Anthology Complex VIII by M.B. Julien - HTML preview
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M.B. Julien
Volume 3 - Composition 2
(3:2 / 8 / VIII)
Part 7
M.B. JULIEN
Chapter 61
“OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE”
3:2:7:61
King Matthew and Queen Heather ride in Silver State Coach to Tornado Royal. (1922)
ON the grounds of the enormous Flanagan estate is a small cemetery that holds the remains of kings and queens from the past. A year prior to our current year of 1930, a former queen was added to rest among the dead queens of old. Her king, who was King Matthew Flanagan, sat on a wooden chair facing her gravestone and thought on the darkening fact that he would soon be among the dead kings of old. He could already imagine the plot just beside his queen, marked with words demanding he be remembered as an honorable king, just as his queen's plot demanded that she be remembered as an honorable queen. But as King Matthew reflected more and more on these demands, it became more and more clear to him how untrue it all was.
Matthew felt deeply, knowing that he was at times an honorable man, but never an honorable king. And he thought deeply of his wife, knowing that she was at times an honorable woman, but never an honorable queen. And perhaps his final thought before his son came to find him was his most potent, that none of their children, because of the titles and reputations and wealth they would inherit, could never be allowed to even be just ordinary humans.
“Father,” Prince Brian said softly, “we are waiting for you. It is almost time.” Today, August the 9th, the Flanagans were celebrating a jubilee. Every ten years they would have the most elaborate ceremony to commemorate their history, which was that of both the past and the future. They celebrated life; new lives and new beginnings, and they celebrated death; those gone and those who had lived a great life of honor and service.
And with this celebration, they were also celebrating the beginning of a new marriage as there was to be the joining of spirits between Matthew's youngest daughter, Princess Aubry, and her fiancé, Nathaniel Worthington.
Inside the palace and dolling themselves up were Princess Dorothy and Sabrina.
Though Dorothy was often separate of men, she often spoke of them and knew their secrets. “Did you know that Alexander was going to be attending the ceremony?,”
Dorothy asked Sabrina. “Alexander?,” Sabrina hesitated, “that's that poet, right?” “Poet?!
Noo,” Dorothy dragged out the negative phrase, “Alex was Aubry's first love. From childhood, even.”
Alexander was a poet, and Dorothy knew this, but his artistry to her in her mind came second to the passionate way he had about himself that she had studied of him. Dorothy was not at all attracted to the men that her sister fancied, but she was nonetheless a student of love who learned best from afar.
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“Well, if she's invited him to her wedding,” Sabrina put strength into that last word,
“then surely they are over eachother and have moved on. What does Nat think about the whole thing?” “Nat,” Dorothy helped Sabrina fix her dress, “He doesn't know a thing about their past. In fact, Nat seems to be so dull I don't think he understands the concept of a past at all.” Sabrina, giggling at Dorothy's humor which she suspected to be driven by disdain, had her giggling interrupted when Brigid peered into the room and the two looked from their mirrors to the door.
“Have any of you seen Brian?,” Brigid asked the two of her husband. “Nope.” “No.”
And Brigid left the room to continue her search.
Walking through the long and beautiful hallway, adorned with the gold and the silver and the bronze of perhaps a fantastic century before her, she looked through many rooms hoping to find her prince. Going down the spiral staircase, she saw her butler but even he knew nothing of Brian's whereabouts or affairs.
Now on the ground floor, Princess Brigid made her walk through the large kitchen and into another hallway where she found an open door. The door led to a bedroom, of which on the bed was a blanket that imitated the shape of a child. Brigid walked into the room slowly and then quickly flew the blanket off of the child to see what he was hiding.
The child, whose name was Jeffrey Flanagan and was her brother-in-law's son, panicked as he tried to hide the desires of his little heart. Brigid had caught a glimpse of his desires, but it was not until she snatched the photographs from his little hands did she confirm her unsightly suspicions.
Brigid stormed out of the room, leaving the boy Jeffery with a pit of unease in his stomach. She walked all the way back to where she had seen her sister Sabrina doing her make-up and made her presence known when she walked up to the two women and threw a number of photographs directly at her face.
Brigid did not say a word and as Sabrina picked up the photographs, she saw that they were nude photographs of her herself. Dorothy caught a glimpse of the sights as well, but remained silent.
“Where did you get these from?,” Sabrina asked. “Jeffrey,” Brigid gave her a one-worded response. “I... I'm sorry, I thought I hid them well...” “This is the second time he has found your pictures, if it happens again, you're out,” Brigid warned her sister. Sabrina agreed, saying she was sorry again.
“Tell me they were at least taken by Doug,” Brigid said. “Of course,” Sabrina resented the idea.
Prince Kenneth, brother to Brian, sat in one of the palace's many living spaces and spoke to politician Warren Buchanan about his interest in eighteenth century musical composers when he saw his son, Jeff, run through the home and presumed it was a game 2 | “OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE”
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being played with his cousins.
“Come on,” Ken said to Warren, “I'll show you where Valade stayed and composed his masterpieces.”
When the pair arrived to the room in which Boden Valade rested and created, they could both feel his presence, though Warren felt it slightly less. Speaking and moving about the room, Kenneth was intent on playing his two favorite compositions from the composer on the phonographs; that was “The Constant Dream,” which he admired first, and “Somber Holiday,” which he admired second.
Listening to the musical pieces, Kenneth made note that Boden was awarded the seat of the First composer.
Warren had always liked the ear of Boden, but he did not regard him as highly as Kenneth did, and in his humor to make light of this opinion, he soon offended Kenneth.
“Valade is great,” Warren said, “but he is no Beethoven.”
Kenneth soon turned around, and in a manner of question replied to Warren,
“Beethoven?” Warren knew that Ken knew who Beethoven was, and so he took the reply in the manner in which he said it to be of disdain. “The only reason Valade was given that seat was because Beethoven was not even alive yet. Beethoven is easily the superior of the two.”
Kenneth did not see these words as an opinion of the speaker but as a fact that they were meant to offend him. For this, Kenneth insulted the politician's ears and his intellect.
And this was a way that Kenneth often responded to criticism, that any word said against him could not be an opinion in the subjective world but was rather a fact in the objective world. And if this was true, then Kenneth could not change a person's mind, his only solution was to tear it down.
When the politician and the prince broke away, they did not speak to each other for the rest of the jubilee.
Outside of the palace where there was lush green scenery, the head butler, Donald, and the head maid Donna, were directing the staff in setting up and arranging the location of the wedding. Already it was beginning to look beautiful and the only thing that could be more captivating was the princess bride it was being prepared for.
Running in and through and around the preparation were four children; Brian II, Brittany, Jeremy and Cassandra, who were most of the Flanagan line. As they played all around, they were suddenly joined by Jeffrey, who ran all the way from inside the palace and directly to his brother and friend, Jeremy and Cassandra. Already he knew the game they were playing, so he joined in without a word and increased the difficulty of the game.
When all of the children became tired, they all laid out flat on the green grasses.
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Often the conversations these children would have incorporated the eventual transformation into their Godly parents. They spoke of princes becoming kings and princesses becoming queens. They spoke of caterpillars who became butterflies and of underdogs who became champions, but none of them had any way of understanding what they were truly speaking of.
When Brittany sat up, Cassandra made note of the fact that she had ketchup on the bottom of her attire. Brittany was confused and then shocked. “I can afford a blemish on my character, but not on my clothes!,” she ran back into the house to try and clean it off.
Down the hall that Brittany would eventually run down were walking Oliver and Reagan McDuffie, along with Reagan's mother, Elise. Oliver lead them both in a deceptively happy tune.
“Blue skies smiling at me, nothing but blue skies is all I see,” Oliver sang as he snapped his fingers in a rhythmic motion, “Blue birds singing a song, nothing but blue birds all day long.” Finishing this verse, a smallish child ran past him in search of cleaning supplies. He thought of the child for a moment, then continued his song. “Blue days, all of them gone, nothing but blue skies from now on.”
When the three finally made it to the grand opened doors, they saw out into the beautiful field that was being prepared for the wedding. Many servants were in their sights, and Oliver set his sight on the head maid, Donna, and went near to her to converse.
“Lovely day! Almost as lovely as you,” he said to her. Donna smiled and said thank you. “Missed a spot,” he continued as he watched Donna wipe down a table. The spot was as nonexistent as his humor.
“I said you missed a spot,” Oliver pointed, “there.” Donna looked there. “Made you look.” Donna afforded him a polite laugh. “Hurry with the preparations, we haven't got all day,” he said walking away from her and back to his wife.
“What were you two talking about?,” Reagan asked him. “Oh, you know, just making sure she knows her place.” “If she knew anything about places she wouldn't be here wiping down tables,” Reagan replied.
“What were you two talking about?,” Donald asked Donna. “Oh, you know, just letting the little tadpole feel like he has a little power.” “If he knew anything about power then Reagan wouldn't talk about his small penis in public,” Donald replied.
Douglas thumbed through the nude photographs of Sabrina. Closing the bathroom door, Sabrina began yelling in a soft manner, “She threatened to cut us out Dougy! She said if it happens one more time, we're out!” “Sabby, don't worry, it won't happen again,”
Doug was now on the final picture. “Don't you understand what a decent hiding place is?,” Sabrina continued. Doug began placing the photographs in his back pocket, “I did 4 | “OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE”
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hide them in a decent hiding place. That little pervert is just nosy. I wouldn't be surprised if his father has magazines lying around the house because his poor excuse of a wife probably hasn't touched him in years.” Sabrina laughed, “At least not the way I touch you.” Douglas moved closer to his wife and began rubbing her shoulders to move off the top part of her dress but this action was met with rejection. “Are you mad? It's Aubry's wedding day!” Doug sighed, “I guess you're right.”
Hillary began walking faster through the exquisitely decorated hall to catch up with her husband. “Ken!,” she shouted. When she caught up, Kenneth saw that she was either upset or offended, perhaps with him or without him.
“Brigid told me Jeff found pictures of her again.” “Of Sabrina?” “Yes!” “I'll talk to him.” “What are you going to say?” “I don't know Hillary, what are you supposed to say to a little boy who fancies pictures of older women?” “If you can't figure out what to say then I'll have my father talk to him.”
Perhaps still uncooled from his quarrel with Warren, Kenneth took extreme offense to the mentioning of his father-in-law, and this extreme offense came in the motion of a slap across Hillary's face. “I told you never to mention him in my presence ever again. And if you ever mention him again, I'll make sure he never sets foot in this palace ever again.”
With that declaration, each invited foot had now taken a step on the palace's grounds.
The location of which the wedding was to take place had been set by the servants, and one by one the seats were beginning to be filled.
When there were ten in the audience, Warren Buchanan sat down with his wife.
When there were twenty, Reagan, Oliver and Elise found their own seats. When there were thirty, Kenneth and Hillary, along with Jeffrey and Jeremy, sat on the opposite side of Warren, who when Kenneth saw, made no communication.
When there were forty, Dorothy sat down alone. When there were fifty, Sabrina and Douglas sat down with their daughter, Cassandra, as far away as possible from Kenneth, Hillary and Jeffrey.
When there were one hundred in the audience, out came Brian and Brigid, along with Brian II and Brittany in new attire.
After a sorts, the ceremony had begun and we as the viewers had that beautiful moment of finally meeting the bride, Princess Aubry, as she is walked down the isle by King Matthew to her groom, Nathaniel.
The wedding of Aubry Flanagan and Nathaniel Worthington was ordinary in every way except in its proportions. The people were noble. The scenery was extravagant. The language was verbose. If you thought you saw a gorgeous dress, the next one was more gorgeous. If you thought you saw the prettiest flowers, the next dozen were even prettier.
