Now we speak of drama. Edith knew of events in Philadelphia. She's had a special relationship with Doctor Franklin for ages. He has 'talents' and she has 'talents.' That's just how it is. They both want to help Tomas. Magic finds a way. So she signaled to the two little snoops in the dark shadows of the midnight Pines. Horsey Skeezix (a juvenile Jersey Devil) touched his chest and said - Me?.... The witchy woman nodded... And Pin Head Mel too - she said. So they stepped out into the low, candlelight and approached the rustic porch. Edith wasn't worried 'bout Mister Edith, or their Red Paint People company. They were already sawin' wood after all that booze from those fancy little bottles. Like The Three Stooges they snored.
Edith whispered - I got business for you two in Philadelphia... They stared wide eyed. Unusual and mythological juvenile beings from The New Jersey Pine Barrens love drama... special missions and all that. They love jaunts into the city too. If ever a place had a fantastical, storybook name, Philadelphia was it. Philo-delphia... City of Brotherly Love... Frank L. Baum couldn't create any better. Tiny, Center City streets with small, below grade shops straight out of Diagon Alley. Who needs hot, sun-burny, Florida amusement parks when you got this? Old, certifiably haunted, vast, dungeon-like ruined prisons... a museum of preserved, deformed oddities... and another one practically devoted to mummies... centuries old, ghostly (and still very much in use) theaters... If every place what goes 'bump' in the night went 'bump' at the same time we'd have gridlock.
So she gave the little boy with the slightly equine face, glossy, chestnut, horse-like coat, soft, velvety bat wings ( they grew out of his back. the arms were normal) and well formed deer hoofies an old, plastic, pill bottle (empty, of course) with a little rolled up piece of paper inside. He put in in a small pouch worn 'round his neck. Pin Head Mel said - What do I get?..... Edith said - A free ride. You there to keep him sane. He likes you. He worries 'bout you. Now grab hold his neck and hop on just behind them wings. And fly. Fly all the way to Phillie-delphia. You off to see 'The Wizard!'.... Then she threw her arms up in the air and cackled. Not because it was necessary, but because level headed Edith likes a little bit of theatrics too sometimes.
She watched as the strong wings whomped through the air. Soon they were off, soaring over the trees. Pin Head Mel in his quiet, little voice asked - You know the way?.... Horsey Skeezix snorted and said - Yeah, I got family there..... He did, too. An aunt or uncle or somebody stayed with 'The Wizard' (Doctor Franklin, actually. Magic folk just call him that. Well, it's sort a true). All manner of creatures lived down there in The Anti-Enchantment Bureau. Jersey Devil ain't no big thing.
Soon he'd read her message. Doctor Franklin, I mean. She might have contacted him telepathically. He's 'adept.' He can do that. But rolled, little scrolls, even in old, yellowed plastic pill bottles, have a certain literary/cinematic quality and Edith is, at heart, a frustrated director.
A few moments later the witchy woman turned, went back and stepped up onto the porch, where she sat down in her high backed wooden chair and rocked.
Mister Edith and the two Red Paint People slept through it all, there in the dark, night air..... Crickets chirped. Lightning Bugs blinked. Edith yawned and fell asleep too.
Even magic folk need to rest.
And a certain twice dead 'young' man, Tomas de Macabea, also known as Jonathon ben Macabi, might not be that way for long...
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It is I, Doctor Franklin. I sit in my commodious residence under the Philadelphia Navy Yard... a meticulous reproduction of an eighteenth century gentleman's house. The 'windows' look out upon digital images. Horse-drawn carriages pass by. Boys roll hoops and shepherds drive sheep. The breezes are recreations too. I see it all on a picture-book lane, winding down below in a little valley. Then, with a click it changes. The house is in the city and I see city things.... mounted troopers with plumed helmets and bright, silver breast plates.... vendors selling wares from large trays supported by thick, canvas straps 'cross their backs. Some sing songs... sedan chairs bearing matrons... bone wagons carting off the dead.... Yellow Fever plagued us then. The 'better' sort packed up and fled to summer houses in German Town. Indeed, I frequented many such places during my 'official' lifetime. But I've lived far longer than that. Those of you familiar with our tale (remember, we only pretend that it's fiction) know of my harmonic investigations. You know of The Anti-Enchantment Bureau (strange name) and our unusual work.
