sky above stands high above. No one sees our brooch, our yellow sun, no such adornments in this place. The sky shows its blue tunic, and an occasional white fluffy pin or pale bone or two. No one among the Dead can create a rain swept or snow-laden field that sheorhe had the pleasure of witnessing in life. Beyond the blue garment or cloak I can see the transparency of chessboard walls holding my spirit, my heartansoulanmind within. My solitary fortress, my inner soul wall clams me in. I am not stuckinagray as the marsupial-humanoids are. I have brushed their souls though. Highly conscious beings such as we humans are now together, interacting with our heartsanminds, well, with mine anyway.

         Out of the corner of his eye Merlyn saw the cue ball move down the table, hit the rubber on the far end and come almost straight back to where it had been.

         You did not hear the cue ball tap one of your solids, switched the Supervisor.

         'I did not.'

         'I put it in the far right pocket.'

         'What unconscious thought of mine did that you put away?'

         'The boatman.'

         Merlyn smiled in surprise. 'I don't have to pay the boatman?' proclaimed Merlyn's heart with more childhood energy than Merlyn realized he had.

         'You pay, boy,' snapped Merlyn's mind. ' Everybody pays the boatman, even the Supervisor.'

         Merlyn muttered, 'the pearly white Gate of Heaven sets on the very far side of this rubescent River Styx.'

         'The Styx is where you are,' commented the Supervisor dryly.        

         A ferry, flashed through Merlyn, Richard's childhood Captain Lamar has a ferry. I can return to earth by the ferry once I find the boatman. ('Which Richard?' asked the elephant in the room.) Merlyn who was not fully reading the writing on the wall, grumbled, 'Who is Richard?'

         Gloama appeared, this time caught like tiny, naked and a faery white seed caught in Merlyn's left third fingernail. 'Prick they fingerless finger,' she suggested while caressing and seducing his fleshy induced finger into her feminine comfort.

         'Whoa,' whispered Merlyn thinking Vivian was at the very least kissing or even sucking slowly on his third left finger that didn't really exist.

         The eight ball sat at the very center of the table. I have no balls, thought Merlyn, not even the cue ball to knock that mother of an eight ball away.

*** **

         2123 hours. I have already made some changes to the above. I am feeling a bit self-conscious putting the draft on the blog when it is not fully completed.

         It is a draft, boy. - Amorella

         But people can read it.

         Transparency, the Piper must be paid. - Amorella

         It's not that way in this fiction.

         Really. - Amorella

         What is the purpose for showing all these writing steps?

         Transparency. - Amorella

         Why?

         To prevent anyone from presenting you in a way that is not honest, it is a form of protection for you. - Amorella

         I am naked and therefore vulnerable.     

         How do you think the Dead feel?  Post. - Amorella

         What a way to learn a lesson.

          Tonight in a note to Kay you told her you hoped to be able to give these novels away free as ebooks. These lessons are not free for you. Why should they be free for anyone else? Everyone pays the Piper including myself. - Amorella         

Notes - cultural /a moment with Neil Armstrong /

         A cool mid-morning with a blue sky that will warm up into the nineties. You are sitting in the share at north Pine Hill waiting on Carol to complete her walk.

        

         I am not sure about not having much of a setting in these stories.

         It's the Dead angle, boy. Think of it as a radio show. We can add something in the Prologue. Even though this is all laid out for you there will still be minor aspects to add or cut from time to time. So, let's call this work a near final draft.

         I like it so far. The brackets serve Soki better and the (elephant in the room) concept is a good one. I would have never thought of this. I just hope it is more communicative and cleaned up to the point that I could sit in the room if the boys or Kim and Paul read it. Thank you, Amorella.

         Thank you's are like prayers, boy, they don't need to be advertized. You still have some old Quaker and Presbyterian sensibilities built in. I'm in here. I know these things. You were surprised watching the DVRed program on Mormons from Wednesday night. Five-year segments. Similar to your humanoid marsupial culture. Why are you afraid to mention it? - Amorella

         Because it didn't seem right to do so. I was surprised, and there were other social aspects also. The only Mormon I have known was Aunt Fran, Uncle Dee's wife. She helped me survive when I was born because she had A negative blood which I needed. They ended up living in California and the last time I saw her was when we boys visited on our trip out west in the summer of 1960. She was a nice lady and we had a place to stay for a day or two but she didn't put up with much from us four. Uncle Dee (Eugene Schick) was the oldest of Mom's three brothers. I always liked Uncle Dee for his kind eyes and polite humanity.  They had two children. Pete died in a motorcycle accident in his early thirties and Nancy is married and lives somewhere on the northern west coast.