And finally, if you thought you saw an expensive ring, it's because you did, and there 5 | “OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE”
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wasn't one that was more expensive than the one ready to be placed on our princess's finger.
“If anyone knows of any reason why these two should not be married,” the officiant said, “speak now or forever hold your peace.” There was a very brief silence until Alexander stood as he had no intention of holding onto his peace.
“Aubry,” Alexander began, hat in hand, “I have loved you since the day I set eyes on you nearly a decade ago.” Nathaniel looked at Aubry, and then at the officiant, then he motioned for the king's guards to seize Alexander before he could continue. As the guards approached him, Aubry told them to stop. “Let him speak his peace so we may move past this for good,” Aubry said to both the guards and to her fiancé.
Alexander took out a piece of paper from his pocket and told Aubry that he had written her a poem to read aloud to her on her wedding day, and he began reading.
“By moonlight you were the artist, and by sunlight the muse. But you never saw me even with brushstrokes so obtuse. At dawn you were the creator and by dusk the creation.
But you never cared to understand me with your cold sensation. You'd look at me and there was nothing behind your eyes. As if I was just one out of many, many goodbyes.
Am I nothing to you, that you could cut so deep. Are my hands so dirty that you're a flower I can't keep. All I ever wanted from you was a smile and anything warm. And all you gave me was a broken heart in a storm. You were the only person I ever let into my soul. And you destroyed my dreams in ways you will never know. By moonlight you were my artist, and by sunlight my muse. But I will never see you again in acrylic-based views. At dawn you were my creator and by dusk my creation. But to you I have set fire for you are nothing but human degradation.”
The damage was done. Women made noises at Alexander and some men began throwing objects at him. The king's guards seized him and steered him away from the wedding. Every single character we have seen so far with objective eyes were shocked, including even that of the king, who was named Matthew, and was simultaneously confused and understanding of the words said to his daughter.
As Aubry watched Alexander be attacked and escorted, she could only burst into tears. She ran away from the wedding into the palace and was chased by her fiancé, but standing face to face with Nat in front of many people and in the process to be eternally bound was the final intimacy they would ever share. The wedding was over, infinitely corrupted, and ruined by a poet's words.
Princess Aubry and Alexander see each other for the first time in a bookshop. (1923)
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Chapter 62
THE MAP OF DREAMS
3:2:7:62
<?php
error_reporting(0);
$serverconnection = mysql_connect("localhost", "antcom", "VIII");
// connect to server
// include("/home/antcom/dreamadmin/access.inc"); date_default_timezone_set("America/San Rashida"); $current_loc = “Atlantic Ocean”;
$num_passengers = “4.1”;
$id_pass = 32762;
$est_time = “11 hours”;
$weeks_length = 0;
$months_length = 1;
// score of the relevant airport diner
$dis_goal = 607;
$get_misc_flightinfo = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM airline where infoid = $id_pass"); while ($fetchentry = mysql_fetch_array($get_misc_flightinfo, MYSQLI_ASSOC)) {
$destination = $fetchentry['destination'];
$connecting = $fetchentry['connecting'];
$notes_applied = $fetchentry['notes_applied'];
}
if ($notes_applied == 1) {
$exposition = "Traveler(s) awarded extended vacation time";
}
if ($dis_goal > 400) {
$notation = "Qualified for grand prize";
}
?>
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I nudged Lynne with my left elbow and motioned for her to pause with me. As I counted up to three with my fingers we both hit pause on three. I took off my headphones.
“Are there people in this country?” “Yes, I think so,” she replied. She adjusted Kirby who was sitting on her lap and then put her headphones back on. I did the same and counted up to three again so we could resume the movie.
A few moments later I nudged her again. Counted up to three again. Then asked her another question again.
“What's the population?” She looked at me, and then looked at her phone. “Fifty-six million,” she answered. She put her headphones back on and we resumed the movie. I tried to imagine such a staggering population of fifty-six million people.
A few moments later I nudged her again. Counted up to three again. But before I could ask my next question she suddenly started whispering angrily. “If you ask me another ridiculous question I'm going to stick my prosthetic foot up your ass.” I recoiled at her threat.
“Damn, I was just going to tell you that you're so pretty.” The stern look washed off of her face. “Oh... Thank you...” I counted up to three again and we resumed the movie again.
A few moments later I nudged Sara, who was sitting to my right. Took off my headphones as did she as she was watching her own movie. “Do you know if the people are overly-friendly in the place we're going?” “No...” “No as in they aren't?” “No as in I have no clue.”
Putting my headphones back on I went back to viewing the movie. It was still daytime as we flew over the Atlantic Ocean and we still had nine hours left in the flight when the movie Lynne and I were watching ended.
She placed Kirby on my lap and told me that she was going to use the bathroom.
While Kirby did not have the same expression as when with Lynne, there was a still a calmness. I knew that Kirby knew he was looking at a different energy.
Lynne walked past many other passengers before she made it to the bathroom. Once inside, she began thinking of the adventure she was about to embark on with her family.
And she was proud of herself that in working so hard she was rewarded this gift from her company. It was the first time she or her kids had ever left the United States, and she was well-intent on making their travels a memorable one.
When Lynne came back I gave Kirby back to her after sitting down. Kirby again changed, knowing now he was in the presence of a different energy.
Looking at the two of them, I tried to rank in my mind the most effective of connection through the arts.
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Film and music surely are great connectors of the arts. They have inspired and reached generations beyond their own. But I think they are both limited when compared to literature, which I believe is the master of communication and connection, written or oral. To me it seems to be the medium that can be most exact and precise, even if it is sometimes endlessly ambiguous. But I also think, ironically, that there is one thing more powerful than literature, written or oral; presence, even in silence.
With both of our screens on a mode that saved them, I watched Lynne in its reflection as she readjusted Kirby. When she looked back up she caught me staring at her in the reflection and I quickly looked away. Like the pen to his stories and the rose to her sun.
After a moment I looked at the screen and this time caught her staring at me, but as soon as I locked eyes with her she quickly looked away. Like the dream to his mind and the song to her lips. I stared at her until after looking away she looked back at me and abruptly I turned away. Like the darkness to his vision and the lashes to her eyes. I couldn't help but look again, and when I saw her this time she abruptly looked away. Like the music to his ears and the feet to her travels. It came soon that her wandering eyes looked at me once more and I looked away once more. Like the body to his strength and the innocence to her beauty. When I looked at her again, this time she didn't turn away. I winked at her and she smiled, then closed her eyes to join Kirby in dreamland.
Looking past her I saw the low Summer Sun and its gold light through the gray clouds that were pressed against the blue sky. And then looking back at her and the baby, I thought on the map of dreams.
If someone's brain experiences physical trauma or injury, and a region of their brain becomes impaired, the brain will have to adapt to find new ways to do old things.
Neurons will have to discover new paths to travel, and because each region of the brain has specific duties and abilities, this new path may result in an unusual way of doing something old. Imagine a road being shut down and you have to take a detour to reach your destination. Let's say the old road, which is at the moment shut down, was mostly used by logicians, and the new road you will have to take is mostly used by artists. I'm sure you get where I'm going, no pun intended. What you did in a technical way becomes more eccentric.
So what if we took this concept and applied it to the same organ but in a different land. What if we took it to the dreamland? Does someone who has brain damage, or any type of difference to their brain, do they dream differently, too?
If the logician had to take the new route of the artist, might that person dream of old concepts in new ways? On this new road, might they dream of new people and new places? Maybe their affected senses can cause the reality of their dreams.
One night Lynne and I were talking about dreams we've had of eachother. She told 9 | THE MAP OF DREAMS
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me of a dream where we were together in a field surrounded by trees on a picnic blanket and eating from a picnic basket. Cliche, I know. But she told me that what stood out most about the dream was the intense emotional feeling of love and desire she felt, coupled by the fact that she could visually remember the dream very easily. The scenery was lush green beautiful nature pressed against a light blue sky.
I told her that I had a similar dream, except there was no picnic blanket or picnic basket, there was instead a picnic table. We sat on it, and she was sitting on my lap as we faced away from it. In remembering it, while I felt love and desire, it wasn't emotionally intense. What was intense for me was actual feeling, the touch of her body compressed into me. The physical feeling of her body settling into mine was what I most siphoned out of that dream.
If there is intellectual intelligence and emotional intelligence, there has to be in some way, an imaginational intelligence. And this imaginational intelligence, I can see it instructing and constructing the perception of our real world, and infinitely the dream world.
I remember telling you that it is much harder to travel in dreams than it is in real life.
A lot harder to get to where you want to go in a dream than it is to take a flight to get there in real life. And I gotta tell you, I remember being young and confused, knowing where I wanted to go in life but not knowing how to get there. It's a true shame that some people spend their whole lives feeling that way. I can't say that I'm on my way to this country because I've finally got my map, but I can say that whatever detours I had to take to get to where I am now, whether it was in real life or in a dream, they were worth it.
When you can't be the logician learn to be the artist. When you can't be the artist, learn to be the explorer.
“? ???? ???.” I looked at Lynne. Her eyes still dreaming she must have been talking in her sleep. One hour later the Sun had fallen out of the sky and into oblivion. Sarah and David had fallen asleep victim to the night and its Moon, and even though I wish I could have slept, sleeping on airplanes is something I could never do. My mind just won't allow it. I'll try to sleep when we get on the train.
Another hour passed and Lynne woke up. “Did you sleep?,” she asked me. I nodded my head. “Are you going to sleep on the train?,” she asked another. “I just said I'll try to sleep when we get on the train,” I replied. She looked at me confused.
“Do you want to watch another movie, then?,” she asked. “No.” In the next string of seconds she did not say a sentence but a made a suggestion when she held one earbud in the air for me to take. I took it and placed it in my left ear.
All throughout the music we listened to together I thought of the similar dreams we may have had together. Then I remembered something she told me many years ago when 10 | THE MAP OF DREAMS
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I first met her, how often she would have dreams of being in a field of apple trees and she was always looking for one to eat. I wonder, that if Lynne dreams in novels as well, if the picnic dreams were a part of that dreamline. Wait a minute. I've never thought about this before. That other people could have the missing pieces to your own dreamlines. I can't believe this has never occurred to me. The way that I see it is; in some other life or dream world where Lynne and I know eachother and are in love there too, we go on a picnic date, we are on a picnic blanket eating fruits, maybe we run out of apples and she goes to look for some, and then maybe something happens to the blanket like it flies away or something and when she comes back we have to sit on a wooden picnic bench which is from my dream.
I took out my phone and began to write down the idea because this was a revelation I could not forget. “What are you writing down?,” Lynne saw me typing into the phone. “I have to tell you in the train cabin, it's most unusual.” She laughed.
At this conclusion I could not wait for the conclusion of air travel. When that conclusion finally came, the plane landed and so did our feet onto a new country that none of us had ever been before.
We were given directions to the trains and so we waited at dawn until they arrived.
When the rising Summer Sun made itself visible through the clouds, we stepped onto the trains and found our cabins. We were given two rooms near to eachother and each with a built-in bunkbed. Kirby, Lynne and I were to share one and David and Sara would share the other.
Closing the door shut behind us Lynne tended to Kirby on the bed and I arranged the luggage we carried. When I was finished I laid out flat on the bed and looked out the window. I saw many other people walking on the other platform and wondered how many of them were tourists or natives.
“What were you typing into your phone?,” Lynne laid down with Kirby. “You know what, I'll tell you at the inn, my eyes are getting heavy.”
As I went to lay down with them, the train began moving. I placed my arm around Lynne who placed her arm around the baby. “We should have another one.” “You're an idiot.” She laughed.
