Roland Yeomans's Blog, page 23

TO DIE TWICE_HAPPY ADA LOVELACE DAY!

 

"My brain is more than merely mortal."  actual quote fromAda Byron, Lady Lovelace

https://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-in-Code-audiobook/dp/B07N12FKBV/

HAPPY 208th BIRTHDAY, ADA BYRON!
{From the pages of THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH} https: //www.amazon.com/dp/1508804540

       I am Ada Byron.  I died and willed myself back to a semblance of life.  I did the same for my lover, Margaret Fuller, she of the existential mind and passionate embrace.

       On this fine New Orleans morning, I may well die again.

   Odd.  I can almost feel young Victor’s eyes on me, his hand on mine, those laughing gypsy eyes telling me that he has a plan, that everything will be all right.

I smile demurely over my dining table at Margaret and my uninvited guest: Abigail Adams, President of America Corps, the ridiculous name for America’s Revenant Empire.

She sips her tea cup full of O Negative blood that I keep for Renfield and smiles with red-stained teeth.  She is dressed in a black business suit much like Margaret’s.  But her satin blouse has a frilly jabot like my own.

I know that her private quarters are done in an exact replica of the bedroom she shared with her husband, John, when he was the second president of the United States.  I would have pity for her had she pity for any who stood in her way of Empire. As it is, I have only the guarded respect one has for a rattler coiled to strike.

Her smile broadens, cheapens, loses all authenticity.  “This need not end badly, Lady Lovelace.  We three here are each from the same era and morality.”

To my left, Margaret speaks harshly.  “This need not have happened at all, Madame President.  There was a time when you would not even have thought of invading another’s home at all.”

Abigail sighs.  “The times have changed.  All is adrift.  Humanity has lost its mooring.”

I laugh without pleasure. “Humanity, Abigail? You have not the slightest idea of what that word means anymore.”

“And you do,” smirks Abigail.

“Yes, because of Samuel I do.”

“It is you,” I continue, “that seems to have a broken compass, Abigail.”

“Life for Margaret,” stonily speaks Abigail.  “Or death.  Your choice.”

“No.  Yours, Madame President.”

“Yours,” insists my uninvited guest – and as a revenant, just how did she accomplish that feat?  Perhaps madness confers certain abnormal abilities in a revenant?

Abigail raises her haunted eyes to meet mine.  “All you have to do is convince that stubborn McCord to see the light and join my crusade to repel Empress Theodora’s troops from these shores.”

“All,” I laugh.  “Do you not want me to give him a Judas kiss while I am it?”

Margaret leans forward as if to convince with her not inconsiderable presence.  “You know Samuel as well as we do, if not better, for you have known him longer.  He will not consent for any armed or undead conflict in his city.”

Abigail goes even paler and statue erect.  “His city?”

“Yes, his city,” I whisper.

I gather my scattered wits and continue, “Your own husband made him swear to protect New Orleans.  Why do I have to tell you this?  You were there, hiding in the shadows, Madame President.”

There was a soulless giggle from the foyer door.  We turn.  I sigh.  Things have gotten … interesting.  I stiffen.

The ghoul, Alice Wentworth, looks at us with blue-fire eyes.

 I feel Victor near.  In this room.  But how can this be?

“President?” Alice sneers.  “Empress is the true title.  Empress of the American Revenant Empire.”

I look at Abigail’s narrowed eyes.  Eyes which have looked calmly at men being sucked dry of their blood by cruel, cold, efficient machines as she murmurs,  “I preside over America Corps.”

Abigail places down her drained blood cup with a deadly grace.  “So, ghoul, where is that perversion that would join his loins to yours?”

At those words, the scamp in question slips from the misty body of Alice.  And Victor Standish, the fourteen year old Ulysses, laughs that reckless laugh of his.

 Victor

 smiles, waving his fingers in front of his face as if they were a fan.  “Is it hot in here, or it is just me?  Joins loins with Alice?  Whew!  That’s a pretty hot image there, your worshipfulness.”

The smile drops from his lips.  "And if you haven't noticed, Your Hind-Ass, your moral compass doesn't exactly point North anymore." {Then, of course, with the intrusion of Victor, things get even more interesting.}***
More on the woman who wrote the first computer program a 100 years before the invention of the computer:

SOMETIMES THE GOOD GUYS LOSE

 

Is this the end for the eternal orphan, Major Richard Blaine?

SOMETIMES THE GOOD GUYS LOSE

“We are strong when we haveprepared our minds to die.”

– Napoleon

 

I wondered if there would beenough of me left to bury.

When a pioneer died on the OregonTrail, as some unfortunate soul was always doing, the family scratched ashallow grave right by the trail, because the wagon train couldn’t wait.

Everyone continued behind theoxen across the empty desert and some families sang “Amazing Grace” that night,and some didn’t.

No shallow grace for me.

Neither ,nor its children, nor Michael would leave any of my Spartans alive to dig onefor me or for one another.

My spine firmed.

No shallow grave for me … or forany of my friends … not today.

Michael was now only seven feet in height. Tall enough to let me know he still felt above me.

If that was important to him,then, he was smaller than he realized.

I looked into his oddlyslanted eyes and grew sad.

They had seen the birth-swirl ofgalaxies, spinning in their slow arabesque across infinity. A waltz of intricatebeauty and majesty.

The ears hidden by that tumble oflong, thick leonine hair had heard the Voice when He spoke all of creation intobeing.

And what had this Being of haughtydemeanor learned?

I spoke softly, “Apparently, nota damn thing.”

“And what have you learned, O Chimpanzee?”rumbled Michael.

I thought for a slow heartbeat.

“That my birth did not cast ashadow on my life, leading to my death. But rather this Cross was here from thevery beginning, and it cast its shadow backwards to the orphanage.”

I extended both artificial handspalm up. “And that ‘Yes’ you spoke upon your arrival came, not from you,but from your Commander-in-Chief.”

I wiggled my stiff fingers. “Thesword, please.”

Again, the rumble, “This cannotbe held by mortal hands.”

I shrugged. “Fortunate then, thatthese are not mortal hands. The sword, please.”

Darael sighed. “Its weight willwrench those hands from your wrists.”

“Only if I thought to hold it bymy own strength alone. The sword, please, Michael.”

I wiggled my fingers, prayingthat my instincts, my faith were sound.

The Voice that trembled the verymarrow of my bones murmured within my mind. ‘You will have to pay to findout, Richard Blaine.’