         Think of these varied world religions as philosophies and culture to allow you to be more at ease with them. The same with politics, philosophies and culture and let them go at that. - Amorella

         That's good, Amorella. I think of the humanoid marsupials religions and politics that way because I am foreign to their culture. It works the same here too though even though I am not so foreign as I would sometimes like to be.

         Refreshingly honest, young man. Let's put this first intro-prologue and chapter together on Page, the Apple software. Then we can move on to The Dead in chapter two. - Amorella

        

         1206 hours. I spent the better part of an hour cleaning up the desktop and the thumbdrive before we left the park and our reading in the relaxing shade. I am set for clean working on this project.

         You are home, take a break. Post. Amorella

         1701 hours. A few minutes ago I read that Neil Armstrong passed unexpectedly. I am sorry to hear this. He was kind to me in the mid 1980's when we were both charter members of the Countryside Y in nearby Lebanon, Ohio. He took the time to say hello and to chat with Kim and myself. I will remember him for his kindness and consideration to young Kim. Mr. Armstrong was both fatherly and polite when he took the few moments to sincerely focus with Kim. She was shy when he shook her hand. (We were both attending the same meeting.) I never saw him when he wasn't kind, considerate and polite. I never saw the shyness. A real hero in my book and I feel honored to have met with him in life.

         You wonder how it is that there are still good, quiet and polite people living in the world. There are many others of course, but he will always be the first human being to walk on the moon. You finished cleaning up chapter one and dropping it into Page and also automatically placing it on iCloud for safekeeping. Later, dude. Post. - Amorella

Notes - Ch.1.Grandma's Story and Ch.1 Diplomatic Pouch/

        You are in the mid-morning shade at Pine Hill Lakes Park waiting for Carol on her walk. Earlier you had a light breakfast, banana with peanut butter and a half of a glass of skim milk. You have gained five pounds from the two hundred and seventy five and have a doctor's appointment on Tuesday. You also did your exercises and presently don't feel much like eating. Your glucose shot up to 144 this morning but your blood pressure was 108/70. Yesterday you had a turkey lunch at the Rocking Chair Place and half a ham and cheese sandwich for supper, an ice cream treat at 150 calories and 80 calories of high test Coke so you do not understand the reason for the spike. You are sure it will come up at the doctor's office.

         I am wondering about "The Brothers" segment I have not said they were twins or the girls either and actually suggested they were not the same age. Now that I 'know' Kay and Ann again in real life it doesn't feel right to use their twin status as these characters are created out of amalgamations of personalities, etc. Bob and I were/are (for the books) mental twins so that's okay with me. In fact I like writing Bob's part as if he were still here and alive. Also, I do not have much description of the house or living room setting in the piece, only the window to the cemetery. I placed the house on Knox Street on the corner of Cherry just behind my grandparents' place, but when I flash to the cemetery in my mind I am sitting on the front porch of Mr. Press Reynolds, the kind old fellow who had been born and raised a slave and faced Otterbein Cemetery from the north on West Walnut. There are strange and interesting connections in my head in yesterday's hindsight. I can sense the pathways of thought as the words fall into place from bits of memory "haunted memory tunneling" is what I am going to call it.

         Let's work on Grandma's Story. - Amorella

         1500 hours. We had a light delicious lunch at First Watch near the Streets of West Chester. What was really enjoyable were the rolling southwestern Ohio hills in the background. These hills to our north mark the moraine left by the last Great Wisconsin ice sheet. Southern Butler and Warren counties are also in and on those hills. The height of the Wisconsin glaciations took place 18,000 years ago which oddly enough is the time period of Grandma's first story which I just completed.