The sound of the train striking the tracks had the missing piece of rain against the windows. Since I gave you the illusion, I wonder if that mattered. The train did go over a bridge, though, and gave us sights of a river. I'm sure she enjoyed it if her eyes weren't closed. If you can learn to love just one thing in your life, be it a person or even an idea, then you can learn to love anything. And if you have the capacity for hate, this applies as well.
I think that the remedy for working hard or doing a job that you don't like will be the 11 | THE MAP OF DREAMS
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reward of money. With that money you can buy luxurious things and it makes up for having to do a job you don't particularly enjoy. Likewise I think taking a vacation is a response to hard work. Sometimes it's not even the money that is the remedy, coming home from a hard day's work and relaxing is a prize in its own right. If you look forward to spending your money on luxuries and vacations, or even just look forward to going home to rest, it's a sign that what you do for a living doesn't entirely help you to live. But I look around and wonder who is capable of living without rewards? I think this is why one must have a hobby. Something you will do for free, for yourself, reaping absolutely no reward except knowing that you could and did do it.
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Chapter 63
THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY
3:2:7:63
Sabrina and Douglas drive through an impoverished dark city after cooling midnight. (1938)
SHE looks at him and he can see the sparkle in her beautiful blue eyes. "I will never forget this night," she says to him. "I am so glad we found each other," he replies. They continue to dance slowly to the mellow music being played in the background, as do all the others who were invited to this exquisite celebration party.
Of the year 1940, of the 27th day of May, the Flanagans hosted the new decade's jubilee which was that of a large charity event to support the ongoing world war.
Princess Brittany, aged seventeen, was dancing with her boy-friend, Christopher Ward, just beyond a beautifully carved statue of a goddess known as Eris.
“I love you with all of my heart,” the princess said to Christopher, and as he went to repeat the same to her, they were suddenly interrupted by the princess's father, King Brian.
Christopher relinquished his love to her father and the two went into a study away from all of the music and pleasant chatter. Brian told his daughter to sit down, and then sat down next to her, holding her hand. “This is going to be terribly difficult for you to hear, but I need you to understand.” Brittany waited intently. “In a couple month's, Christopher's father will be filing bankruptcy.” Brittany gasped intently. “Their family will lose their wealth and their status, and Christopher will not be able to support you as a man should. So you must end your relationship with him as soon as you can.”
The dream Brittany had of her life with Christopher fell apart like a house of cards. “I will do it tonight,” she assured her father.
Near the entrance to the richly crafted dance hall was Jeffrey Flanagan, who in his mild hunger reached for a food to eat. At the same moment walked through the entrance Gary Gray who was accompanied by his wife Karen Gray. They saw Jeff and went to greet the young man, Gary telling him he was growing to be such a handsome gentleman.
In his effort to leave the entrance, Gary attempted to take his wife with him to see the others who had appeared for the charitable jubilee, but she insisted she too was mildly hungry and would eat a small snack. She did not take long to find a snack, and just before leaving, she said to Jeff, “Meet me at the usual spot in ten minutes.”
At a table on the edge of the dance hall was being held a conversation that spoke of the Flanagan's great contributions to not just the war efforts, but of their great past contributions to the poverty of the world. “Every time I go to one of those poor countries, I come back sick,” Dorothy said to Alexander who was at the time holding Princess 13 | THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY
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Aubry in his arms. Sabrina, who held Vivian in her own arms and who was only a toddler, told Dot that it was always best practice to keep away from the children of poor countries. She found that they carried germs with total disregard and were most likely to pass them on.
“That's why you find a way out of them,” Douglas told the table, “I don't even understand why we are obligated to go on those trips in the first place, we are royalty for Christsake. We're not fooling anyone.” “Image is every thing,” Alex told Doug, “if you were half the poet I am you would know that words create images and images create the words people use to speak about you.” “Oh, Dougy is an artist alright, just not in the way that you know,” Sabrina laughed.
At the conclusion of this statement someone put forth silverware to glassware to gain the attention's of the partygoers. When one looked to see who it was, one would see the tallish figure of Warren Buchanan, who was one of the men responsible for King Brian's declaration of war.
“Excuse me, excuse me,” Warren said to the crowd. In the crowd looked up Prince Kenneth, whose contempt for Warren had only grown in the ten years since their debate on pianists.
“We have raised over one-hundred thousand in currency already for the war effort!,”
Warren continued, “Of course most of which will see its way into my wallet,” the crowd laughed. “But to be serious, this is a great achievement that will help our boys to a quick and decisive victory... I'm just glad my actual boys are off at college,” the crowd laughed again.
At “the usual spot,” which was a sort of library room that was seldom occupied in the large Flanagan estate, were Jeffrey and Karen, a tumultuous flame Jeff had had for Karen, as he was the one who had seduced her into this rather unusual affair. He was not even yet a legal adult, and she was thirty-three pressing on thirty-four and also the wife of a pastor who ran the largest megachurch in the country.
While Jeffrey was not yet even a legal adult, Karen saw in his proportions that he was more of a man that her own husband. He could fill both of her lower hollows so that they were hollow no more, and even the upper hollow that she used to speak, she felt him more of a man who could keep her silent.
This was an affair that truly was unknown to anyone other than the guilty parties, and Jeffery had carried such a haunting passion for the form of the senior woman that she might cause an eternal rift in the supposed Kingdom of God.
Back at the dance hall and around a rounded table sat the king and queen and the queen's parents, of whom all spoke of Elise's recent passing into the next life. But the discussion of death was soon killed short when Brigid finally commented on her mother's 14 | THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY
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necklace. She had been eyeing it since she laid eyes on her.
“Mother,” she said to Reagan, “where did you get that necklace from?” Reagan looked at her gold necklace, “Oliver bought it for me last week.” Oliver, hearing his name, looked at his wife, then at her necklace, and then looked away.
When Brian out of his peripheral saw Oliver's head turn, he too looked at the gold necklace, and then quickly glanced at his own wife's necklace which was made of silver.
In some other rare parallel universe, the conversation may have ended there, but Queen Brigid was not finished. “Mother, who is the queen of this country?” “Why, you are darling,” Reagan responded. “And mother, who is this jubilee in celebration of?”
“...Our family?,” Reagan was not sure what her daughter was getting at.
Suddenly, Brigid stood up and slapped the table beneath her and began shouting at her mother, and the words she said just before she stormed out of the dance hall were indicating of the fact that this celebration was not for “their family” but solely for the reign of the king and his queen.
For a moment, the party was paused as dancers of the celebration heard the shouting, but King Brian soon called for them to resume. And, in getting up, Brian motioned for Oliver to follow him to a second floor room.
“Why is Reagan wearing that necklace?” “I asked her not to wear it. I even asked her to take it off once I saw that Brigid was wearing a silver one,” Oliver said. “You asked?
Have you no dignity to keep your wife in place?” Oliver could not respond. “I don't understand how you let your wife talk about you like that in public and do nothing about it. I don't understand how you have to ask her things instead of telling her things. You are a weak pathetic excuse for a man. Get out of my sight.” Oliver walked away and retreated back into the dance hall.
Outside of the palace and near to many vehicles, Christopher led his lover to his parent's car to retrieve the gift he had promised her. He opened the red door to the red car and took out a red package, inside the red package was a red dress riddled in raspberry diamonds. Princess Brittany thought it was beautiful and took it from his hands. She put it to her body and laughed, saying it was the most marvelous gift anyone had ever gotten her. She then went forth and began kissing her love, knowing after this their lips never again would touch and that it would be another boy who had the privilege of seeing her in his diamonds.
Donald, the butler of the Flanagan's estate, was furious when he saw one of his servants enter the kitchen late. “You're late and now you're fired,” he told the young man.
When the young man tried to explain his tardiness, Donald would have no word of it. The young man returned to the room in which he shared with other workers and began to pack his belongings to remove himself from the household and exit his tenure with the 15 | THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY
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Flanagans.
Crossing through the kitchen and entering a long narrow hallway, Donald came across Donna, of whom he told of the firing. Donna then told Donald that the young man had been helping her carry baskets of clothes to and fro the main estate and the smaller estate. Donald was now conscious of the error he had made, but did not make any plan to re-hire the young man. Donna, seeing the expression on Donald's face, made a remark,
“He'll find other employment,” she suggested.
Half of an hour later, Donna and Donald watched as the young man traversed through the kitchen, looked at them both, and then exited the estate forever. On these grounds, even the servants are void of humility and spirited with excessive pride.
Inside a bathroom on the ground floor Prince Ken was trying to remind his wife, Hillary, where she was and why she was there. Three years earlier in 1937, Hillary was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease which seemed to develop rapidly.
“Honey, today is the jubilee, we are having a party. You remember the jubilees, don't you?” “Your parents? Matthew and Heather?” Kenneth was confused as to why she would bring up his parent's names and wondered if her mind had went backwards in time.
“Yes, but they are not with us anymore.” “Who is the king and the queen, then?” “Brian and Brigid, don't you remember the ceremony?” The thought of Brigid reminded her of Sabrina. “Oh!,” she said with a mean look on her face, “Don't you remind me of that little twat Sabrina. She's the reason why Jeffy is so unusual!” Ken put his hand to his forehead in disappointment. “Come on, let's get back to the party, and try not to seem so paranoid again.”
Ken and Hill passed by a room with a closed door which inside was inhabited by Jeremy, Brian II and Cassandra. In their teenage years they were developing a somewhat rebellious attitude, stealing from others a pack of cigarettes which they weren't allowed to smoke. Each one lit a cigarette and took puffs at their leisure, seeing themselves as adults in those popular movie posters that were plastered every where whenever they went into the city.
For the next ten minutes, the three rebels spoke of the rebellious acts they had committed in the last five years and also of their hooligan natures. The judgment they placed on themselves, or lack there of, they felt, was no different than the tyranny of their kingdom and the acts of their parents. “I bet if we got them all in one place, nasty things would come about,” Jeremy suggested. “But they are in one room,” Brian II answered him. “No, I mean, like in a small tiny room.”
Then, like a sudden wave came over her, Cassandra devised their next act. “Protocol for possible threats on the premise is to go underground, to that small room,” she said to them. The two boys already knew what she was thinking, but how could they get them all 16 | THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY
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down there?
“We could make one of those cocktails, the ones with fire, and throw it through a window into the dance hall,” Cass suggested.
One minute later the three split up, Cassandra going to steal a bottle of alcohol from the dance hall, Brian II going to find matches and paper, and Jeremy writing down a threat on a piece of paper.
“If you don't pay us $50,000, we will expose the fact that Warren Buchanan covered up Alexander's drunk while in charge homicide.” The threat was untrue but the rumor was not.
Jeremy and Brian II stood just outside one of the many doors that led outside and watched as Cassandra, who volunteered to throw the firey cocktail into the dance hall, made her way to the best possible position.
And so the two cousins waited, and waited, and waited, until they heard glass shatter and flames come into reality. Running back inside, they opened the door for Cassandra and they all ran into the dance hall, asking everyone what all of the commotion was about.
The cocktail had flown into the dance hall and hit one of the chandeliers. Exploding on impact, a piece of flame dropped onto Gary Gray's head and set his hair ablaze.
Princess Dorothy, in seeing this unfold, unstuck herself and threw water onto his head, taking out the flame and seeing the patch of skin that had been burned. Moments later, it was Donald who extinguished the complete flames that left undisturbed might have destroyed the entire dance hall.
After all of the commotion, a guard attempted to read the note attached to the incendiary device, but it had been too damaged to do so. All he could tell was that the entire family and their guests may have been at the mercy of hooligans.
Just as the three had forecasted, the guards had all of the Flanagans and their guests moved into an underground bunker-style room where they would be safe, but the Flanagans were always more safe in the company of strangers than in the company of themselves.