When he was here, Tomas contributed. We studied him, recording his every vibration and energetic effluence. He'd hang suspended in a web of sound generated by the Grand Armonica (you can google it) like a sixteenth century Italian painting. I have all the recordings ... every cerebral detail.... I know how he works. Actually, I could reconfigure a functional 'Tomas' quite easily. He'd be like a hologram... not transparent... not like a ghost... and under certain conditions you could touch him... but what you'd touch are only electrons.... Odd for me to say that when we know that the surfaces of mortal bodies are only electrons too... Is that how God creates us?
But the ether wants more than that. Tomas talks to me. He wants to come back for both superficial and spiritual reasons... That frightens me, for I am a reverent man. I question, but still believe. In my day I contributed toward and subscribed to all denominations in the city. Tiny brass plaques bearing my name decorate pews in various Protestant and Hebrew sanctuaries throughout the old quarters of Philadelphia. The Catholics, both Roman and Eastern were still unorganized back then, but had they been established my plaques would be in their holy places too and many more besides.
You know what happened in Russia? You know what we did for Grigori Usipov out beyond the Urals. I think if you google - Stalinist research center, Vampire Wonderland by Billy Kravitz, that might help clear things up.... I'll try it when we're done. If it doesn't, we'll post something else next time.
Now in another vein, we raise escargot down here. So plump. So delicious. I'm eating some now... two dozen toothsome delights, rich with butter and garlic and something else. I don't know. The chefs do that.
A lucid hologram of the great tenor Enrico Caruso sings my favorite, Nessun Dorma. Some friends, people I know from that Bilderberg thing are here. You can google that too.... Bilderberg Conference.... You'll see.
You'll have to excuse me now. A certain American President, Emeritus wants to discuss world peace with a very well known Nepalese holy man. Perhaps I could help broker something? Doctor Kissinger gives me looks... He doesn't like competition.
They call us 'The Vampire Wonderland,' but we're so much more than that.
Oh, how Voltaire would have loved this....
<more next time>
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this is blue. the letters, i mean. blue is cool and no capitals, because capitals convey 'heat.' can't channel our usual paranormal vampires, zombies, ghosts and all. the temperature makes it hard to focus. also, i'm drinking so much iced tea, i run to the toilet every fifteen minutes and that sort of makes me forget where I am narratively.. i want cold vanilla almond milk and cereal...(this is where I take a break to eat some. you won't actually 'see' the break, but ~~>> (this) represents it.... i had two bowls... i asked the girl who works at the market if it's possible to let the water evaporate out of almond mild and reconfigure the residue back into little almonds. bet they'd be real expensive. i'd like to see a big almond made from marzipan.
they say it's possible other complete universes might exist so far out in the infinite ether that we will never see their light
they say it's possible the 'big bang' in another universe might have resulted in one massive planet revolving around one humongous <~~~(scientific term) star. any people on the planet would look out at a completely dark and featureless void. when they exhaust the resources on their home world...they die.... no space flight (where would they go?).... no God in the sky (unless it's the daytime sky maybe)... no asteroids... and what if life had never appeared on that planet?... do rocks have souls?
also, what if (in our world) science finds a way to essentially banish death via biological, or digital means? someone will be 'the last person to die.' will they be revered, or pitied? will some people opt for 'natural death' anyway?... got a feeling some science fiction author's got a 'take' on this.
do you realize there are many universal forces we can't even explain yet...dark matter... dark energy and all that... but, at least, they've been observed... what about the ones we haven't even conceptualized yet?...(i'm still waiting for 'gravity waves.')
in some ways ants resemble alien intelligence. is it possible on a certain level, either mind to mind, or perhaps via the hive/colony intelligence, to communicate with them? (also a good science fiction premise.... imagine the book and later the movie --- ambassador to the queen)
too hot... gotta sleep... probably drink too much iced tea first... hope that tower fan helps a little bit.
this is already wednesday. in three days it'll be June 21st, the longest day of the year (though not necessarily the latest sunset...different things)... summer, even with the heat waves, is such a special time. it goes so fast. no sooner here than over. you know stores like target already got them 'back to school' decorations ready to roll any day now. but no matter what they say, september is still summer too.
Lerner and Lowe were right.
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Crazy people wander graveyards in the rain. They come right up to the caretakers' cottages and peek into the windows. Usually the shades and drapes are drawn. The wives and children of caretakers like things snug, especially at night. Prayers are said. Lamps turned on. Televisions tuned in. The phone rarely rings after dark. Families and friends of those inhabiting caretakers' cottages know how loud it sounds, so they call early. A knock at the door is a dreaded occurrence.