*** ***

Chapter One 

Grandma’s Story

         This is Grandma Earth child. I am here to show you the DNA, the chromosomes, the genetics lines of Rob and Rich and their wife-partner families. The lines trace back to Merlyn's life friendships and those friendships continuing connections up to Merlyn's return to Life, though still dead, through Richard's soul. It is not so complicated as one might think. You may want to call this genetic memory if you are not inclined to the concept that human beings have a soul. Grandma Earth doesn't care much what human beings think. She considers all consciousness a child of herself. You come from the earth and you return to it, that's what this is about. Believe what you want. You have a spirit of higher consciousness. I know this otherwise you wouldn't be reading.

***

I have a long ago story for you, said Grandma. I pick out a memory one of the dead, of higher consciousness, the memory of a heartansoulanmind that is the human spirit; the spirit or ghost that continues beyond the physical body, the physical world. A man, though dead and a direct ancestor of Rob and Richard, is still worldly troubled. All the people in Grandma's stories are dead. Here is his and his granddaughter's unresolved conflict.

It is dawn and my shoulders shiver. This is the way it is. I hear the crickets and other small creatures around the swamp. I am in a hole in a wall and there is no way out. This is the way it is. I cannot get out. Let me out. I am stuck. Let me out.

         My fingers are cold and full of ice. It is winter in spring. The birds sing. I am no bird. It is cold, and I am ice forming on the river. I am floating and cold. The river is not what I am. I am continuity, the common ground in icy hands.

I had a dream last night, and it was a whopper. It was about these people who live way out among the stars, and how it is when they are stuck too.

         I will tap out my message as people caught in a cave do. I have ice-cold fingers, the Living listen. I remember time; it is in my own cold dawn. I am almost eighteen thousand years old. I am stuck frozen and flat in the ice near the cold stone that surrounds the pond of stars. I am here then and now. I am the shaman dancing and I am in half a spirit living and half a spirit dead.

The dancing stopped. The shaman alive on earth in the man's memory looked to his audience, pointed to a not so bright star in the night and said, “We are from there,” then he pointed to the soil beneath his feet, “to here.” That is what the now shivering shaman said. None of the onlookers slept well that night.

           One of those attentive listeners to the shaman, his granddaughter, tossed and turned and suddenly unexpectedly, she thought, ‘How can we be here and there at the same time?’ Later in life, she died and found herself waiting for members of her group to join her once they died and did not die too. People had become respecting the Dead in the time of the Shaman who still felt freezing cold and buried the Dead with rites and passages, thus accommodating both the Living and the Dead at the same time. The Living had made the conscious decision, being in two places at once to be with their living friends and to be with the memories their friends who are dead.

*

         This particular shaman knows Grandma Earth with her white teeth gleaning through white paper usually unsoiled with shadows. She looked out on her listeners young and old alike staring at these passing shadows.

         Child, she said, you ain’t got a clue on what words are. I’m gonna sit on this here stump and hope it won’t stain my pretty blue and white dress floating along in a gentle breeze. To look into Grandma you need to first search deep down into yourself. You may not like it but I am your nature inside and out. The kerchief on my head ain’t nothin' but the stars. You keep that in your head, if you got a free mind for it.

         Grandma glanced up beyond the dark sky on her head. The white of her puffy eyes showed dark mysterious pupils; then she re-connected with her listener. I got me a chant to take us from a story in the past to a story in the future. I become the bosom, the heart board on which the shamans dance. Merlyn is no different than other shamans. Merlyn and his lover still meet. He considers himself Merlyn half dead and Merlyn half alive. But like other higher consciousnesses, Merlyn knows there is more to death and life than that. For instance, his lover sweet Vivien is one.

From two ancient hearts by souls made to one

Show these stories where our passions are begun.

Our well-known druidess and druid will do,

They are the same like spirits that make up you.

In a timeless corridor where musing memories rightly stay

Our Vivien and Merlyn still consciously lay.

Thus from romance and Grandma's red and toothy gums

Our narrative from past and also future comes.

*** ***

         This is difficult for you to realize how much fun this work actually is. Passion is like that, boy, much more so than love. Post. - Amorella

        

         1604 hours. I just took a look at this next section -- Pouch Text is 12 pages long and 3632 words long. The Intro/Prologue is 1381 words; The Dead - 709 words; Transition - 95 words; The Brothers - 1203 words; Grandma's Story - 906 words and now here is Pouch Text  at - 3632 words. How are we going to cut this, Amorella?