I whispered, “You already paid,sir.”

I looked to a very pale Michael. “Thesword, please.”

The Archangel slowly, reluctantlydrew his sword, flipped it with a twirl of grace, and, holding the naked bladein his gloved hands, stopped with the gleaming hilt just an inch above my open palms.

“Are you certain?”

I quickly flicked a last look onthe face I had held in my dreams for so long, for so many lonely nights.

I smiled. It was even lovelierthan I remembered all through the pages of my Book of Days.

And sadder.

But that is the price of love.

Love is much like holding acandle in your bare hands. At first it illuminates the world. Then, it startsmelting and brings its pain. Until at the end, it snuffs out forever.

And everything is darker thanever, and all you have left are the painful burns from holding it so close forso long.

But even then, you know love wasworth the pain.

I turned back to Michael. “Yes. Thesword, please.”

The weight of it.

Not the weight of the world.Maybe its sins? It took all I had … but I did not drop it.

I would not. I did not.

Like aboard the Rocinante, allduring those harrowing days at St. Marok’s, and all through those damn chessgames with Mr. Morton … I held on. I held firm.

Michael, the strangest look onhis high-cheek-bones face, murmured,

“What are you going to do now?Slash at Cthulhu’s ankles?”

“Watch,” I gasped, struggling tokeep hold of the sword.

Being alive had a purpose.

There were no accidents.

We had to pay attention. Lookback to see if we had been given a compass instead of just an interesting bauble.

We weren't born just to live alife and then die.

We were born to accomplishsomething specifically, given experiences to help us do just that.

Like I was given the ability toteleport … by Elohim.

It all clicked into place.

Success is not just existing.Success is making it to the end of why you were born.

As I had made it to this moment.

I looked to the head of the trulydisgusting Cthulhu.

“Lobotomy time,” I rasped.

A lance of sheer agony slicedthrough my very being.

But I held on, held firm.

Through tearing eyes, I saw that Istood with a lot of difficulty atop the glistening head of the Elder Being. I wouldnot dignify it by calling it a god.

I slipped. Merde. I would not beable to stay atop this slimy scaled thing for long.

Its face tentacles roped up to seizeme. Close up as they were, I saw the writhing suckers.

No.

My original plan to stab downinto the head and slide down its face was definitely out. What was I thinking,right?

I spun about to take the back route.

Worse idea.

I slipped and fell. I stabbeddown with Michael’s sword to keep from falling.

The blade made an obscene squishing,sucking sound as it pierced right between the Old Ones widened eyes.

It reared its head back as itscreamed a high-pitched wailing that chilled the very essence of my being in someunnatural way.

Hanging onto the sword for dearlife, I slid along the head and then down the back of its skull.

What to do now?

I hadn’t gotten past this point inmy plan.

‘Plan? You call this a plan? We gaveyou all those chess games with Our Adversary as practice, and this was the bestyou could come up with?’

I heard a low muttering within mymind. ‘We should have learned from what Adam did with Our gift of Eve.’

“A little help here,” I gasped.

‘Bother. You will tumble like agymnast when you hit the ground. You are one of König’s Master Race now,remember?’

“With Cthulhu on top of me!”

‘Oh, your mind, along with the mindsof the others, will be destroyed by ’s DeathWail long before then.’

“What?”

Elohim sighed, ‘We suppose youwant Us to help you with that, too.’

“Yeah, kind of.”

‘You won’t like it.’

“Kind of desperate here.”

‘Old story with pleas to Us. Oh,all right. But remember We warned you.’

There was a flash of brilliantlight, a piercing bone-numbing cold, replaced with the heavy humidity of the tropics.

I hit strangely rutted groundwith a lithe roll as Elohim had promised.

And best of all, no crushingweight of Cthulhu atop me.

Helen was suddenly in my arms.

I had to maneuver Michael’s swordto keep from cutting her. Odd. It seemed to weigh hardly anything now.

Helen kissed me so passionatelyit took my breath away.

“Oh, Richard! I thought I lostyou.”

Then, she all the joy out of themoment and kicked my shin. Hard,

“That for scaring me.”

Taylor, keeping with tradition,asked, “Major, do they have pineapples in France?”

“What?”

Evans snorted, “I got a betterquestion, Stewart. Where did all the buildings and bodies go?”

Rachel, giving Helen an odd look,saddled up beside me. “We aren’t in that village anymore, are we, Richard?”

Cloverfield rasped, “We’re stillthere … in a way. The contours of the land are the same. It’s everything elsethat’s changed.”

Kent, to my right, pointed up. “No.No! It can’t be. Can’t be!”

Beside him, Dickens took off hishelmet and ran bloody fingers through his hair.

“Undeniably so, Alfred. That iswithout a doubt a living, flying Pterodactyl, properly called pterosaurs, whichbelong to the taxonomic order Pterosauria.”

Elohim told me I wouldn’t likehow he saved us.

‘Sentient, just how far back intime are we?’

No answer. Long seconds ofsilence. That was odd.

Doc Tennyson sighed, “Major … I havesome bad news for you.”

I turned to see our doctorkneeling beside the unmoving body of Sister Ameal sprawled upon strange looking grass.

“She’s dead, sir.”

I almost dropped Michael’s sword.

“No neck pulse. No breathing.Major, your friend is dead.”

 

“When the sun sets like fire, Iwill think of you. When the moon casts its pale light, I will remember you.Should a soft rain fall gently, I will stand in it, recalling the last time Isaw tears run down your face.

 Good fortune go with you into the darkness atyour journey's end. Let the waters run calmly for you, my oldest friend.”

- Prayer for Sister Ameal

TO BE CONTINUED IN

SAME AS IT NEVER WAS

BOOK II

THE LONG WAY HOME

You might want to listen to this tune as you read Richard Blaine's prayer for Sister Ameal:

THE GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS

 

Things go from bad to Nightmare for the Spartan 300

THE GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS

“Mortal Man, do you know what weof the Gateless Realm call this planet? The Garden of Forking Paths.”

- Darael

 

Taylor, the eternal questioner,had a good one. “How the hell are we supposed to kill that?”

Evans snapped, “Maybe you canpester it to death with questions? Jeez, how is even the Major supposed toknow?”

Darael looked astonished at us aswe watched with revulsion and awe the many tentacled monstrosity that looked asif a mountain had mated with a squid.

“Why aren’t you all driven mad bythe very sight of this Great Old One?”