But sometimes those unburdened by sanity caper about in midnight downpours. They blind rabbits and sing with crows. Then, later on, with the first gray light of dawn, they sneak back to beds in other places.... The nighttime revels of lunatics.
Children lie still as stone, mummified in blankets, listening to the dust-like whispers of voices down stairs. Floorboards creak. Cupboards open. Clocks tick backwards. Footsteps... barely audible footsteps...The faintest hint of illumination washes up the stairwell... What's down there?... Please, God. Please, God. Please, God, don't let them come up.... Yet in the morning nothing is amiss. The carnival glass treasures in the breakfront are there. The knives in the kitchen lie straight in their drawers. But the terror was real... and so were the whispers.
I am but a voice. Don't ask me more. The one you call Billy types this... all alone in a dark, shadowy parlor 'neath a small, yellow pool of light cast down from an old wrought iron floor lamp. Edith knows. From her porch in the Pine Barrens she knows. And the ghosts know and the Zombie Princess, Opal knows.
Magic is but the apparent manipulation of life and death. Oh, you know what death is. You've been there... back before you were born. .... I am a disembodied spirit... like Mister Never You Mind, yet far less avuncular. And I bleed through into your world.
Vampires, witches, zombies... What are they but unusual individuals?.... Storied bloodlines trickling through history since page one. And the truth is, no one knows. Unchanging reality is but a conceit. Edith knows. She told you last time, there on her porch in the haunted Pines.
Tick, tick, tick... you're morphing right now. Where are you going? Does it matter? How does it matter?Direction is but a convenience too. But we knit 'beliefs' to keep us warm... Tomas, the dead vampire, also known as Jonathon ben Macabi knows that. He wants to come back. Perhaps he will?.... Perhaps a mouse will gnaw through a wire and burn you as you sleep? Or a dead, gray, wraith thing will silently climb the stairs and enter your room? Doors are but atoms ... like mist... like dust... that's all.
What is that sound? Is it the refrigerator? Is it the pipes? A stifled cough? Laughter?
Nobody lives alone....
.... Next time we move on.
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Edith took her time. She thought and considered. Then she went on..... The problem is - she said - reality is fluid. There is no 'now,' just what we see, or think we see at any given instant..... Please know she spoke to the cool, night air. As a witchy-woman, she knows we're reading this. She knows the one called Billy Kravitz channels it out through a slightly dated lap top. She knows many things, though essentially a very modest woman.... And as she speaks out into the dark, Piney ether, Mister Edith, plus their two or three Red Paint People guests, rock and nod. Red Paint People don't say much anyway. An old, abiding culture they are. Some consider them to be surviving vestiges of original Cro-Magnon stock. Males tend to favor Captain Jean-Luc Piccard of The Star Ship Enterprise. Females bear a striking resemblance to Olympic Skier Picabo Street. Not as children. When they're older, I mean.
Getting back to Edith, she said - Think about a river. If you stand on the bank and look at the water (well, how can I say this?) it's never the same water. Different molecules of hydrogen dioxide (for that's what water is) flow by every second. Other things flow by too, dissolved bits of former animals, urine from various sources, tiny, water smoothed , shards from a long forgotten skull, gray, stringy fish turds.
Life is like that. It has no beginning. It has no end. Birth and death are but dams. When we're born, life flows out from life. When we die, part of that force is diverted. We slide down a sluice gate into a holding tank, perhaps the 'tunnel' of light' people talk about, and wait there, preserved and safe for as long as it takes. But each soul is a discrete repository of unique information and nature doesn't waste a thing.
For everything there is a season. A time to live. A time to die... And to be truthful, a time to live again. Tomas, also known as Jonathon, wants to live again. He's not different. That's nothing new. Many souls resting in the clear, cool pools of eternal joy and contemplation want to climb out onto the deck and run around a little. And they do. They get that chance. It's called reincarnation. But every time they step out onto the stage of the living, memories are wiped clean. Maybe it has to be that way. Otherwise death would be but a momentary hiccup and physical life would truly be eternal? I don't know all the details - said Edith. Just some. And if Tomas is brought back, we have to create another dam, or another sluice gate that will bring his essence back to us in this part of the world between Philadelphia and the South Jersey Shore. some call that act a 'ransom.' Some call it a 'diversion.' Words are just words. It's spirit and power that counts.