         Use Word to create various sized summaries of the chapter first, put these summaries on a separate working document and we'll go from there. Post. - Amorella

        1652 hours. I have created two automated summaries, one at ten percent and the other at fifty.

         It will be easier to work with the one at fifty percent. Both will have to be on the screen at the same time then have a third screen to work the new version on. - Amorella

         I will set this up but I am going to have to take a break. This is a new method. I knew there was going to be a problem with the Pouch sections. They are horrendously long. I am going to try to write it just from the summary first, and see what happens.

         Take your break. I'll help you with it as we go along and we can see how it goes. Post. - Amorella

         2328 hours. We had sandwiches and fruit for supper then watched last night's final summer episode of "Suits:" I sat down to write and cannot believe I completed first chapter of "Diplomatic Pouch" Here it is:

*** ***

Chapter One

The Diplomatic Pouch

         Trexer rubbed his forehead, "Problem," he murmured, "We have a captain."

         "Is blackenot still on?" asked Captain Fargo while standing barefoot on Ship's grassy floor.

         "Yes, Captain, but Ship's not running."

         We always run, thought Captain Fargo. "Godofamily, we are stuckinagray." No antigravobars. Ship is a withering vine clinging to a hollow stump of stars.

         Trexer responded with a grimace and a reinforced childhood thought, "The brighter the berry, the more shade in the head."

         "Stuckinagray,"

         "Not good, captain. The prophets say this is a bad sign. We might be too late to save them."

         "Ship is a good runner."

         "Homing instincts are clear, Captain. Beaconhome is on. Blackenot is on."

         "Where's Hartolite?" I miss Friendly. Why did PrimeThree keep her home? This is our second visit to Earth. Friendly should have come with me again. (That was twelve years ago.) Nervously, Fargo scratched at his cheek like an earthman would stroke his beard. "How long before we are critical?" (I just want to go home.)

         Trexer with dark tree knot clouded eyes responded, "One week."

         The captain muttered, "We must be Earth's sun. Can we pushanpull blackenot to off and navigate by sight?"

         "We might disrupt solar functions if we are too close."

         "Rules say we run," grumbled Captain Fargo. "We have a week."

         "Shuttlevator is working, captain," interrupted Hartolite rushing in from another slice of Ship. We are close . . . within a day.

         Old Yermey sauntered into the control room giving one of his finest disgruntled looks. "Fine, Hart, Are you sure Shuttlevator is up to the task of running to Earth rather than Home?"

         Trexer spoke, "Surely ParentsinCharge will direct Ship Two to gather us for Home."

         Yermey always the agnostic commented, "We land on Earth and that's it. We wait to be picked up from a planet we can survive on." So similar, he thought, ThreePlanets is on the other side of the galaxy yet we humanoid marsupials are so look alike earthlings. We each have ten fingers and toes, hair, two eyes and a nose with mouth below. Earthlings have marsupial faces and bodies except we males each have a crumbled thin penis and the females have a pouch between their belly and virginas. Mentally we enjoy similar concepts -- science, mathematics, philosophy, religion, mythology, literature, dance and the other arts. Why else would I be on this journey?

         Understanding the instrumentation, Fargo followed old Yermey's lead tone, "Shuttlevator will not move because Ship thinks he's home."

         "I've read the theories," replied Yermey, "we can trick Ship."

         Hartolite countered, "Can't be done. Ship's an entire computerized-bionics ego system. He has a software consciousness. Ship knows to run home for survival. He thinks he is Home, Yermey. Why would he move?

         "Ship thinks two opposites are true at once. I am Home. I am not Home. Stuckinagray may be psychological not a machinery malfunction."

         "Maybe he's deliberating," said Trexer.

Ever up to the challenge old Yermey smiled wickedly broad, "Let's give Ship a perspective he does not have so he'll run on the grass naturally was we would were we on our native soil."

         Within minutes PrimeThree sent a directive to Fargo. 'Friendly's Class A Shuttlevator is near as she was tagging Ship. Stay away from Mars. Shut down. She will pick you up with a day. HelpCrew is being sent to feed wellness into Ship's qualities and regenerate his mental health. Land on Earth in emergency blackenot. No need to run.'

         Within two days the Class A Shuttlevator landed on Earth with a crew of five, Trexer, Hartolite, Yermey, Friendly and Captain Fargo. The first thing Yermey noticed was the Chicago Tribune and the date was 14 June 2000, twelve years to the date that Friendly and Fargo first landed on Earth, 14 June 1988.