As the guards stayed above ground to check the premise of the royal kingdom, the Flanagans and their friends stayed underground for safety.
On Queen Brigid's lap now was Spencer, who was only three years old and was sleeping when the attack was executed. When he asked his mother what was going on, she simply told him they were playing a game.
And in Hillary's mind there were games being played as well. With time, with memories, with confusion and emotion. Hillary caught sight of Sabrina, and she could feel deep down in her core that Sabrina was someone she detested. When Sabrina caught 17 | THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY
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sight of Hillary staring at her, she became offended. “What are you looking at?,” Sabrina asked calmly yet loudly enough for Hillary to hear her.
“I may be forgetful in my mind, but I'll never forget you, you little cunt,” and after Hillary said this to Sabrina, this caught everyone's attention. Brian II, Jeremy and Cassandra were in for the show.
“Look,” Sabrina retorted, “It's not my fault your husband has MissPlay magazines laying around and your son fancies older women.” A surgent pulse went through Jeffrey and Karen's bodies. “Shut your mouth,” Prince Kenneth said in defense of his wife, but more in defense of himself. “Hey!,” Douglas sounded off, “No one talks to my wife like that!”
“What's so hard about hiding some pictures? Are you that much of a moron?,” Ken said to Doug.
“Let's all just settle down,” Warren tried to calm the two men down. “You,” Ken pointed at Warren, “You are not welcome in this matter.” Warren suspected that Ken was still angry over their debate of 18th century pianists. “You're still on about that? That was so many years ago!,” Warren cried.
“Do something,” Brigid whispered to her king. With a shrug, King Brian stepped forward and said “That's enough.” But evidently, that was not enough.
“Here comes the all-mighty king,” Reagan yelled, “here to save us all from our own emotional incapacitation!” Brian turned around and looked at Reagan to see that she was still wearing the gold necklace. He walked up to her and snatched it from her neck, breaking it in the process and then throwing it into a nearby waste-basket.
Reagan looked at her husband, Oliver, and then Brian looked his way as well. “What are you going to do about it?,” Brian asked Oliver. “Nothing,” Oliver replied. “That's exactly right, not a God damned thing.”
But suddenly Reagan slapped her son-in-law. The crowd gasped. When Brian brought his face back around to look at Reagan once more, he did not strike back. “...If you weren't the queen's mother, I would have you put in prison.”
These words were followed by the head of security entering the bunker and telling everyone that there was no threat on the premises, and that this was likely a prank by a group of hooligans. All of the bunker-dwellers left the bunker and the party was effectively over as all of the party-goers were preparing to either go home or to go to their own quarters.
Gary Gray, whose scalp was burned and was being treated by security after the fact was now on his way to the hospital to receive proper treatment. “How can I preach to an auditorium of six-thousand people now? All they will see is this burned part of my scalp!,” Gary cried. “Don't be silly, honey, they aren't there to see you, they are there to 18 | THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY
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hear you and your 'prophetic messages' from God,” she air-quoted the single quotes.
One hour after Christopher Ward had arrived home, he received a phone call from the Flanagan residence. It was Princess Brittany, who in her fumbling of words finally admitted to him that she did not have any feelings for him. Christopher was confused, for only a few whiles earlier he could not imagine a future without her. Then Christopher became angry, for now he realized that she waited until he arrived home to tell him this because she was a coward and also a thief. When he displayed his anger at her, she snapped back, saying “Do you know who you are talking to like that?” Christopher knew exactly who he was talking to, and so he hung up the phone, never to speak to her ever again for the rest of his mortal life.
In one of their more fun lounge rooms, Princess Dorothy was playing darts with Donald and Prince Brian II. After missing the board completely, Dorothy turned to her nephew, “You know you're going to be king one day, right?” “So?” “So where is your queen?” Donald hit the bullseye.
“Where's your prince?,” Brian II responded. “That's not how it works.” “She's right,”
Donald interrupted, “just because she marries a man doesn't mean he'll be given the title of prince.”
Brian II prepared his throw, “Maybe I'll marry a Negress and send shockwaves throughout the kingdom.” “Ha!,” Donald ejaculated.
“That's not funny,” Dorothy replied. Brian II hit the board but missed the bullseye.
“We'll have little darker skinned children running around all over the place,” Dorothy finished.
“A Spaniard then?,” Brian II asked for permission. “Nope,” Dorothy replied. “How about a Chinese woman?,” Donald suggested stretching out his eyes. “This won't be a game to you in ten years,” Dorothy warned the future king. “You mean I have to get married in ten years!?,” he replied sarcastically, “Don, you better get me that catalog of Chinese women right away! It's going to be a long night...”
The poet, Alex, and his muse, Princess Aubry, sat just before the Flanagan estate's large lake that by now looked like it contained crystals in the darkness of the moonlight.
“Did you know Nathaniel killed himself last week?,” Aubry asked her husband. “Does that bother you?,” Alex asked her back. “I was never in love with him, so I guess no, it doesn't bother me.” “Are you in love with me?,” Alex asked his wife. He had been married to her eight years now but it was a question he often asked himself. “I married you, didn't I?” “But you were also going to marry that dud.” “But I didn't, you made sure of that.” “That's because I love you and wanted the best for you.” “...Wanted?” “Sorry, want.” “Well, you keep me happy, and you know I'll keep you happy.”
Princess Aubry leaned into Alex's face and kissed him slowly. The privacy of the lake 19 | THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY
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that was surrounded by trees gave them the option of making love, but on these hollow grounds, they made something as hollow as their characters.
At around the same time of midnight, Sabrina and Douglas were driving down one of the country's highways. Reminiscent of their lives, they were going nowhere and going nowhere fast. This was something they did after every family event, a way to get away from their family's ways. To be alone, together. And alone was how Sabrina felt when Douglas brought up again the concept of an open relationship. She was firmly against it, but each time Doug proposed, she felt him love her less and less.
“Who do you have in mind anyway?,” Sabrina asked sharply. “No one,” Doug lied.
Sabrina saw through his eyes. “...Dottie.” “Dorothy!,” Sabrina yelled, and then she laughed, “Dorothy has absolutely no interest in you.” “How do you know? Did she say something to you?” “No, but she is not even interested in men.” “She wants a woman?”
“I don't think she's attracted to either sex.”
Doug thought for a moment as he drove them under the Moon on an empty highway.
“You're crazy,” Sabrina said at him, “Everyone in this whole damn family is crazy. I'm crazy and I can't believe I can even see the craziness! Take me home, I need to make sure Cassandra has put Vivian to sleep.”
After Kenneth had helped Hillary to sleep, he slipped away and began walking through the dimly lit palace. Most everyone else was asleep as well as it was nearly one a.m. But one woman was still awake, so awake that she had left her door unlocked for him, knowing that he would be coming soon as he did many nights before.
Entering Donna's room, he soon found himself on top of her. His wife's mind was crumbling and so too were her sexual desires. He found that with Donna, her mind fresh as new wildflowers, was a way to restore his memories of one's first falling in love.
“I don't know if I would object to your throwing of her in prison,” the queen said to her king as they walked toward their master-room.
“I'll have her imprisoned and have Oliver killed for crimes against masculinity,” the king laughed. “Him and his little pecker,” the queen added.
Walking through the hall, Brian noticed as they passed a painting of his parents, King Matthew and Queen Heather, that it was slightly crooked. Fixing it, and then stepping back to look at it, Brigid made a comment. “Your parents died so young, but long live the king and his queen.”
King Brian and Queen Brigid's coronation, held on the 25th of May, on a beautiful spring day. (1931)
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Chapter 64
EPISODE 87
3:2:7:64
DAY #1
When you draw something, for example, a face, you start out with an eye or perhaps a jawline and this tells you where everything else will be positioned. If you don't follow some kind of logical positioning based on what we can see in the realworld, and you simply draw all the facial features where ever you please with total disregard for realism, you end up drawing something that looks like the incoherent mess of a dream. I think they call those types of paintings abstract paintings, I'm not sure. “Lynne, what do you call those crazy weird looking paintings?” “Surreal paintings.” “What are abstract paintings?” “You know those paintings where it looks like the painter just threw paint on to the canvas, usually it's those or just very simple paintings.”
Okay so they are called surreal paintings. I think of the pair differences between surreal paintings and realistic paintings, and the dreamworld and the realworld. The major difference seems to be, again, logical positioning. Reality has fixed points of reference while fiction has no fixed points. But what really are the fixed points? What keeps everything here in our world fixed in place and logical as opposed to the dreamworld where everything is chaos? Could it be the fact that our realworld is governed by physical laws while the dreamworld is not?
And this wouldn't just apply to visual arts besides. When you write your first sentence in a novel, it is no different than the first stroke of your brush. And in fiction, we can choose to play by the rules or not.
I wonder if fate could be one of those fixed points. Does fate apply to our dreams?
Perhaps fate is actual in the realworld but in the dreamworld fate is not applicable because there are no rules there. If fate is governed by physical laws in this world, and there are no laws in the dreamworld, then fate would not be actual in the dreamworld. But then you have to consider the fact that our brains reside in the realworld while we operate in the dreamworld, and if anything, the neural processes going on in the brain are influenced by physical law.
Getting out of the car, Lynne removed Kirby from it and strapped him to her chest.
Sara, Dave and I grabbed all of our luggage and we said goodbye to our driver. I turn around and see the inn that we would be staying in for an entire month.
When we got inside we saw some families and couples eating in a dining area.
Someone named Dobbie eventually came and helped us to our rooms. Like before, we were given two rooms with the same arrangements.
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Asked if we were hungry, we said yes, and after fixing ourselves into the establishment, all 4.1 of us went down into the dining area to eat lunch. We ate quickly and made it a quick affair. Even Kirby wanted to get out of the public and into the confines of four walls.
When we went back up the stairs and to the floor of our rooms, we went to go see what Sara and Dave's room was like, and we learned that, of course, it was no different than our own save the fact that they had two beds.
“This is a nice little inn, don't you think?,” she asked her kids. “It's beneath me,”
Dave responded. We all laughed, and even Kirby seemed to enjoy the joke. A moment later, Lynne received a call from Lisa asking if we made it in one piece and if her son was good.
Glancing out of the window, I began to see people in costumes walking through the street. Then suddenly I heard music. I went to the window and others followed, and soon we were all gazing upon some kind of royal parade. People were dressed as kings and queens and princesses and princes, some riding in coaches, others horses, and we all wondered what holiday we must have landed on in this country.
DAY #2
In the morning while it was still night and before the day really began, Lynne borrowed a stroller from the inn and I joined her in walking through the town with Kirby.
Taking a step I felt a small sharp pain in my foot which must have come from the time I got a small piece of glass stuck in it. It's a pain that comes and goes once or twice a month.
Walking through the town was not much different than walking through America. It had trees. Flowers. Buildings. Cars. People. Streets. What is that over there? Oh, that's just a soccer ball.
Sometime into the walk when there was sunlight all around, we finally made it to the park. No one else was there and we decided to sit on one of the benches. After I had noticed a circle with a dot in the middle on the ground, I took out my phone to write in a note, but this was when I saw the last note I took.
“I forgot to tell you about what I was writing into my phone on the airplane,” I said to her. “Oh yeah, what was your most unusual idea?” “Remember how we both said we've had picnic dreams of eachother? If those are our other lives, what if other people can give you pieces to your other lives that you do not have access to?” She began thinking about it.
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I have a prosthetic as well, but in the dream I told you about a long time ago I don't have a prosthetic. And sometimes I have present-time dreams where I don't have a prosthetic.