Rachel rasped, “We met an Old Onein that damn Tunnel. It attacked our minds. We survived.”

“Ah,” Darael muttered. 

“It actedas an antigen to your mind, which imitated the mind-infection and primed the mind’simmune system to defend your sanity.”

Rachel flicked angry eyes to me.“Did you understand any of that bollocks?”

“Yes, and you did, too. You justhate to be talked down to.”

“God!” gasped Porkins. “I thinkI’m going to puke!”

Reese said, “It’s towering in themiddle of a lake that wasn’t even there a minute ago.”

Helen, back in her fatigues,said, “Cthulhu is a sea entity and can create sea water out of whole cloth.”

Link gagged. “It is disgustinglooking.”

Darael sighed, “You are lucky.”

“Lucky?” laughed Doc Tennyson.“How do you come up with that?”

 “Cthulhu is not the most powerful of the GreatOld Ones. There are worse like the Outer Gods: Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlathotep, andAzathoth.”

Rachel, more to keep her image asunflappable than anything else, said with an obviously dry mouth. “I dare youto say those names three times quickly.”

My chest tightened. “Where’sPatton?”

Sister Ameal snorted, 

“Now, youthink of him? Since his mind was not ‘vaccinated’ as all of yours are, Ithanked him for his service and sent him to his cot … where hopefully he will awaken,thinking of all this as some bizarre nightmare.”

“Thanked him for his service?” Ifrowned.

“Yet again I was feelingnostalgic for the future.”

Mercer had found enough voice torasp, “Why is it just standing there looking at us?”

Cloverfield said, “Maybewondering why we aren’t stark raving, drooling maniacs?”

Tennyson muttered, 

“No. You willnote that it is not standing stock still but writhing in all of its limbs. I’veseen patients in terrible pain before. I do believe that horrendous giant is inunspeakable agony.”

Darael beamed a beatific smile.“Brilliant diagnosis for a defrocked physician.”

Tennyson snapped, “Not defrocked.Merely without a state license … for no good reason.”

I doubted that his chased-afternurse felt the same way or the attractive wife of that influential statesenator … with no sense of humor at all but with a great deal of jealous rage.

But I had a more pressingquestion to answer.

Like how could I keep this ElderGod from smearing my men and I all over the French landscape?

As with those businessmen whenthe Stock Market crashed. They did not lose everything when the market crashed.They lost everything when they jumped.

As long as there was life therewas a chance to turn things around.

For the life of me, I did not knowwhere to turn or how.

‘Elohim!’ I criedmentally.

‘Oh, so now, you think to cry outto me?’

‘Before it was only my life onthe line. Now, others who trust me to be smart will die.’

‘Sorry. No Deux ex machina. This isnot some badly written work of fiction. I gave you a brain. Use it, or do not.’

There was a sense of a shuttingof a door. Not exactly slamming, mind you. But a very firm closing of one.

Helen became flames again, and her fiery face stunned,gasped, “He – He ….”

“Gave me a brain. Gave me you. Gaveme Sister Ameal … such as she is.”

She spun to me, and I smiled, “Justchecking to see if you are paying attention.”

“I have attended enough to know thatsoon we will die a very horrid death.”

“But not right now.”

I looked at Darael.

“He’s suffering from the Bends,isn’t he?”

“Indeed. The Adversary awakened from its non-Euclidean geometry-etchedmonolith in the sunken city of R'lyeh.”

He shook his lion’s mane of ahead.

“So deep was it sunken in antediluviantimes that yonder Tiger tank would be twisted into tinfoil pretzels if submergedthat low.”

Darael snorted,

“It is no accident that R'lyeh islocated at the Pacific oceanic pole of inaccessibility (48°52.6'S 123°23.6'W),

 thepoint in the ocean farthest from any land – so that no unfortunate mortal wouldunintentionally disturb this abomination’s slumber.”

Helen frowned,

“It should already be dead thenfrom the bends. What use to bring a mortally wounded horror to face us?”

Darael raised an abnormally longforefinger.

“Ah, you trip over the obviouswith the word ‘face,' fledgling. The very sight of Cthulhu was meant to drive usmad not kill us.”

Evans heaved his Stinger with itspayload of a thermite missile atop his shoulder. “Well, I can put it out of itsmisery real quick!”

“No!” shouted Darael. “Mortalweapons have no effect at all on Cthulhu!”

The dying sunlight revealed the roaringmissile glancing off Cthulhu’s reptilian chest like a badly thrown knife againsta tree trunk.

Darael snapped,

“What part of ‘NO” did you notunderstand? It is a perfectly simple, short, one syllable, two letter word!”

Evans shrugged. “It was worth ashot.”

“No, moron. It was worth ourlives. Cthulhu brought its subjects with It!”

The Stinger missile slammed intothe silvery waters. There was a muffled explosion. Immediately, the silver diedin the waters to be replaced with eddies of scarlet currents.

The lake began to boil and bubblelike the cauldron of Macbeth’s witches.

But I wagered no eye of newt ortoe of frog would spring from those dark waters.

Taylor groaned, “Oh, man, we’re infor it now! Major, what do we do?”

“Circle the wagons!” I calledout.

Master Sergeant Theo Savalasgroaned along with Taylor, but for a different reason.

“Rick, when are you ever going touse correct military …. Oh, to hell with it! CIRCLE THE DAMN WAGONS!”

“Unsling your Sig Saur Spears!”yelled Amos, the fighting rabbi.

The scaly horde that surged outof the rippling waters turned my stomach to see … even in this dim light.

Rubbery lips. Misshapen fangs. Longcurved talons at the ends of webbed feet. Slimy, scaled skin, mottled like theskin of a week-old drowned sailor.

And they moved. Merde, how theymoved!

 Scuttling like giant, demented fanged wormsstraight towards us.

I would have cursed Evans rightthen. But even with the Spears’ sound suppressors, it would have been a wasteof breath against that storm of noise.

But since Helen and I werelinked, I heard her: ‘I will take the fight to their master.’

‘No! I have one last trick.’

Her aquiline features were aliving, flaming question mark.

I was betting Darael and I werelinked, too, because of sharing time in Helen’s consciousness.

I turned to him. ‘Ask yourbrother for his sword.’

‘I have no brother.’

‘Distant cousin, then. I needMichael’s sword.’

‘Oh, no! Michael is not even avery distant, distant cousin. I will not ask that of him.’