Then she got up, went into her little house and came out with a basket full a little bottles of liquor, like what they used to give out on airplanes. Mister Edith said - Give it here... She did. He fished around for a bottle of Jack Daniels, took it out and passed the rest over to the Red Paints. I don't know what they picked out. Who cares? Edith didn't take any liquor for herself. She had a pouch of Capri Sun. Witchy-women ain't no big drinkers. They go whoop-dee-doo other ways.
For now they just sit and rock and drink... a few people on a cozy little porch, lit by a handful a small candles, deep in the middle of the spirit-filled woods.
Pin Head Mel and his best friend, Horsey Skeezix, watch from the darkness. but that ain't no big deal. They always snoopin' 'round.
Next time we hike up them skirts and show you more.
If you like, google the NEW JERSEY PINE BARRENS. These woods is real... and they are out there.
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I left the townhouse. It's me, Edith, the witchy-woman housekeeper. Baylah left the city too, like she does every summer. Went with her rich mortal boyfriend to his place down the shore. Sarah stayed, though. And I don't know who else. She likes warm summer walks in the dark. Goes down pitch black streets and everything. But that's her. I like the Pines. Go back to my cabin. Set out late at night with Mister Edith and maybe a couple Red Paint People. Haven't talked about it much lately, but these here woods is the biggest, densest, thicket east of the Mississippi. Go ask somebody. Google it. You'll see. Got Philadelphia at one end and New York City at the other. If you wanna know, it's a miracle we still here. Like all the rest a humanity just flowed right around us.
Trees can talk, you know. Not so you hear. Not with your ears anyway. But they're smart and they know things. Stupid, dope scientist might say - Yeah? Well, where's their brains?.... (rolls eyes) Thing is, every little piss-ant shithead knows all they is, is brains. Whole thing is brains. Every bitty cell goes - I'm a tree. I'm a tree. I'm a tree. And I feel the wind. I taste the rain. My roots tickle the dead. Birds crap all over me. but I live and I live and I live...... Pines what we got here (not all pines, just mostly) talk to other trees. Trade secrets with hardwood trees in Brazil and Banyan trees in Central Africa.... I say - Trees, how goes the world tonight?... And they tell me.... 'Bout girl what got herself raped and killed in Siberia and boy in Chicago Land building bombs out back his house. Know of a body being 'et' by snapping turtles in that almost Canadian part a Michigan and terrorist-extremists dripping down through British Columbia - Washington border... They talk 'bout good things too. 'Bout a forty seven year old lady what thought she never get married getting pregnant by her boyfriend in some park in Philadelphia. And he's the boyfriend what won't run away. So they gone get married, buy baby furniture and everything.... Trees is sad that most all furniture comes from murdered family. That's why Mister Edith (and practically everyone else 'round here) say - Dear Lord, thank you for this child a Yours what grow in the ground... every time they kill one.
Trees know 'bout Jonathon (also known as Tomas) too. Taste his ashes when he die. He wanna come back and they know that. Trees listen to dead folks, 'cause who else will? I don't mean showbiz 'your-dead-granny- say-she-love-you' bastids what tell lies (or semi-lies) for money and play games on afternoon talk shows. I'm talkin' bout the real thing.
Trees know 'bout that zombie girl. Teacher what got et had itty-bitty Japanese bonsai tree (fifty years old, I think it was) growin' in a tray top her dresser and it tell two peach trees outside. Peach trees like sweet stories, but they very truthful just the same. Ain't got no flesh-eaters in the Pines. Not now anyway. All we got is ghosts and Jersey Devils ('bout eight or nine families... Guy from weirdnj (yeah, it clickable) say eight or nine families necessary for stable breeding population) and Red Paint People and pin-heads. Some pin-heads can do magic, but some can't. I can do a little bit a magic. Ain't no 'born witch' like what kill Jonathon. Just pow-wow witchy stuff I learn from 'round here. We not talkin' witchy stuff now. We just talkin'. Whisperin' actually... Me an' Mister Edith and them Red Paint People. Cabin got a porch. Porch got rockers...homemade wood ones (sorry trees) painted red. Red scare off negativity. I do not know the scientific reason for that, but so what? Who cares? We eatin' peanuts. Red Paint woman brung 'em. Talkin' 'bout family what taught squirrels to talk. They was Dutch, though. And that was more'n three hundred years ago. Some squirrels still talk Dutch. Not real Dutch, but a dialect they make up 'mongst theyselves. Piney folk what spent time in Philadelphia or New York City say it sound like Yiddish. I ast a squirrel-lady, but she don't know.