So any dream that I have with you, or have some awareness of you, I have a fake foot, which would make sense since I didn't know you before my surgery.” She associated her life with me with having a prosthetic foot, which could mean the associations you have with other people could influence what lives you see. And of course, if you keep associating with the same people and doing the same things in real life, it will become standard. It's not until you meet someone new or go some place new that your life will begin to change, which is obvious.
“So when you have a dream and I am in your memorysphere, you will have a fake foot. You always have to study the objects and people and places in your dreams. Maybe even in waking life,” I said to her.
She brought up her forearm and wiped it on me. “...Did I spit on you?” “Yeah man.”
“Sorry, my bad.”
“What if one day I have a dream from the perspective of sitting on your lap on the picnic bench?,” she asked. “Then we'd know we can see our other lives together.”
There was a break in the conversation as she tended to Kirby, and when she leaned back into her seat I told her the following. “Anytime you have a dream that even remotely concerns me, you must relay it to me just in case I have a dream that concerns your dream. Because, think about it, let's say I have a dream and realize that an object is moved but I don't know why or how it was moved, or even when, you might have the dream where you moved it, and that would answer my question.”
She started laughing outloud and I smiled. “We're fucking crazy. I hope we're not making Kirby crazy just by hearing all of this,” she said. We were probably a little bit crazy, but I didn't think we were that crazy. If two people's lives are heavily intertwined, sometimes you don't have the dream story within you, and sometimes it's others that have your missing pieces.
“Since we're talking about dreams so much, there was something I wrote a while back but I never showed it to you. Do you want to see it?” “Yes.”
She went through her phone and then handed it to me to read it: Conscious dreaming, in between the state of dreaming in sleep and being fully awake, your mind is making connections and observations about the universe. When we do this in dreaming, it's chaos and there is no logic. When we do it in waking life, it's uninspired. But when we're doing it in this realm, we have a shot at creativity.
“I understand it but can you explain it more.” “So when we dream, our minds are making connections and observations about the universe but it's chaos and illogical. And when we are fully awake, we can still make those connections but they aren't as 23 | EPISODE 87
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imaginative as the ones in the dreamstate. But when you are like, daydreaming or something and you are inbetween both worlds, you have a hybrid and create wonderful ideas.”
I shook my head. “I see, I see. I could kiss you.” “Please, not in front of Kirby.” A moment later, another couple with a stroller walked up to us. They were like our mirror image; a man and a woman with a baby boy in their stroller. They were full of life and struck up an energetic conversation with us. I followed along with Lynne, who was the mother's baby and of course I, the father. We had been married nearly eight years. Maybe in some other world Lynne and I were legally married with a biological son, but that wasn't the case in this one.
DAY #3
After receiving instructions on how to get to the rollerskating rink, the five of us took a bus to that district. It is the first activity we are all doing since we've arrived. I've never been rollerskating before, which probably is not a shock to you, but hearing from people who ought to know, supposedly Lynne was a rollerskating queen.
When we walked into the facility it was packed with people. Someone helped us with payment and with the rollerskates. David volunteered himself to look over Kirby, who he nicknamed Mordecai, but really he wanted nothing to do with the festivities and would rather browse things on his cellular device. Of course Lynne and Sara picked the prettiest of the skates; I was left with gray ones. If you've ever wondered what colors I primarily wear, they are black, brown and gray. Not that I have anything against men who prefer colorful clothing, but I've always felt like they were best worn on girls and women. As for men wearing clearly feminine clothing, as in dresses and lingerie, that's not something I'd like to see with my own eyes. Of course I don't think there is anything wrong with it, but the sight of a very feminine woman is sacred to me. I find it instinctively offensive, in that reasoning because I was raised in a time when women wear dresses and men wear suits, but I don't find it consciously offensive, as in when I really think about it, it doesn't bother me. Do you.
Today Lynne is wearing a red shirt with blue jeans and a red shoe. Sarah a yellow shirt with black jeans and white shoes. The three of us began putting on our skates, the ones with four wheels in the shape of a rectangle, and one by one rolled onto the rink and the blaring music really became audible then.
I learned that skating is not too hard if all you do is move forward, but before I even went a few feet Lynne was already skating backward. In between the skill-level was Sara, who too was skating forward like me but was sprinting down the skateway through all of 24 | EPISODE 87
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the people.
When I looked back at Lynne she was dancing to the music and still skating backward and looking directly at me. The way she moved her legs to the music was like an illusion as she made unconnected eights. And all of a sudden, Sara was approaching lapping us when she slowed down and skating directly behind me and then began to push me to go faster.
Giving me momentum I skated toward Lynne and she stuck her hands out for me to grab them. I saw Sara speed skate again down the skateway and when I looked back at Lynne I asked her where she learned to skate like that. “Emily.” That made sense.
When I let go of her hands she turns around and begins skating forward like a normal person, but decided to put her hands in her pockets and skate in snakes before me.
When Sara zoomed past us for the second time, I saw her hop into the air and and do a 180-turn to look back at us, and I learned that she too had the ability to skate backward.
It probably wasn't that hard to skate backward, but I didn't feel like finding out.
Now Lynne has taken her hands out of her pockets and does repeated 180-turns almost in a way like she is spinning. Every time she has her face toward me, she gives me a strange expression, and doing our first lap, we find David and Kirby watching us. David shouted something at me, but I couldn't hear him over the blaring music.
When Sara was preparing to lap us again, Lynne took it as a challenge and began chasing her. Sara must have heard the speeding Lynne yell something at her because she looked back briefly, started laughing, and then started going even faster. As she chased her around the rink, I finally did my own backward skating so I could see the expressions on their faces.
“She's trying to murder me!,” Sara yelled laughing as she sped past me. Then Lynne sped past me and I could see her laughing. Each time they passed, they looked like they were having more and more fun, until finally Sara slowed down out of tiredness and hugged my body. “Protect me,” she said. And soon after, Lynne slowed down and put her arms around both of us. I couldn't imagine how fast both of their hearts must have been beating.
When the two let go of me, Lynne grabbed and then hugged her daughter, telling her she caught her. Despite the murder, Sara hugged her mother back. I can say that it was an unusual sight. No one in our family is what you would call a hugger. None of us hug eachother when a person is leaving. We barely say bye to eachother. And while none of us are really huggers, when hugging does occur, it's usually Lynne or Sara hugging me to show affection because they have certain feelings toward me as they are both female, but they rarely hug eachother. It was just unusual, that's all.
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DAY #4
On the first Friday in the inn we were invited to have dinner with everyone who was currently residing there. It was a custom of theirs to eat together in the evening every Friday. None of us wanted to but if we didn't we would look rude. I wouldn't mind looking rude by myself but I didn't want to subject them to my offensives.
Watching Lynne change Kirby's diapers, I thought about how uncomfortable it was going to be around all those people. And I knew Lynne was thinking the same thing. And I knew Dave and Sara in their own abode weren't that far off in that psychosphere. The only person who probably wasn't going to mind was Kirby, but that remains to be seen.
Once Lynne had finished dressing him up, she dressed herself up. Her nails had already been red but now so were her lips. Her shoe had already been black but now so were her lashes. Her long blue dress sent blood coursing through my veins as she walked past me and I caught a shimmer of her red rosed ring.
I was taught the misconception that when in your body, blood is blue, but when exposed to oxygen, it turns red. And because she makes me stupid with lust, I'll believe that lie, because she has cut me in ways leaving me unable to breathe. And like someone out of a murder-mystery book, I watch her silently. Her facial expressions, her actions, the only thing I can't see are her thoughts.
As she stood in front of a desk, I walked up behind and took hold of her right hand. I drew it forward onto the desk and made her index finger most prominent. From my peripheral, my eyes were still on her hand, I could see her head tilt just a little to look toward me but not look actually at me, and I could feel her mind wonder what it was that I was going to do. And with that wonder, I know that the tiniest most imperceptible smile grew onto her face.
I began to draw, on the wooden desk, the invisible letter of “Q.” Followed was a “U”
and then two “Es” and stopped after the “N.” I waited for her to repeat the word outloud.
“...Queen,” she said. And then I followed with an “O” and an “F,” then waited again.
“...Of.” And then I started again with an “M,” then a “Y” and an “S” and a “T” and an
“E” and an “R” and finally a “Y.”
I looked at her and could see her blushing, which told me she knew what I was trying to say. “Queen of Mystery,” she said finally looking at me, the red blush slowly fading away.
When we were all dressed in some kind of formal wear, we went downstairs for the dinner occasion. Dobbie seated us and we sat at the table which had already had some people there. For the next few minutes, the rest of the visitors spilled into the area.
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sitting six seats to my left, as he was asking the couple who arrived only a day before us what their names were. Their names were Dorian and Sabriana. And as the night went on, each adult that Lynne and I made eye contact with would greet us and tell us their names.
There was Briana and her husband who simply went by Briggs. Another named Kendra and her husband who went by Hilo. At one moment during it all someone offered us a bottle of wine but Lynne politely rejected it. “You don't drink?,” Auburn asked. “Well, more for me,” she laughed retreating the bottle.
Someone across from us I could tell was eager to learn how Lynne and I met. And I found I was right. “How did you two meet?,” Dorene asked. I gestured at Lynne. “I moved into his apartment building,” she answered. “You're a landlord?,” she asked me.
“No, I mean he was already living there when I moved in, we became neighbors” Lynne explained further. “You know what's the worst thing about having a boring meeting story? Your wife is always asking others how they met and trying to live vicariously through them,” her husband, Jefford, told us. Dorene then told us they met the same exact way and laughed the conversation away.
A moment after this, rain began to tap against the windows. When that moment passed, the rain become stronger and a distant thunder crash could be heard miles away.
“Hope the lights don't go out,” Jefford said aloud, “because then we might have a murder-mystery on our hands!,” he said laughing egregiously.
Across from David was a girl who seemed to be David's age, and I could tell Dave was a bit shy about having to be sat directly opposite her. I'm not sure if Lynne or Sara noticed this, but in all likelihood the girl was shy about it, too.
Some people had begun to ask us about Kirby, and Lynne told them that he was a baby we were babysitting for a neighbor and that he wasn't ours. She must have calculated that if she had played the game of lies again someone would be wiser to it as we would be seeing many of these people over many days in the coming weeks.
As the time dragged on and as the weather became worse, so did it take a toll my comfort. All of the food and all of the fine drinks were more visible to me now than they were an hour before. And all of the men in their formal wear and their ridiculous ways of speaking were beginning to bother me. Even the women in their dresses and make-up were beginning to frustrate me. The sacred sight of the woman was no longer sacred to me, only the sight of Lynne didn't make me feel nauseous.
Lynne was as well dressed as any of the other women at the table, but what made her appear less snobby? Maybe I am unfair and biased towards Lynne. That's what love does, it makes the logical illogical. Short of castrating me she was now able to get away with anything and avoid my judgment.
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attractive but it also is not evil and is actually even something we are encouraged to pursue. That should scare you. That the majority of the world doesn't label that as evil but actually as something to be dreamed. And the people who do see it as evil and even have powerful feelings about it, their feelings are not powerful enough about it for them to say anything about it. At least not in any authoritative way. Poverty is not a natural state. It is not even a default state. It is not something that nature endorses. At least, I don't think so, maybe I am wrong. It seems to me that it is created by man, knowingly or unknowingly, because part of evil is a consciousness so deprived it is not even aware of itself.
Maybe that's why Lynne isn't a snob to me even if it were her dream to dress like a queen. I know she is aware at a deep level. I can also say I don't know these other people that well, certainly not well enough to gauge their awareness, but I also know I'm not going to stick around here long enough to find out.
Almost done with my plate of food, I became even more lost in my thought through the thunder.