Helen was connected to the two ofus from our shared experience.

‘No, Richard! I see what is inyour mind. Even if you could wield the sword, which you cannot, it would kill you!’

‘But you would live.’

‘NO!’

A blinding light stabbed into myeyes as I felt a huge presence loom over me.

‘Yes.’

I forced open my eyes. Immediately,I wished I had not.

An armored figure, twenty feettall if an inch, towered over me. I could smell incense and cedar waft from theblond … angel I guess you would call him.

Nothing like Darael.

His cheekbones seemed to be trying topush up and out of his imperial face. His azure eyes were slanted … and a bitpompous.

I have issues with … pompous. I haveseen too many innocents die at pompous hands.

“Is it Saint Michael, then?”

“There is no need to kneel.”

“And no wish on my part to do it,either.”

“What?”

Darael shrugged. “He is a bitlike me I am afraid, Michael.”

Those striking eyes stabbed intome. And letting me know he could read my mind, he said as gentle as an earthquake.

 “So, I see. And mortal chimpanzee, I haveissues with stiff necks.”

I nodded. “So, I, too, see … fromthe way you hold your chin up so high ... along with your nose.”

It was then that I noticed theworld around me, Darael, and Michael was frozen like a still photograph.

“So as not to upset the fledglingwhen I flay you alive.”

Darael shook his head. “Richard Blaine, have I ever toldyou what a great way you have with beings of Power?”

“No.”

“You never will … now.”

FOR THE TEMPLES OF HIS GODS

 

Is this the Last Stand of the Spartan 300?

FOR THE TEMPLES OF HIS GODS

“Then out spake brave Horatius,

The Captain of the Gate:

"To every man upon thisearth

Death cometh soon or late.

And how can man die better

Than facing fearful odds,

For the ashes of his fathers,

And the temples of his Gods.”

- Thomas Babington Macaulay

 

“Aw, hell, no!” snapped Patton asI wrapped an arm about his shoulders. “Not again!”

I said, “War doesn’t care. Tocare, you have to feel, and fire does not feel. It only burns until there isnothing left.”

Closing my eyes, I pictured theseared cobblestones where last I saw Helen.

This last teleporting hurt worst ofall. I cried out along with Patton.

When I opened my eyes, I had tofight to keep from crying out again. Patton did cry out. I did not blame him.

Flaring fingers of fire reachedout for us from every direction.

My Spartans were yelling andshooting in all directions. They ducked behind broken fragments of walls asbullets sent chunks of stone flying.

Flames boiled out of wideningcracks in the blackened concrete at our feet.

I could actually feel the groundbeneath my boots tremble as if the earth itself was about to give birth todemons.

André was smiling wide as herolled, spun, and took picture after picture of the fighting. I froze. Theboyish blonde woman beside him, squealing in pleasure, took her own pictures.

She was Gerda Taro.

Gerda died on the 27th of July1937 when a republican tank collided into a car she was traveling in.

LIFE Magazine described her asbeing 'Probably the first woman photographer ever killed in action'.

Taro was buried in Pere Lachaisecemetery in Paris on August 1st, 1937.

The tombstone features the falconHorus, and the epitaph: "So nobody will forget your unconditionalstruggle for a better world."

Why a falcon?

I think I know. 

To me the falcondescribed in "The Second Coming"  is symbolic of the human race in modern times,as it has become disconnected from its roots.

When Yeats writes, 

"Thefalcon can't hear the falconer” – 

I believe he meant humanity has losttouch with its heart, its soul, its connection to its Creator.

But you decide for yourself.

It’s your life.

Still, here was Gerda Tarolaughing and photographing beside the man she had loved.

Maybe in the end, we are allreunited with who or what we loved while living.

Maybe.

All of us will find out forourselves one day. And, for me, this might just be that day.

One thing was for sure: my lifenever seemed to run out of strangeness.

To my right, a Tiger tank wasruptured with sharp fingers of metal flaring out as if burst open from theinside by a tremendous explosion.

A foul-smelling column of smokespiraled from the blazing Tiger tank to my left.

With no consideration of beingshot, a half dozen SS soldiers charged straight at us. Their writhing lips wereflecked with froth as if they were rabid.

Patton drew his Colt and fired,dropping two of them.

Slacked jaw, I saw thatimpossible shapes were running at their heels. Nazi soldiers I couldunderstand.

But not the madness I sawsnapping at the SS troops heels. 

Not this.

In my head, Sentient snapped, ‘Whatyou do not understand can still kill you! Do not just stand there gaped mouth.It is a dance of death. Dance!’

An icy prickliness moved under myscalp from the base of my skull up over my head to flare down towards mytemples.

This sensation had only happenedto me once before: when I had first received my draft notice … 

when Sentienthad fully synced with my mind due to the jolt of fear that had hit me.

But instead of my mind goingblack as when Sentient took control of my body, the world seemed to crystalizeall about me.

‘Finally!’breathed Sentient.

‘The essences of those two O.S.S.killers and that of the murderous Captain with his wrestling ability have beenfully funneled into your being.’

‘What? I don’t want to be likethem!’

‘Which is why it has taken solong for your unconscious to weed out the chaff of them and incorporate therest.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Their skills, their reflexes,their muscle memories … all yours to utilize. So do so! Now!’

Without knowing how they gotthere, a Fairbairn-Sykes dagger and a strange sword were in my hands. There wasa blurring of attackers, and I saw they had changed faces and forms.

Mr. Morton had stepped in again.I smiled wide. He was cheating.

Elohim would step in to even theodds.

Maybe.

And maybe He already had with mynew access to borrowed abilities.

As they rushed in on me, I swayedbackwards so low my body was parallel to the steaming ground, just inches offthe stones. 

I kept the momentum of mybackward movement and tumbled in a ball. I supported myself on my knuckles, lashing out with my outstretchedlegs, spinning in a wide arc.  

Men, women, and thingswere knocked sprawling into a tumble of arms, legs, and claws. 

I snapped to my feet, spittinginto the face of a white-wigged judge trying to smash in my head with hisgavel.

With a flick of the dagger, I slashedacross both eyes.  “Didn’t you know?  Justice is blind.”

He clutched his bleeding face andfell upon the sword of the foppish Pharaoh behind him. 

I sent the mewing boy to inquirehow his soul fared against the weight of a feather. 

My sword and knife were livingfire, weaving, flashing, seemingly everywhere at once.  I darted in and among my yelling enemies.