Ten yards off this porch (maybe less) is the woods. Some nights ghosts glide out a there and walk right through like we never here. Mister Edith and me don't care. We just let 'em. Once in a while one wants to talk. But that just once in a while. Guy what got duct-taped by racketeers and suffocated talk some. Gimme a good way to make pasta gravy. Say his mama wear same kind a scent like I do... I say it Jean Nate an' wanna give him some. But he say - Don't tease me, bitch. You know I can't hold nothin'! ..... I say I sorry. He sniff back ghost tears and nod.
Red Paint People hummin' songs now. Old songs from back when all humanity speak almost the same language. Sound like Cherokee clog dance to me.
I miss Jonathon (also known as Tomas) real bad. Gonna maybe 'ransom' him..... June crickets chirp real nice....
I tell you 'bout that 'ransom' part tomorrow. .
Ooh, look! There go a ghost...
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It is I, Jonathon ben Macabi. Death destroyed my body, but could not touch me. I speak to you from the Realm of Spirits. I could identify it as The World To Come, or Paradise, or Heaven, or The Bardo. The place has many names. But I chose the most neutral to include you all.
Know that death is not eternal and I will be back. How that will transpire I cannot say. Not because I'm a secret keeper, but because I don't know. We are each domiciled according to our needs in this place. Young mothers become child guardians standing night watch over orphans. Fallen soldiers stand by surviving brethren. Artists of all types inspire the living.
I am an ecclesiastic by nature. Would that I could have served among the Holy Orders of Levites at The First or Second Temple. I am not that particular. A medieval academy of Godly scholars, or perhaps a snug, little country wooden synagogue painted with birds and flowers. Such wondrous sanctuaries they were. Most of the surviving ones were burned seventy years ago.
And my labors?... I talk to clergy. I whisper in their ears. Denominations mean little to me. Wait til you pass over. You'll see. Rabbis and imams and nuns, oh my. Other teams too. I talk about 'we are one, because God is one.' I do this mostly while they're sleeping, or drinking coffee, or watching Andy Griffith reruns. I'm told he's even big in The Emirates.
But listen to me making much of 'no denominations' and all that, while I pine for the faith of my childhood. And not 'here.' I could have it here, with hummus to die for (well, you know what I mean) and cantorials worthy of Andrew Lloyd Weber, or the guys who wrote Les Miserables . Death does nothing to improve memory. I try to recall interesting little places I'd pass on our midnight rambles (with Sarah, I mean), yet I can't... not always.
It's funny. When we lose ourselves... our mortal selves, I mean, discrete, episodic memories mean little. It's all a multi-dimensional matrix...all things... all places... all everything... And I do (what would the word be?) abandon myself to that every once in a while. But I still miss my trim, little leather bootlins and the black jeans and how I'd make these little sparks shoot up from my heels when I scrapped them on the sidewalks just so. No vampire magic that trick. Just metal taps. An old fashioned shoemaker on Ranstead Street did it. Hey, 'shoemaker on Ranstead street,'.... I remembered.
I want to come back. I miss the townhouse and Edith and Baylah. I miss long, cool, subterranean sponge baths with Sylvia and Aura (daughters of the mole people king). you remember them. And I miss Sarah. Some opt for reincarnation. But I don't want to wait that long... Well, since most of the people I miss are vampires or witches I could. You know, the supernatural life span and all that.....
Oh, I don't know. Death can be so confusing. I mean I'm absolutely awed by the radiance of angels. I could stare for hours. Some of them don't like that. Makes 'em nervous. Start sucking their teeth and making like all of a sudden they gotta go do something for God... Yeah, right. Like He doesn't have other angels. Bastards.
I'm gonna go to the seventeenth century, Earth, London section of Heaven and play my guitar.
Bet Doctor Franklin could do something. He did it for Grigori Usipov. I know. I remember.... Look, am I 'bad' for feeling this way?
I don't want to talk any more. I'm gonna go help change diapers on newly dead old folks... Takes 'em a while to realize they can give up all that piss and bowel movement crap.... Humble myself and make amends. Then I'll go play my guitar.
Hasta la proxima, mis amigos viviendos.
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thank you. please comment. look, I was gonna channel Opal and her little zombie pals, but Tomas said I owed him, considering his story started the blog, so I let him commandeer the 'air waves' for tonight. I think he wants to make it a regular thing.
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