***

         [Hello, I am the Soki and I will have observations on this story in most every Pouch section. This small crew of humanoid marsupials is relieved to find themselves unstuck for the present. Each individual character has a voice to speak herorhis mind just as earthlings do.

         I am a Floater between the Living and the Dead in this, the first of three resurrected novels. Everyone in here lives by rules and by theatre. How quaint and earthlike you might think. But I am speaking of the Dead as well as the Living. Each, humanoid marsupial has to prepare for herorhis own private court appearance before the Bar just as each humanoid earthling has to. What are the Bar rules for a genuine non-being, a Floater, like me? I only have a vague notion just as you do.]

*** ***

         You are just content to be writing, boy. Time for bed. Post. - Amorella

Notes - Updated:The Brothers,Ch.1.draft

        Today is daughter Kim's birthday, born in 1979. You had a choice of days as it was after eleven at night and you and Carol choose the 23rd because it was your old friend, Fritz Milligan's, (best man at your wedding) birthday, Fritz Milligan. You have known Fritz since the eighth grade when he entered Emerson Junior High, the old Vine Street School in Westerville from the nearby Central College School. He is still your friend, and he was your first reader of all your notes and works since 1988, and your lawyer. Kim you have known all your life and first bonded about twenty minutes after she was born. You are very proud, as always, to be her father.

         You are parked in the shade at the north end of Pine Hill Lakes Park as usual. Carol is on her walk. Earlier you cleaned up much of the material on your MacAir and you now have 63.41 gigs free out of 120.34 GB on your flash storage.

         I probably put some 20 gigs on exterior memory. Strange, this is all part of my prep for this project. Cleaning the room and the desktop I suppose. Mason students began school yesterday and psychologically I'm putting myself in the thick of it.

         Nothing like coming out of retirement, boy. It'll do you good, it has already. - Amorella

         1125 hours. I just want my mind frame to be significantly well and on track for this project writing.

         Let's go to it, my man. - Amorella

         After a half a ham and cheese sandwich supper and watching NBC News and an almost always funny half hour British comedy to you (rather unhumorous to Carol sometimes) "Outnumbered", DVRed from PBS. - Amorella

         I used a similar word in the modern modification of "The Brothers" earlier today. I rather like the use of "un" here, at adds to the humor.

         "Undead" is accepted as a word, I suppose one can say the same for "unhumorous". Let's get this section completed tonight. - Amorella

         2148 hours. "The Brothers" segment for chapter one appears satisfactory to me at this time. I'll will have to reread and reedit when the entire chapter is complete.

         I agree. There is always room for improvement without a tendency for perfection. - Here it is for posting. - Amorella

Chapter One

The Brothers

         Robert gave a swift glance at his retired brother. “Richie, what are you talking about?”

         Richard continued, “The brain and the mind are separate entities and so are the heart, soul and mind."

         "So, Rob, your heart and soul and brain are writing this trilogy?"

         "My mind not brain. My old make-believe friend, Leo, is helping me rewrite the books.”

         “I remember your Captain Lamar. He was always telling you stories from the other side of the Ohio.

         “Right. In my head Lamar's ferry still travels over to Ripley. I like to think of him coming up the Underground Railway from Ripley, Ohio to right here in Bridgeville."

         Rob chuckled, "The Captain's been a part of our lives since we were four or five."

         Richard glanced out the window to the rise and stones across the street, "a long time ago we used to play in the one across the street."

         "Same year Uncle Ross died," deadpanned Rob as he glanced out the window and across the street, "The cemetery has never been that far away. Now it's even closer."

         Both laughed. Rich commented, "We can save the girls some money by digging up our plots next to Mom and Dad, when we feel quite ill, we can go over and lay down at the naked earthy bottom, die in peace; and they can cover us up. Very few expenses." They continued laughing at the old joke which one of them, neither knows who, conjured up in upper level grade school. Rich interjected, "I think Captain Leo visited me for the first time after Uncle Ross's funeral."

         "That's what you always said, "Within a month of sticking Uncle Ross in the ground."