“Damn him!” screamed a satyr.

“He’s not human,” snarled ajackal-headed woman in what struck me as almost funny.

“He’s never in one spot,” growleda confederate soldier, blood-stained whip on his hip.

Mr. Morton must have dipped intoHell for reinforcements.

It was a nightmare hurricane ofslashing swords and blooded claws. 

If hurricane this indeed was, itwas a storm at night, illuminated with but brief flashes of lightning, fastglimpses of dying faces, snarling fangs, tumbling bodies. 

It was chaos come to life: a truecreation of the living lie that was Mr. Morton.

They came in waves. 

I thrust, feinted, swayed to theside, rolling over the mailed back of an on-rushing crusader, lashing out with thedagger again.

Two Swiss guards clutched theirtorn-out throats. 

I snapped to my feet, weaving anelaborate figure eight of death with my sword and knife. 

The knocked-down crusader wascrushed to death under the stampede of attackers.  A howling seemed to explode all around me.

I staggered back from the push ofan invisible cloud of power.

The surviving Hell’s rejectsevaporated into clouds of writhing fog before my stunned eyes.

I looked at the figure to my leftwho had dispersed them.

Darael.

Gently he took back both thedagger and sword from my unfeeling fingers. “You fight well … for a mortal.”

Smiling, he whispered low.

“I knew from your days at St.Marok’s that you fight best with blades.”

Sister Ameal was behind and to myleft, wielding a sword that looked too long for her. Behind her were threecrosses holding three writhing SS troopers impaled upon them.

Have I ever told you to not angerSister Ameal? Consider yourself told.

Patton rushed to my side,reloading his Colt. “That was madness! What the hell were they?”

Amos, panting and bloodied, said,“You answered your own question, General.”

Theo grunted, “Darael, why didn’tyou ‘disappear’ them earlier?”

He shook his tawny head.

“I could not. Not until they hadserved their purpose. The Adversary sent them to panic Helen Mayfair intocalling Blaine back from terrorizing his Nephilim with that weapon from thefuture.”

In her flaming angel form, shelanded beside me lightly. “I do not panic.”

Dickens warily walked up, keeping a keen eye on the sizzling tongues of lapping fire so close to him. 

“What Icannot ascertain is the reason behind the dearth of the Nephilim.”

Darael shook his head at the nottoo wary to be verbose Spartan.

“Not too puzzling, Dickens. Bravewhen they thought themselves invulnerable, not so much once they saw that notonly could they be injured, but they could also be killed.”

He shrugged, “They chose to beelsewhere.”

Darael looked grim. “Which is whyThe Adversary dipped into the shallow end of his Domain to buy time.”

Amos frowned, “To buy time forwhat?”

“To coerce a more formidable Other to enter thefray … at its own peril of course. But then, the welfare of his pawns has nevermattered overmuch with that one.”

Eric, his uniform stained withblood but untorn, yelled out, “Great! The third Tiger!”

Reese, his face smeared with dirtand blood, cried out, “Franklin, turn around. I need to dig into your packagain and get out another thermite missile.”

Dee Stevens hurried to our sidewith Sam Wilson alongside him.

 “I already got the corporal here to load meup. I expected those Jerries to try us again.”

He raised the Stinger missile tohis right shoulder. “Why should you get all the fun?”

As the Stinger roared,Cloverfield screamed over the sound.

“Incoming!”

Darael groaned, “Great Cthulhu!”

I looked up … and up … and up.

Darael was not cursing … he wasidentifying … our approaching death.

 

“Just because you die, it doesn’tmean you lose.”

 – Richard Blaine

*

Listen to the music below for an added plus to the reading of this chapter.

NEVER AN END TO WAR

Major Richard Blaine and General George S Patton fight together against hopeless odds.

NEVER AN END TO WAR

“Do not wait to strike till theiron is hot; but make it hot by striking.”

– George S. Patton

 

Helen murmured with disturbingurgency within my mind:

‘The Nephilim are herding the SStroops onto all four sides of the village. The soldiers are nigh unto madnesswith the fear of these flying mountains of fangs and talons.’

I heard her gather what courageshe had for a suicidal charge, but I mind-urged,

‘Hold. They wish to send Hell ourway? I will return the favor in spades. Can you send me thatreal-time image to me mentally?’

‘Yes.’

That was Helen for you – no nonsensewhen the chips were down.

With the speed of angelicthought, I saw within my mind our own swiftly approaching destruction.

Rifle-bristling, panicked Nazisoldiers rolled and undulated under the sun like water in a tidal wave ofdeath.

I focused on the swarm closest tothe village as Patton growled, “You’re glowing brighter. What is happening?”

“This,” I said, looping an armaround his waist and willed us to the blackened, cracked church steeple.

If anything, this teleporting hurtworse than the first one.

Patton cried out, “Damn you,Blaine! Next time give me some warning.”

He suddenly noticed the chargingSS troops. 

As the tearing winds snatched his words to the English channel, I stillmanaged to hear him roar, “Double damn you, Blaine! We’re about to be overrun!”

“No, General, they are about tolearn that when you let yourself be herded by Hell, you run smack into it.Reach into my backpack and pull out the first weapon you feel.”

“What’s going on?”

I laughed, “Man can embody thetruth, but he cannot know it.”

“You only think you are smart,Blaine.”

It was my turn to be silent whilea small family of moments crossed my path, single file, from the right,sticking their tongues out at me.

They were the moments of all thetimes in New Orleans I had thought myself clever, and it turned out I had beenquite the opposite.

I felt a tug at my back whenPatton ripped open my pack and pulled the weapon Sister Ameal had mentioned earlier.

“What in blazes is this thing,and how did it fit into your backpack?”

“A thermobaric weapon made by theRussia of the future.”

“What? From where?”

“The Russians call it Solntsepyokm,Blazing Sun. It can instantly turn several city blocks into smoldering rubblewith a single shot. Shove the cannister into the tube, step back, and observe.”

I felt the push of the bomb inthe tube. I fixed the sight on the onrushing Nazi soldiers. I fired.

The rocket pushed back on my shoulder,but I, like Rachel, was much stronger than a normal man.

I watched a high-temperaturefireball explode yards wide, causing a powerful pressure drop that sucked inoxygen all around it and created a prolonged vacuum effect.

The charging soldiers on eitherside of the enormous fireball were blown off their smoldering boots to lietwitching … and all too certainly dead.