...I have been exposed to things that disrupt the natural human order. When one dies of nature it is a reunion of the spirits, but when one dies of an accident, or something not involved in nature, like a brutal killing, there is a disruption that occurs. And I feel that in my witnessing of these un-natural experiences, my own human order has been disrupted beyond repair. I've seen with my own eyes so many gruesome deaths. I have seen crushed heads, extremities severed, bodies chopped in half, intestines hanging from the torso like strange spaghetti. But none of these have kept me from sleeping at night. There is only one thing that follows me into my nightmares. It is the crushed head in which the facial features remain intact. It is a horror I feel in my core that I cannot fully grasp or understand or explain. You see the brain matter and meat and the soft tissue lying on the pavement behind a face that somehow had not also been destroyed, sometimes the mouth still a little open and the eyes out of their sockets deep into the head making the eyes like black holes, and it's almost as if the the soul is still alive within this person and stuck between the world of the living and the world of the dead, in intense pain, because the natural order of death has been interrupted by murder or accident. You look at that face and you are looking at true disorder. True chaos in an otherwise reasonable world. And I have found no resolution in this nightmare. The closer I get to the truth, the less meaning I find...
DAY #5
When the dinner occasion was finally over at midnight, the four of us said goodbye to the others who were also on their way back to their rooms. Dave and Sara were in so 28 | EPISODE 87
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much of a hurry they went on before us and I waited as Lynne picked up a sleeping Kirby. As we walk back to our room, we don't say a word to eachother but we can hear that it is still raining and thundering outside.
Lynne set Kirby aside in a crib located in Sara and Dave's room and then left and went into our bathroom, speaking to me as she did her lady things. “You have to find out what you're going to say for the next three Fridays so none of us have to go through that again,” she said. I laughed, but it was a laugh tainted with fear as I had no idea yet what I would say.
When she walked back out of the bathroom she was still in blue, but in sleeping clothes and without makeup, yet when looking at me on the bed her cheeks turned blush.
She knew exactly what I was hinting at when I called her the queen of mystery, so I don't know why her body was excited in that way. I'm not sure if it was the act of intercourse in a foreign room that was not in my apartment that made her shy, but whatever it was, it was only making me more attracted to her.
After she walked over to the door and locked it, and then turned off the lights so the entire room was dark, she made her way back to me and I could see her silhouette taking off her clothes. I began to do the same and by that time she was on the bed. She lifts one leg over me and then sits on top of me and positions herself to be more comfortable. As she leans forward toward my face, she drags the blanket with her so that we are fully covered, and I knew then that her blush was gone but that it was there before because we weren't at home.
She reached back and I felt her guide me in, then she wrapped her arms around me and I did the same. We were limited to soft, slow and silent thrusts. It was gentle but we felt everything together. With her breasts laid out on my chest and her face so pressed against mine we were eventually down eachother's throats. When she removed her mouth from mine there was a gentle flash of lightning that entered the room and for a second we could both see a skinny line of saliva that connected my mouth to hers.
I slightly re-positioned the both of us, she was now more on top of me as she pressed her left breast into my mouth. My tongue flipped her hardened jutting nipple up and down and then I made to swallow as much of her breast as I could into my mouth. I was sucking so hard that when I sucked off of it and her nipple pressed against my face, it felt even harder and seemed slightly more jutted than when it was in my mouth. I moved my face so that it could re-enter my mouth and began sucking even harder than before and during this I could feel her vagina squeeze me. She let out the tiniest sound, and my body responded by multiple times, one after the other, pumping her full of my seed.
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insatiable. I take my skirt modest and my lingerie seductive. I take my smile kind and my sunrise bright. I take my love lightning and my romance thunder. I take my woman strong and my flower soft. I take my ocean deep and my queen mysterious.
We paused for a moment, and then started again, she leaning into my face and stuffing her mouth into mine. Despite the gentle movements, the orgasm came faster this time. Our tongues tied I felt her vagina squeeze again and let out a sound into my mouth, and while it wasn't as much as the first time, I knew that when I removed myself from her there would be a brief creamy leak.
At that same moment, we heard one of the panels outside smack against the window.
It scared her and nearly made her jump. “Probably the wind,” she said. I got up to go check after putting on clothes and when I looked out of the window I could barely see anything except that it was extremely windy outside. One of the streetlights was actually beginning to wobble. “Come look at this,” I said as she put on her clothes.
After some time we noticed that there were many things wobbling outside because it was so windy, and right after we noticed the wobbly roofs across the street, there was a knock at our door. I went and opened it and saw that it was Dobbie who still had sleep in her eyes.
She explained to me that they had received some kind of report for possible tornadoes, and glancing inside seeing Lynne stand at the window, she quickly told her not to stand in front of it. “Don't look out the windows, please close the boards. Things are liable to fly in here. Nature is a wild thing. Don't worry though, worst-case we'll have to go into the basement.”
Once she was finished with us I went into the next room to check on Kirby, Sara and Dave. The two siblings of course were still wide awake and either on a cellphone or a laptop. I saw that their boards were already closed, and then told them that Dobbie was talking about possible tornadoes and in the worst-case, we would have to go down into the basement.
When I returned to Lynne I saw that she was standing in the middle of the room looking at her phone. I made my way to bed and suddenly a song began playing from her phone which probably happened because she was watching something. She immediately began laughing at it and a few seconds later started doing little stupid dance moves to it while she looked at me. She kind of looked like one of those dancers who dance with loose clothing flying around them in the wind.
I got up with the blanket and handed it to her, and then put my hands on her hips and lifted her up onto the table behind her. She was confused but didn't say anything.
I then went to each window and opened it, each one when opened brought more and more whirlwind into the room. Eventually there was enough wind in the room that the 30 | EPISODE 87
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blanket I gave her was beginning to dance.
I sat down on the chair before her and this time remembered to put on a good song so she didn't call me a genius like she did last time.
The spirit of the floral blanket became her spirit, and its dance too became her dance.
She twirls like the wind of the whirls outside, stepping forward and back and sometimes raising the blanket over her head to fly. And sometimes she brings the blanket lower to her waist to shift it back and forth as if it were a skirt. Ever since I can remember she has always been my delusion, my dream, my fantasy. She smiles at me gently, and then breaks into another fully circle twirl, but she loses her balance and missteps off the table into the air. She began falling toward the ground, but before she could make impact with it she made impact with me. I had gotten up quickly and saved her. Holding her, I looked into her mysterious eyes and told her, “I take my tornado royal and my wife fantastic.”
DAY #6
Spheres and circles. The insistence of thermal equilibrium by the universe suggests this pattern could and should be found elsewhere. In many areas of the functions of the universe, we should find the pattern of equal distribution. One such discovery comes from the study of geometry and the shape of the sphere (or circle).
The most basic definition of the sphere (or a circle) is: the distance from the true center to any of its edges is equal. This means if you measure from the true center of a sphere to any of the edges of the sphere (or circle), you will always find the same exact distance. This in essence is exactly what a sphere (or circle) is, as you cannot establish this fact in other shapes, such as an oval, or a triangle, or a square, or any polygonal entity.
This makes the sphere extremely special and especially unique. I also believe that perhaps through the natural selection of concepts, the universe has designated the shape of the sphere as a cornerstone of every aspect of itself, and perhaps even the shape of itself itself. The sphere is prevalent in aspects of the universe and is a shape we will see every day of our lives in some form or another. But it is also important to note why the universe would choose such a shape over others.
I believe the sphere is so prevalent and so chosen by the universe because of the very fact that at its true center, every distance to the edge is equal, maintaining its insistence of equal distribution. In any informational system, such as an atom, designating the true center as the location where all activity will pass through also means when relaying information from the true center to any edge, it will be able to reach that edge in the fastest way possible without causing disadvantage to reaching other edges as the distance 31 | EPISODE 87
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to all edges are equal. This structure of the sphere indeed is very logistical, and what we know of nature through natural selection only suggests that its main priority is efficiency.
When I woke up this morning I took out my laptop to write the above paragraphs down as they were some things I felt were important. Lynne woke up soon after and began working. This was going to be a work day, as the vacation they supplied had the stipulation of still working the same hours but you would get an entire month with the entire vacation paid for.
When I finish writing I get up and go to the room next door. Kirby had still been sleeping but Dave and Sara were already up. I wonder if they slept at all?
“Wassup pops you trying to get that BattleZone in?,” Dave asked if I wanted to play the game on his DreamCube. “Where's mops?,” he didn't even let me answer. “...Mops?”
“Brooklynne,” Sara answered my question while looking at her phone.
I played one round with Dave until I admitted to him that I hated BattleZone. It was boring and repetitive and felt more like a job than a game.
I got up and walked toward Sara and laid down on the bed beside her. It wasn't my intention to, but I felt like I had some kind of responsibility to do something with Sara.
“You want to do something today?” “Like what?” “I don't know, take a walk and we'll see.” “I'm down.” “Should we ask Dave?” “He's going to say no.” “Dave you want to take a walk with us?” “No.”
We stopped by the other room to tell Lynne we were going for a walk and she told us to be careful.
When we made it outside we began walking toward the Sun. We passed by many stores until we walked inside one. It was a bookstore and Sara was interested in buying one to read while on vacation. We went away from eachother and I browsed without any intention to buy something for myself. Between me and you, I hate fiction and I hate writers. They're so self-important and self-involved. I could read non-fiction, I guess, and that's about all I have ever really enjoyed reading.
When I walk over to the non-fiction category, I saw more uninteresting books that I had no interest in. One of them was about the twins from the royal family of this country, Summer and June Flanagan.
When I met back up with Sara she had two books in her hands which both seemed to be about murder, mystery and romance. “I think mom will like these books, too, so I'm going to get these.”
After buying the books we went a bit further into town where we found a place to eat.
There we ate all kinds of meats. “Pass me some of that thigh,” I told her pointing in a certain direction. “Let me get some of that breast,” she asked pointing in another direction. “When we're done here I think I saw a place we passed that served ribs.”
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“Okay, we'll go there next,” she said with a mouth full of food.
Back at the inn I found Lynne in Dave's room feeding Kirby his bottle so we passed her and Dave the bag of food we brought for them. After they ate Lynne and I, along with Kirby, went back our room.
When we were situated and Lynne was sitting with Kirby, I noticed that he was finally able to hold his own head up by himself. This made me think of his future developments but also his eventual life as an adult human.
The circular theory proclaims that every thing cycles on forever, so if you commit suicide, according to this theory you are putting yourself in an eternal hell of suicide.
This is enough to scare some people into not doing it and even scaring them into living a meaningful and fulfilling life. But the inverse risk is living a long life full of suffering and pain and misery and never committing suicide. You are essentially dooming yourself to that same cycle of eternal hell, where killing yourself early in life would have saved you the trouble each time.
DAY #7
In the evening one of the servants came and knocked on our door. Lynne got up to answer it and the young man handed her a box that seemed to be a gift. She opened it, looked inside, and then brought it to me. When I looked inside, I saw two pairs of handcuffs and a key. Lynne was just as confused as I was.
We thought maybe it was one of the other guests trying to give us ideas, and soon after she closed the box, put it on the table, and then went back to work.
A few hours later it was past ten o'clock. I was reading an article about climate-change when Lynne decided to turn in for the night. “You coming to bed?,” she asked.
“No, I'll be a while,” I told her. She stood there and just stared at me. When I looked back up, I asked her why she was staring at me like that.
“The neighbors told me what you did,” she said. “What did I do?” She walked over to the box of handcuffs and took one out. “You were a bad boy yesterday,” she pointed toward the bed, “no more computer time, get on that bed now.” When I heard the sound of the angry motherly now I closed the laptop lid and ran onto the bed, and slowly she followed me with the handcuffs and the key in her hand.
Getting to me, she locked one cuff to the bed post and then locked the other to my wrist. She placed a knee on the edge of the bed and then her other leg over me so that she could sit on me. She slid her hands up and down my chest and at some point rubbed my shoulders.