         Rich paused, "What I remember most about the funeral besides all the people I had never seen before was old Mr. Meyers. Tanner Meyers had been born a slave. I'd never seen a slave before." Charlie had old overworked hands, he thought. Such a kind faced lanky old man. He put his hand out to shake my own. No one had ever shaken my hand before, not like that. It was like I was important to him and here I was only a kid. He shook Rob's hand too, but Robby was a year older. That was two years after the war and year after dad returned home from European theatre. Rich's mind flashed to those secret black and white photos his dad had hidden in the back of his sock drawer after the war, two photos from when he and others of the U.S. Seventh Army helped liberate Dachau.

         When Rob and I used to slave weeding father's garden, mowing and trimming father's yard, raking father's leaves in the fall and shoveling father's snow in the winter, Dad used to mutter the guttural, "Arbeit macht frei!" and say, "On the damned gate at Konzentrationslager Dachau!" in what I would consider perfect German. I think these words of Father are where Rob and I cultivated our dark corrupted sense of humor, surviving our elementary and adolescent slavery here at home in the good old U.S.A. in the quaint little college town of Bridgeville. We were raised bound, not unlike Tanner Meyers, but we were never liberated. Here I am still living in our parents' old house on the east side of Knox Street with the Phillips Williams College Cemetery's War Memorial sitting directly to the west like a white stone of representation of a grotesquely setting sun.

         Rob who remembered the event but not with his brother's intensity he saw on his brother's face. He added, "That was the first time we went to a funeral,"

         Unlistening, Richard grumbled a, "What?"

         A whispered aside from the unseen elephant in the room. Grade school is where the boys had some trouble falling in love with two sisters each a -year younger than themselves. Eventually, this first budding of romance worked out for the better while the four were in their mid-twenties. The two couples went for a double wedding on Rob's initial idea that it would save the girls' parents some money and make for a happier day for everyone involved.

         “Captain Lamar is from the underground in my head.”

         Robert quipped, “So is your imagination.”

         Staying focused, Richard added, “This rework is train of thought stories from the spine, the brain and the mind. It is also from Captain Lamar's heart and soul."

         Robert laughed, “Why don’t you call your Captain, Lionel, rather than Leo?”  

         Richard spoke under breath, “Captain Lionel train-of-thought, I think it’s been done, Robbie."

         “Why don’t you just go back to writing poetry? Dickie."

         Richard smirked, “Because you are the better poet.”

         Rob grinned, “True. I am.”

         “Your poetry is clear, concise and with no nonsense.” I taught literature long enough to know it is much better writing than my own."

         Robert chuckled, knowing his brother hated being reminded. He countered, “That’s because my brain and my mind are in the same place. I don’t have a cigar chewing, ratty old ghost loving half pirate named Captain Leo piloting a ferry across the river bringing me characters and plots rather than decent European-styled poems when the early morning fog is right.”

         “You know I’m not as good at it as you are -- I’ll keep trying at the fiction, thank you very much.”

         Robert paused, “Do you remember when we first went to Ripley to see the Rankin House?”

         “Sure, Longfellow Elementary days. Grandma and Grandpa took and showed us where John Rankin lived on Liberty Hill, the setting in Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” What a wonderfully expressed work on freedom, he thought and chuckled, “I thought there was going to be a real railroad that climbed up that hill.”

         "That's because I told you all week we were going to see and ride on a real railroad up a big hill from the Ohio River, that there were going to be switchbacks and everything," smiled Robert.

         "Will you read my near final draft of each chapter, Rob?"

         In a more somber tone, he said, "Brothers are suppose to be critical. I'll do it only on the condition that you write and share a beat poem along the way. You always were a beat. I was always more modern, more subtle, more explicit."

         "You've won the international awards though, not me."

         He tapped his brother's foot as they were sitting across from one another. "And I am the biology major, not English."

         Richard almost fell into a glare, which is what his older brother wanted. He looked his brother in the eye, "I love my subject still; Robby you never loved biology like I love literature."

         Rob sobered, “One chapter at a time. I'll read it."

         “Do you still have the past and future segments?”

         "Besides this, our own segment," Richard added, "The Dead" first; out of respect." He left Robert to read the short piece while he went downstairs to see wife and sister-in-law. Of all things, he thought, here we are two fun-loving brothers and each married to two of the most beautifully compatible sisters. We are in our seventies. It will have been a good life no matter when we leave it.

***