“My God!” cried Patton. “Thisthing could end the war!”

“Shove another missile in the cannister.Quick! I want to nail that Nephilim before it can get over its shock. Now!”

I’ll give Patton this. He reactedquicker than I would have given him credit for. My body rocked as he shoved themissile in.

I took aim on the chest of thehovering as two more of its brothers flewbeside him. I fired.

The missile seemed to fly in slowmotion, then picked up speed as if eager to kill. Leave it to the Russians tocreate a bloodthirsty weapon.

The blood of the Nephilim musthave been combustible, for the billowing fireball seemed to spread for a fullmile in the sky, cinderizing the two of its brothers on either side.

Patton and I staggered back fromthe force of the blast wave of superheated air.

The rest of the SS troopsscreamed at the sight and ran frantically towards the horizon, hurling their riflesaway in fright. They reminded me of toy soldiers overwound.

“I can’t blame those bastards.Hell, I want to run myself.”

“We are running … to the oppositeof side of Oradour-sur-Glan.

I no sooner said it than we werethere on the leaning structure which was the tallest, if not the most stable,of the surrounding buildings.

Patton was again on his knees,puking his guts out. I kept on my wobbly feet as that Tunnel has toughened mein more ways than one …

And, truth to tell, sheer pride keptme on my feet in front of the arrogant man.

“Retch on your own time, General.We’ve got to get these boys before they catch on.”

“God, I hate you, Blaine. But I hatethese Nazis who started all this goddamned son-of-a-bitchery more.”

He staggered to his riding bootsunsteadily, but he dug determinedly in my pack to wrench out another missile.

“How deep is this thing, anyway?”

“Ever hear of a cornucopia?”

“Yes, Blaine. West Point taughtus classical mythology. Got one of Zeus’ lightning bolts in here?”

“What do you think we have been hurlingat them?”

“Fair point.”

He shoved another missile in andpatted the top of my Spartan helmet. “Fire in the hole!”

It was then that I noticed thatthere were four Nephilim right at the heels of the racing SS troops. They lookedmore to be fleeing those hybrids than charging us.

The impression was doubled when Inoticed the red-rimmed fangs, talons, and tentacles of the flying hybrids.

I aimed at the Nephilim in thecenter and fired. I didn’t wait for the shock blast and firestorm.

I yelled, “Patton! Quick! Anotherone!”

Another dig in my pack, anotherrocking forward as a missile was shoved into my weapon, another pat on top of mySpartan helmet.

“Fire in the hole!”

I fired at the center of theonrushing Nazi horde.

It was as if Hell billowed up fromthe depths in a rising cloud of madness.

Those SS troops not incinerated bythe spreading hell cloud threw down their weapons and ran for all they wereworth towards the setting sun.

My face felt raw from the heat ofall those billowing clouds of fiery death.

I looked up into the inflamedbruised flesh of the sky. Patton blew out a low whistle.

Not a trace of any of the four Nephilimremained.

I guess their blood was flammableafter all. Judging from where their fathers came, it should not have been a surprise.

In my mind came Helen’s franticcry. ‘Richard! We need you!’

SIDE-LINED NO LONGER

 

Major Richard Blaine has an unexpected and unwelcome guest for Armageddon -- General George S. Patton.

SIDE-LINED NO LONGER

“The Lord God is subtle, but malicious he is not.”

 - Albert Einstein

 

Sentient laughed merrily in mymind, inordinately pleased with herself.

‘This Tribal Chieftain was justbemoaning to his subordinates how he chaffed at being sidelined on this, themost important day of the War.’

I felt a light kiss on my cheek.It floored me. Sentient was certainly in a mood. Maybe when I disappeared fromher consciousness, she believed she had lost me forever.

‘The Tribal Chieftain obviouslynever read “The Monkey’s Paw,” or he would know to be careful for what youwish, for you just may receive it.’

General Patton was six foot twoinches, but the way he held himself made him appear taller. Contrary to hisnaysayers, he didn’t hold himself ramrod straight.

Actually, he stood with hisshoulders hunched slightly forward.

His force of will projectedoutwards not upwards. He was a force of Nature as so many falsely thought ofme. I knew the truth and felt embarrassed by the talk.

Did Patton feel the same?

No.

One look in those haughty eyessaid he and I were galaxies apart in how we thought of ourselves.

But I felt saddened by theknowledge gained from my surfing the “Tides of Times” that he would soon bemurdered by the machinations of “Wild Bill” Donovan, head of the O.S.S., toprevent the popular general from running for president in 1948.

I idly wondered if he had beeninvolved with Eisenhower’s use of the two O.S.S. assassins, Fred and Manfred,to murder me in my hospital bed.

Maybe if I survived this war, Imight look up Donovan and ask … diligently.

Patton stormed up to me. “MajorBlaine! I should have known you were behind ….”

The general frowned, “You suddenlylook so sad. Damn it all! I don’t care why. Just bring me back!”

His surroundings suddenly hithim. “Gods! What happened to this place?”

“Reinhardt König, General.”

“That Kraut pinhead? He’s just theSS’s quack theorist.”

“Not so much a quack as a lousystudent of math. His theories were pretty much correct. His calculations not somuch.”

He cocked his bullet head. “Blaine,do you have any idea how ridiculous you look wearing that Spartan helmet?”

Rachel laughed, 

“Speaks the manwearing an antique Colt revolver on his hip, flaring riding breeches, and sparkling,gaudy rings on his right hand, looking nothing so much as a militant Sultan insearch of dancing girls.”

With a wordless guttural cry, he wheeled,raising his riding crop to hit her, but since the Tunnel, Rachel was no longeras she had been.

She was stronger than three men,faster than four, and more flexible than an Olympian gymnast.

Rachel spun around, pulled his armtowards her, heaving him off balance.

Placing her bottom into his hips,she bent quickly over, squatted, and lifted the man easily as he wailed.

Rachel rolled the general off hershapely hip easily. Proving he had been off the field of battle a long time, Pattonhit the blackened cobblestones with a loud “WUFF!”

She put the heel of her combatboot on his throat and laughed, “General, you have let others do your fightingfor you far too long to be that cheeky.”

Rachel smiled thinly. “Next time,you would do better to sic your dog, Willie, on me.”

I restrained Theo who was aboutto lunge forward with a gentle hand.

“Your fiancée has hurt his pridein front of soldiers. Let that be enough, old friend.”