“You know, mommy's been bad too,” she smiled. She uncuffed the cuff that was 33 | EPISODE 87
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locked to the bedpost and slowly locked it onto her own wrist. I was wondering where she was going with this.
With one arm she began to take off my pants, but at the same time she felt a pain in her handcuffed wrist and said it may have been too tight. She found the key and went to loosen it, but it seemed to be jammed. Fighting with it, nothing seemed to work to unjam it and all of a sudden we both saw the key break.
We simply looked at eachother, and after a moment I said “Okay, get off me please.”
I looked at the key and saw there was no way it was in any way still useful. I walked us both over to the box to see if there was a spare key. There was nothing.
I stared at her the same way she stared at me only a few moments ago. “You have been such a disappointment to me,” I told her, “You can't do anything right.” She looked away from me, “I'm sorry, daddy.” “Well, we're going to have to wait until everyone is asleep and then find a tool to break this thing, and then afterwards we'll talk about your punishment.”
We waited until two a.m. which seemed a fair time to assume that most people would be asleep. The first task was to place Kirby in the kids' room. Lynne carried him with one arm and I opened the doors to enter the kids' room. The light was off, Dave was slouched over with the game controller on his stomach and the game still paused. When I looked at the screen, I saw messages from Kane.
Sara was also asleep, sleeping with one of the novels she recently purchased opened on her lap. I told you fiction sucks.
Slowly but surely, we walked over to the crib and placed Kirby inside. Before leaving, Lynne gently tapped Sara, and when she woke up, she told Sara that Lynne and I were going for a walk and we would be back soon.
Going to open the door to walk out of it, just as soon we heard another door on this floor open. We shut the door. Waited for the person to walk by. And then we had to wait another ten minutes for the person to return.
Finally, we left the room and then walked down to the ground floor. After a bit of searching we found the way to the basement. Quickly we began looking for any tools that could free us; power saws, an axe, those giant scissor things, anything. We looked everywhere but there wasn't even anything that resembled these things.
“On our way here I think I saw a garage or storage shed in the back,” Lynne said. We left the inn and went that way. While walking, we saw a light turn on on the ground floor and we immediately ducked for cover. Once the light was turned back off, we walked further toward the garage. Fortunately for us, the door was unlocked.
Going inside we repeated the search we had done moments prior, and this time we found the giant scissor things, two axes, and more importantly, an electric circular saw-34 | EPISODE 87
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blade. When I went to power it, it seemed to be out of battery as the power of it was weak. “We have to find the power cord or the charger or something,” I told her. We searched the entire garage until we found a power cord that worked for it. I plugged it in and powered it again and this time it made a horrific sound you might find in a murder mystery novel. It was so loud that it couldn't possibly be used here without waking everyone who was sleeping in the inn.
“Charger?,” Lynne asked. So we started a search again. Luckily we found the charger quicker than we found the power cord and we placed it on the dock. The charger read
“4%.” It perhaps went up 2% every minute. Once it got to 8%, Lynne and I sat down on the ground of the dirty garage.
We were silent until 20% when she started talking about plans for tomorrow. Or rather, later in the day. She wanted to do something specifically for Kirby, and the things she suggested were the zoo, aquarium or just a walk in the city on a boardwalk. I said any of those were fine, but warned her that it was only going to be the three of us because the kids would not at all be interested in such things.
At 50%, Lynne moved from the side of me to sit in between my legs and this forced me to put my arm over her head and then bring it down around her abdomen. She leaned back into me, saying “Halfway there.”
At 75% she began speaking again, “You want to know how you're not in a bad relationship? When you do something stupid and you're not playing out how the conversation will go in your head with your partner because they are cool as hell.” I laughed. “Do you ever do that with me? Try to figure out how it will go because you think I'll be mad?,” she asked. “No, not at all,” I replied.
At 77% I thought about our friendship. You have to learn how to be friends in the beginning, because when the middle ends you will be forced to be friends again. I know her well, she knows me well, and we have both worked on ourselves and anything that could ever split us apart wouldn't come from the inside, it would have to come from the outside.
At 99% she got up and then I got up after her and we walked together to the power tool. The final step toward it resulted in 100%. I undocked it, she grabbed a flashlight, and we went outside. We began following a dirt-path trail that led into a wooded area.
When we walked far enough into the woods and felt that we wouldn't be heard, I did a quick power-up of the power tool and this scared the piss out of Lynne. I was laughing and I could tell she wanted so badly to smack me. I kept the tool going and we put our hands up to a tree and it was surprisingly easy to saw through it, and soon we were free from eachother.
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it was coming toward her wrist. When it made contact with her handcuff, she closed her eyes and never saw the sparks that were flying. I cut about 80% through and then stopped. When she heard the stopping, she opened her eyes and readjusted the flashlight a bit to see what I had done.
“Okay, look, your body is perfect the way it is, you are beautiful, hypnotizing, surreal,” I told her, “but I need your right hand to be as firm as possible for handjobs, so I don't want to cut too close to your wrist.” She looked at me and didn't say anything.
“What?,” I asked. “You forgot gorgeous, strong, creative, sexy, intelligent, wise, classy, elegant, funny and a bunch of other things,” she replied. When I laughed she laughed and began trying to break the rest of the handcuff off. When she was finally free, she moved her wrists around and was finally free of the tightness.
Shinning the flashlight on me, I began to saw through my own cuff. When I was 80%
through, I did the same exact thing she did and I was finally free of the cuff.
I tossed her my handcuff and after she caught it I told her it was a souvenir for our first vacation together.
Shining the flashlight ahead of us, we began walking back toward the inn. It was still dark out and sunrise was a ways away. It's funny. Women don't want you to put them on a pedestal because they are aware of their flaws, but at the same time that's all they want.
I moved closer to Lynne as we walked and I put my hand in hers, and we walked on toward home through the cooling twilight.
DAY #8
At noon I was sitting with Lynne on a bus and she had Kirby in her lap. We are on our way to an aquarium in the downtown area of the city. Not unlike any American city we knew, and the similarities of the people walking and cars driving and buildings standing, they made me think of recurring dreams.
Why do we have recurring dreams? I know that in waking life we repeat many things throughout the week. So many days of our lives are on a cycle. And these repetitive experiences might echo that concept into the subconscious mind. Into the dreamer. But thinking of the map of dreams I feel recurring dreams can occur for other reasons.
Back many years ago when I worked a stable job, sometimes I'd take a bus much like the one I'm on now to my workplace. And of course the route the bus took was exactly the same each day, which made my experiences on that bus drive to work largely the same.
The same way you might take the same route to work each day could echo the neural processes that occur when dreaming. Or what I'm really trying to say is that we may have 36 | EPISODE 87
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recurring dreams because the chemical process and routes taken neurotically could be repeating, causing you to have a certain dream. If within our brains our memories are stored like a nostalgic city, it would make sense that whatever route our neurons take to execute that memory in dreams could be repeated, or recurred, just by replicating that route.
I feel in the city of my mind, there is a deserted military town that I go through some nights. And in traveling through this town, it gives me the military dreams. I couldn't tell you where in my brain that military town is located, but it is in there somewhere, and every time a neuron fires a round through that town, I know I will have flashes of when I was in the military.
With Kirby strapped to her chest we walked into the aquarium. Lynne could see from the very first sighting of the fish that Kirby was deeply curious and interested in the marine life. As we walked past some of the fish, he would sometimes turn his head wildly to observe a certain fish, and then turn the other way wildly, almost hitting Lynne's chin, to observe another fish. Sometimes he would laugh hysterically when he saw multiple fish, and he may have died right there of happiness when Lynne brought him to the glass so he could reach out his arm and almost touch them.
When Lynne stepped back from the glass Kirby became upset and for the first time babbled something. Other than crying or laughter he had never once attempted to say anything, and while he didn't speak anything intelligible, we could tell he was trying to speak like a human.
Lynne brought him back to the glass and he was content again, but I could also see a discomfort in Lynne's face. When I asked her about it she told me that her stump was bothering her. She was able to continue walking until she wasn't and needed to sit down.
She felt as if she could not take another step because it was so sore. I asked her if I should get her a wheelchair. She hesitated and then eventually agreed.
I pushed her and Kirby throughout the aquarium and we saw many fish. Jewel tetras, golden shiners, silver dollars, rock beauties, pearl perches and queen parrotfish. The aquarium seemed to imitate the ocean very well, the only things missing must have been all the secrets hidden and lost within the oceans of our planet. These things, once they are lost, they will never be recovered.
Have you ever been lost in an underwater city in a dream? I'm not asking because I have, I'm just asking because I'm genuinely curious. How weird would a dream like that be? Trying to find your way probably through abandoned ruins. And then maybe you stumble across something that reminded you of someone you once knew in another life. I wonder if that something could be powerful enough to bring back old memories of them.
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DAY #9
With music in our ears Lynne and I went running down the dirt-path that was behind the storage-shed. Her stump was feeling better and she didn't want to miss the afternoon-run we had planned after finding the trail. When the trail ended abruptly, she continued on and I was only a few meters behind her, copying her every decision. I run behind her mostly to keep an eye on her but it is really because I'm slower than she is.
Eventually her invisible trail ended at a lake where we both stopped. After we both take off our headphones, I tell her that I hoped she remembered the way back. She didn't answer and just sat down on the grass just before the lake. I didn't sit down but instead laid down on the grass our feet pointing in opposite directions and my head near her hip.
Often she would run her hand across my neck or my ear petting and rubbing it. And she stopped when she suddenly remembered a dream she had two days ago. It was in the afternoon which she deduced meant it was while taking a nap. And of course it was a picnic dream.
She had just finished picking eight apples who were of the colors red, green and yellow. Each of them had dirt on them so she was walking back somewhere, she couldn't tell where, to wash and clean and cut them. But while walking back to this somewhere, she suddenly became lost. Her memory was failing her and she could not remember how to get to where she was going to. Once darkness settled and she was still lost, she found herself walking on an abandoned superhighway. For some reason, the highway had a sidewalk on it which she walked on for miles. After hours of walking, a city began to take shape in the distance. And in checking on the apples, she looked down and noticed that while she had on her old prosthetic, it was designed florally with roses.
When we got up we began making our way back toward the dirt-path but we could never find it. Of course we found ourselves lost in the wooded area and I suspected something like this would happen the moment the trail ended. As we walked around in circles, my mind went in circles, too.
Have you ever felt like the more you learn about something, the less sense it makes? I have this feeling and this thought often when thinking about the universe and all there is to know about it. I feel like the more I learn about the universe or even this small little world, the more confusion I have or the less sense it makes to me. I also feel like this is a joke from God.
Let's say you were the God of this universe and you created something so intricate that you didn't want any of its subjects to ever figure out how it worked or how you made it, what would you do? What I would do personally is make it so that the more knowledge and intelligence a subject gains, the more complicated or complex the 38 | EPISODE 87
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universe becomes. The more knowledge they attain through study, the more confusing it should all become, until they get to the point that absolutely nothing makes sense or it seems like they continue to hit a dead end.
I think God's trick is the irony of consciousness. Humans as intelligent creatures have a brain that helps us reason, but our brain and reasoning itself are why the universe and life can be so confounding. We have this amazing organ that can dream up complex concepts, but the way it is programmed may also be why we as human beings have a penchant for making simple things unreasonably complex. The one thing that allows you to reason was perhaps created by God so that you would not reason well. If we think about actual life that does not have a brain, the universe is simple and clear to them. A virus, a plant, they don't make complex things out of what is actually simple. But we humans, we create religions, fantasies, art and stupid books that try to explain why we are so stupid.