Rachel and Theo both glared atme, and I shrugged, “I just stated what has been unstated for too long.”

Proving I wasn’t as smart as Ithought, Helen murmured within my mind,

‘It is not only that, Richard,but that thee called him “old friend” for the first time.’

Now, it was my time to bestunned: Helen could talk to me mind to mind.

‘Ever since thee invaded my mind,you oaf.’

‘I like it when you talk dirty tome.’

Patton growled, “Is someone goingto help me up?”

“Of course, Tribal Chieftain,”laughed Sister Ameal,

 adding to his discomfort by lifting him up to his unsteadyriding booted feet by the hand as if he were but a toddler.

I bent, picked up his ridingcrop, handing it to him.

As I did, my eyes flicked acrossthe holographic image of the village’s courtyard filled with horrendous scattered corpses of the innocentvictims of SS science gone amok.

“I hear you want to get into theaction, General. Let me help you.”

As I gripped his arm and willedthe two of us into one of the few clear spots in the courtyard, I heard Helen, SisterAmeal, and Darael cry out.

“No!”

Have I ever told you I havetrouble with impulsiveness?

NO ONE READS BLOGS ANYMORE? IWSG Post

 

https://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/p/iwsg-sign-up.html

Of course you balk at my post title,since you are reading my blog, right?
But reading is on the decline.  
One in four (27%) of us have not read a book in the last year.



If we as authors write posts primarily to other authors, 
we are in essence singing to the choir.
It is like kissing your sister, convenient but leads nowhere ... 
unless your sister was Angelina Jolie ...
but that is another disturbing story.  Brrr.


John Locke, snake oil salesman and book review buyer that he was
actually had a good idea:

We must write to intrigue and entice potential READERS of what we write.

HOOK  Google Searchers with an intriguing title
 But you must follow the title with a post 
that amuses, entertains, and persuades the reader that your prose is worth gambling 99 cents on.
 On the internet, you can walk away with a click if someone fails to interest you. 
This happens all the time.


TAKE A STAND

Say your piece and stand by it.  
Wafflers are like warm tap water.  
Be hot.  Be cold.  
But write words of steel not water vapor.
You think most Indie Authors are Brand Whores?  
Say it.  Stand by it.  Endure the storm and stand tall.  
That is what great spirits do.


ACT "AS IF"

In the documentary, "Conan Can't Stop," 
Conan explains how he gets through situations that are hard. 
He says he acts "as if."  
As if he belongs there. 
As if he knows what he's doing.  
As if everything is going to be a success -- 
no matter what he does, no matter what anyone says, no matter how hard it gets.

Write your blog, live the author life that way ...
Write As If people are reading 
and by golly you are going to entertain the socks off them.
Hey, it might even work! 

WHEN SHADOWS EAT THE MOON

 

Nazi wolves are at the door; Fallen Angels are in the sky. What else could go wrong for Major Richard Blaine?

WHEN SHADOWS EAT THE MOON

“Life is a long preparation forsomething that never happens.”

― W.B. Yeats

 

I stiffened as the Voice Ithought I left behind me rumbled in my mind.

‘The love that rose on strongerwings,

Unpalsied when he met with Death,

Is Comrade of the lesser faith

That sees the course of humanthings.’

“You read poetry?”

Again, that strange laughter. ‘Iam poetry.’

I felt an invisible finger prodmy chest.

‘And only fools think they canleave Us behind, Richard Blaine. You are no fool. Now, is the time for you tostop acting as one. Your Spartans are waiting for you to speak. Chop. Chop.’

The Voice was right. My Spartanswere looking at me as if they were dogs hearing a kitten bark.

‘Oh, tell our Rabbi Stein he isone of the very few blooms We have planted that make Us smile. We especiallylike his “God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means ofopposite’ s, so that you will have two wings to fly, not one.” Now, chop,chop!’

Theo and Amos had finishedrunning down the stairs and went to either side of me. Amos elbowed Daraelaside … politely. Smart of him.

I flicked my eyes to him. “Elohimsays you make Him smile.”

“Wh-What?”

Theo didn’t give me a chance to reply,for he gruffed,

“What the hell were those disgusting mounds of steaming flesh back in thatoffice?”

“The remains of König’s guards.Guess they needed their own sentries against his madness.”

I turned to Porkins. “What’s thisabout me being back? I never left.”

Reese scoffed, “The hell you ….”

He stopped mid-sentence as SisterAmeal suddenly appeared in front of me. I could only imagine the look she wasgiving him. 

I imagine Medusa’s would have been gentler.

“Ah, yeah, you did, Major. Oneheartbeat, you were looking up at that angel there flying away. And the next, youwere a column of smoke being blown away by the breeze.”

Sister Ameal said, “Smelling ofburnt flesh reminiscent of Auschwitz.”

Amos grunted, “That last was notnecessary, Sister.”

“Yes, it was, Rabbi … to remindall here of the depth of depravity against which we fight.”

I tried to soothe Amos’ ruffledfeathers. 

“I always imagined if I did go up in a puff of smoke, it would smellof cinnamon.”

Rachel sniffed, “As a matter offact, you do smell of cinnamon now.”

André looked uncomfortable. “Onlythe power of suggestion.”

His face said even he did notbelieve his words.

Helen abruptly went from angel tomortal again, snaring their attention better than if she yelled,

“Are you waiting for the shadowsto eat the moon? Two hundred SS commandos are right at our door, and theirthree Tiger tanks will do the knocking for them.”

Johnny Knight nervously asked, “Whatabout them Neah, Neim, … them hybrids whatevers?”

Darael scoffed, 

“They are laggingback to see if the psychotic Nazi troops with their clanking tanks can sparethem the ignominy of having to soil their tentacles with our flesh.”

Vincent grunted, 

“Just let themget within rifle range, I’ll show them humiliation.”

Evans said, 

“That nun over therewas going to give us a slideshow or something to show us just they all were doingwhen you showed up.”

I turned to her. “Slideshow?”

She snorted, “Simple language forsimple minds.”

“Kit” Carson huffed, “We loveyou, too, Nun.”

Sister Ameal met my eyes. “Igather you would hold it against me if I killed that one?”

Carson swallowed, “I know I would,Lady.”

I shook my head. “Play nice.”

“This is me playing nice.”

“Slideshow, remember?”

Her brilliant white habit noddedonce sharply. “Holographic projections of events in real time like so.”