I can see this affect in the natural world, too. You take a theoretical water balloon with unlimited elasticity, which is the total knowledge of the universe, and you fill it with water, which is the total knowledge of the human, and as the water balloon is filled with water it also expands. This would be a demonstration of the idea that as we gain knowledge about the universe, the universe also becomes more complex, and we can never know the total amount of knowledge available. This would also demonstrate that as the water falls out, so too does the complexity of the universe decrease.
I do wonder if we can have such a satisfactory amount of knowledge of the universe that one day we can solidly answer one of the old questions, but if water balloons are real, as we increase in intelligence, the way we perceive the universe will only become more complicated itself.
We don't find the trail back to the inn, but we did happen upon a large field with a big white house in the distance. The people there knew of the inn we spoke of and gave us a ride back to it.
DAY #10
Moments that impacted the world greatly are often recorded, whether in history books or documentaries. And with these moments in time, for example pandemics or wars, you can clearly see the large-scale impacts these events have on the world from the onset. But when we study these events and the events they lead to from a mathematical context, we might discover that the great places we have given to these great events are entirely subjective.
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into the future, but what is the difference, really, between giving someone the flu or giving someone a dollar for a baseball card? The difference is causing a viral outbreak has very obvious and observable implications, whereas trading currency for an object has far lesser implications and to track it through fate might otherwise seem impossible; but tracking a virus to patient zero might seem far less intimidating.
This might suggest that all events, through the impassionate and objective eyes of the universe, and the chain of events that they produce, that they are all exactly equal in value. We may see the devastating effects from the decision to enter war, but a nameless person walking down a road has the same right to fundamentally changing the world.
Kirby was asleep by the late evening. Like some old married couple from a sitcom, Lynne and I laid on the bed in our room and watched a crime documentary on the television set before us.
The crime actually happened in this country, not too far from where we are now, back in the nineties and concerned royalty. A prince and a princess were found murdered but the crime was never solved.
As the documentary dragged on, I began thinking about Lynne's most recent picnic dream. I tried to go to sleep last night and force a picnic dream but of course that didn't work. If only there were ways to induce certain dreamlines. Maybe lucid dreaming has a way of making that work, but I doubt that. But wouldn't that be cool. Knowing every time you go to sleep you will leave where you left off just like in your actual reality.
A sudden lean forward by Lynne was accompanied with a sudden scream. I hadn't noticed that she had fallen asleep and just woke up from what I'm currently assuming was a nightmare. “What?,” I grabbed her shoulder.
The nightmare indeed was caused by the documentary we were watching. She told me it took place decades ago and was about a royal murder. Everything else was a hazy memory to her, but what woke her up was being a witness to the murder.
When she saw the documentary was still on, she got up promptly to turn it off and then came back to bed. “Now I'm not going to be able to fall asleep,” she cried.
Her dream made me wonder why the dreamworld can be so frightening to us even though it isn't real. It also makes me think; what is the real difference between a dream and a memory ten years removed?
Let's say you had a dream ten years ago. It was about meeting someone. And then let's say you have a real event ten years ago. It was about leaving someone. In ten years, both the dream and the event are stored simply as memories, so what is truly the difference between the two? I would say nothing really except one thing; the consequences of the event. The dream of meeting someone has no real consequence in your actual reality, while the event of leaving someone will affect you for the rest of your 40 | EPISODE 87
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life. It will affect this world and affect other people, whether this be ten years later or a thousand. In that respect, even though the dream and the event are only a memory with the same significance in your brain, in reality the event is still shaping reality. But other than that, when I think back on my dreams, they reside in the same city as the events of my past, and this must have been one of the reasons for my psychosis.
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Chapter 65
HALOWEEN 1950
3:2:7:65
Prince Kenneth addresses the media about the Mega Church scandal regarding his son. (1942)
THOSE who love to celebrate Halloween often do so because it is a night where they get to be something they are probably not. Secrets of the inner psyche are put on display, and tonight, everyone has a secret they are hiding.
Cassandra Flanagan, who three years ago used to be known as Cassandra Holiday before she wed Jeremy Flanagan, was walking from her home with her husband, of which was a modest home on an unmodest estate. They walked together to the grand castle, where tonight they were celebrating a jubilee on Halloween night.
Her costume was that of an angel dressed all in white with a golden halo above her head. And his costume was that of a demon dressed in the powerful colors of black and red.
When the pair got to the entrance of the castle, they noticed a banner hanging over the door welcoming celebration. It read “Happy Haloween!”
Jeremy squinted at the banner, more squinted at the word that was supposed to be the name of the holiday. “I don't think that's how you spell Halloween,” he suggested. When Cassandra heard this, she looked up from inside her purse to the banner, saying, “That is definitely not how you spell Halloween.”
At one of the bars in which was in close proximity to the party-goers sat Princess Brittney who was drinking alcohol, drinks that when consumed enough of was like an inducer of secrets. While the princess, who tonight was dressed to be Cinderella, was not at all drunk enough to spill unwarranted secrets, she did so anyway fully aware of its consequences.
“Have any of you the knowledge that Cassy lost her virginity at fifteen to some random strange older man?,” she said aloud to Wayne, Dorothy and Jeffrey. “Probably she is a whore,” Brittany said the final word louder than the rest. The three looked at eachother but didn't say a word. Wayne, who she had married three years earlier, knew why she spoke of such things and why she spoke of them in such ways. The princess was jealous of Cassandra, because Cassandra, who had her wedding to Jeremy not long after Brittany's to Wayne, was a far more exciting and memorable wedding day, and Brittany ought to thought that this was intentional on Cassandra's part. This was not known to Jeff and Dottie, who remained confused as to why she would say these things in this way.
“She's just drunk,” Wayne, costumed as a zombie, whispered to the two, who were costumed as a soldier and a witch.
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All of a sudden they were joined by Sabrina who came to them in the guise of a black cat. She greeted them all but greeted Dorothy most highly because many years ago Douglas had made advances toward her but Princess Dottie refused them. And it went without saying that while Sabby and Dougy were still married, they were essentially separated.
Sabrina did not join them to stay as she grabbed Princess Dorothy and the witch and the black cat walked away from the party and into one of the private rooms in the castle.
It was no surprise that the two were soon to engage in gossip, and it was no surprise that people celebrate everything because they have nothing else to do.
“I didn't want to say this in front of the others, but apparently there are rumors going around that my sister has had a recent psyche evaluation and the diagnosis was not good,”
Sabrina said of the queen. “Do you mean, like, what happened to Hillary?,” Dottie asked.
“No, no,” Sabrina said of the deceased, “I mean, like, she might be deranged.” A sight of shock grew on Dottie's face as she took in the information.
A moment passed. “...Guess what I just found out?,” Dorothy said smiling. “What?,”
Sabrina inched closer. “Cassy is a whore and she lost her virginity to some strange old man when she was only fifteen, she didn't lose it to Jerm!” Sabrina was shocked. All this time she had thought Cassandra was literally an innocent little angel.
Entering the party hall, Cassandra and Jeremy continued their walk deeper into the castle so that they could join the others in celebration. As they walked, Jeremy began to speak, “And now I walk upon the land,” he joked and his wife laughed.
When they reached the others, Jeremy saw his brother, Jeffrey, drinking at a bar. He walked to him and greeted him, and his brother greeted him back, not knowing that it was his own brother who betrayed him many years ago and broke the news that Jeffrey was having an affair with Karen Gray, the wife of one of the most successful pastors in the history of the land. The scandal made worldwide international news and for a brief period brought shame to not only Jeff but to the Flanagan's as a whole, but there is no amount of money that can't refurbish a tarnished reputation.
Before the brothers could depart, along came their father, Prince Kenneth, dressed as a football player, who harbored one of the worst secrets in the castle. After the scandal, he was so wrought with shame that he attempted to have his son killed. The attempt on his son's life was a failure, and after the failure Ken was so afraid of being found out that he called it off and never spoke of it again. But still, every day and every time he sees his son, he feels nothing but shame and regret for having brought him into the world.
Donna, dressed to be a man in a suit with a fake beard and mustache, was told by a service staff member to see Donald outside. When she found him, still wearing the hockey mask he had tossed on because he nearly forgot about the fact that it was 43 | HALOWEEN 1950
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Halloween, he pointed to the banner and she read the words. “That's not how you spell Halloween,” she suggested. And the two went inside immediately to find the imbecile who was not familiar with the English language. When they did, they were just as immediately fired and told to pack their belongings and to not still be at the residence by the time the festivities were over. And yet, Donald would have never been hired if it was known he had past ties to racist organizations and Donna should have been fired on the spot if anyone ever found out she slept with Kenneth and had his son while Hillary was still alive and in her final years.
Back in the party hall the music was loud as ever as the hired band played their rock and roll, a relatively new sound to a relatively old spirit. And just past the party hall was a large extravagant bathroom on the first floor that at present was the location of Spencer, the king and queen's youngest son who was dressed as a cowboy, Vivian, Sabrina and Douglas's youngest daughter who was dressed as Bloody Mary, and Shelly, Aubry and Alex's first and only child who was a decade old and dressed as a princess.
Every person born into this world has won a lottery, and though the prize may vary from family to family, these three children have won the jackpot of all jackpots. Born into royalty, their past is unblemished and their future cannot be stained. But to all ticket holders, though you did not purchase your ticket, you will be the one to scratch it.
Spencer in his cowboy costume was not entirely interested in what the girls were doing; that was tempting fate in front of the bathroom window that looked out into a great and wonderful field of nature. In the darkness before them, Vivian recited facts of Bloody Mary that were told to her would reveal the face of her future husband. When this did nothing, she wondered if she was doing something incorrectly. Nevertheless, she gave up trying and began to speak to Shelly of what she envisioned her future husband to be. Tall, powerful, handsome and adventurous, but strange, exactly like her crush, Jeffrey Flanagan, who each time she has observed she has fallen deeper into love with.
The man who was opposite the attraction to her was her father, Douglas, who arrived at the celebration late and alone, dressed as a hotdog because he could not find any of his other costumes. And Doug, who more or less had fallen out of favor with most of the family members saw another pair of disliked family members and joined them at their table.
After greeting them, Oliver and Reagan, dressed as Superman and Superwoman, invited him to sit down and have something to eat. They talked much of meaningless things, but as Reagan watched her queen daughter, dressed as a pharaoh, dance on the floor with her husband, dressed as a jester, she thought of nearly half a century ago when she contemplated aborting Brigid because Oliver was not her biological father.
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married pair went on to discuss a rumor that Reagan had only recently become privy to.
“Did you know that Cassandra lost her virginity to some strange older homeless man?,”
Reagan asked Oliver. Oliver was shocked. “She is an ignorant young woman. She is young, yes, but I was young once too and I have never been that ignorant,” Reagan finished.
Just past the music of the band were Prince Brian II and his wife Princess Leah. The prince was dressed as a masked thief in all black who also carried a fake firearm, and the princess a very generalized ghost in white. They were playing poker with Princess Aubry and her artist husband Alex, of whom were dressed as a woman in a flapper dress with a cigarette and a vampire, respectively. The secrets harbored by these four were as follows: one had six toes, one was engaged in an affair with Fiona Walsh, one had raped a woman in the past but it would eventually come to light, and one had become bitter at Brittany because she was young and beautiful and had taken her place as the female face of the family.
In the final round of this game, Brian II and Aubry had folded and all of the cards were on the table. Despite the vast riches between the four, like their lives nothing was at stake. When Leah placed down a pocket pair of diamond and heart kings, which matched a spade king on the table, this gave her a three of a kind. This rattled Alex who believed beforehand he had had the game won with his own hand. He slammed down his club queen, which matched a pair of spade and heart queens on the table. “You're cheating,”