She waved her open right palm infront of her and a flickering vista of the village as if seen from an airplaneappeared across the blackened cement of the shattered road.

“Oh, man,” groaned Pablo Dimitri.“Oh, man. Oh, man!”

I didn’t blame Pablo. 

The villagewas surrounded by bristling troops. They seemed to number many more than twohundred. Many, many more.

Sister Ameal frowned disappointedat me. I was used to that look … kind of. All right. Not at all.

“Your Party Line filled with thosetribal chieftains had quite an effect on Colonel Verner as he listened in. He nowknows you were playing him for a fool. The increased troops are a direct resultof his fury at that.”

Rachel gave me a wry “I told youso” look.

Helen sighed, “Richard will thinkof something. He always does.”

I was glad she thought so. I wasn’tso sure.

Sister Ameal said, 

“I can giveyour Spartans weapons that will deal with even this many troops. But they arecruel, savage, inhumane.”

Amos, still rubbed raw by the gasoven remarks from her, uncharacteristically said in a husk, “That is all right withme, Sister.”

She locked eyes with him. “I willremind you of that later.”

Sister Ameal drew in a deep, deepbreath.

“These are terrible weapons. The Naziare experimenting with crude versions of these on the Eastern front. 

Ironicallyenough, one hundred and ten years from now, the Russians themselves will haveperfected them into a handheld version much like your Stinger missiles.”

I fought a shiver. What kind ofweapons were they that they could affect the avatar of Sentient so?

She was still talking. “They callthem Solntsepyokm, Blazing Sun.”

She turned my head to fully faceher. “Who are your strongest stomached Spartans?”

I turned to Reese, but I shook myhead at soft-hearted Porkins who objected. “Trent goes; I go.”

Reese said, “Franklin can reloadfor me.”

I nodded. “Jace, you and Knight.Theo, you and Ant.”

Amos said, “I go with Theo.”

“What the hell is going on here?Where the blue blazes am I?”

I turned around. Oh, why the hellnot? It was helmetless General George S. Patton.

TO TOUCH STRANGE FIRE

 

St. Marok's Orphanage taught Major Richard Blaine to curb his impulsive nature, but under great stress, he acts impulsively ... 

and usually ends up in trouble ...  but never so dire as now.

TO TOUCH STRANGE FIRE

“The moon stays bright when itdoesn’t avoid the night.”

– Rabbi Lt. Amos Stein

 

I looked up into the hell-sky asif for inspiration and only saw Helen’s flaming angel form frozen in an arc ofsupple beauty and grace.

For some odd reason, the words ofthe forgotten poet, Robert Herrick came to me:

“Weigh me the fire; or canst thoufind

A way to measure out the wind?”

Helen was racing to a suicidalcharge against one hundred Nephilim … just when I had a glimmer of an idea howI might save her and the rest of my Spartan 300 … but me, not so much.

Now, she was flying away before Icould tell her … or was she?

I glanced at Darael. I could seehe was smirking though his features were misty … but not that misty.

What did the science for which heheld such distain teach us? What could bedone once could be done again.

I am an impulsive person whenunder stress. A thought hits me, and I act upon it. I can no more hold back anymore than it is in a thoroughbred stallion to race slowly.

I should have held back.

Since he was in my mind, what Iplanned was plain to him … but too late … for both of us.

“No!” Darael cried.

I put all my mind’s focus uponHelen, her essence, her very soul, the faint apricot perfume that wafted afterher whenever she passed. 

All the sensations that embraced me when I held herimage close in the darkest of nights.

It went faster than I dreamed …which should have clued me in right away that the dream had become nightmare.

I was drowning in a roaringmaelstrom of madness worse even than when I awakened in the energy vortex withinSentient’s craft.

There was no up, no down, nothingmy mind could grasp as sane or earthly or reasonable.

The fiery cataclysm arabesqued incurrents of sizzling jade and searing silver.

“NO!” screamed Helen from allaround me, though I could see her nowhere in this swirl of searing energies.

“You cannot be here!”

I put a shrug in my words thoughI couldn’t see myself any more than I could see Helen.

“Well ….” I began.

“Yes,” she snapped, her wordsbillowing in my mind. “Obviously, you can. But you should not!”

“Why?”

She ignored me as was her habitwhen truly annoyed with me.

“You should have been vaporizedthe moment you entered my essence. I am in touch with the Infinite!”

I heard the capitol letter to“Infinite” without understanding it.

I sensed her attention elsewhere,and she snapped, “Darael! I should have known you were behind this!”

“No, fledging seraph. This intrusioninto another seraph’s mind is beyond even me. This rash Son of Adam dragged mealong with his rash impulsiveness.”

A low Voice, so modulated in wavesof utter power and calm, it tremored the very marrow of my bones, spoke in astrange, bemused tone.

It possessed an air of massiveantiquity.

‘Believe the provocateur, HelenMayfair. Darael has a poet’s high, almost satanic, pride in what he can andcannot do.’

“Elohim!” They both cried out insheer fear mingled with cavernous deep awe.

I did not need them to identifythe Speaker.

 I could not say that I knew Him. Only One hadthe right to say that, and the sons of Man had murdered Him.

‘How quaint. You, the black sheepof all my experiments, take off your shoes, as it were, in my Presence.’

“The prayers of Curtis and Richard,my smallest Spartans … they are keeping me in one piece here, aren’t they, sir?”

Praying He had a sense of humor witha corresponding sense of the absurd, I ended with …”Over.”

Helen gasped, “Richard, are youaddled?”

The deep, mellow laughter went onfor an ice age or two, then, finally,

‘Yes, he is … as what might beexpected of an orphan who has survived his season of Gehenna at St. Marok’s.’

I felt icy fingers brush back theforelock of hair that I knew deep down had not accompanied me into the essenceof the seraph whom I hopelessly loved.

‘Do not be too sure it ishopeless, Richard Blaine. I am the Deity of the Impossible. And you arecorrect: the moment you entered within all that is Helen Mayfair, the glow ofthe Spartan helmet pins went out.”

His chuckle was not cold, nor wasit kind.

‘They wailed at the  sight as if their sides had been pierced witha spear … 

and though both were an ocean apart, at the same moment, they beganpraying for you to be resurrected, of all things.’

This time his chuckle echoed puzzlement.

 ‘So, what was there for me to do, but honorsuch childlike trust and love? Thus, is your unthinking act of kindness to twowho could in no way benefit you rewarded.’

A sigh enveloped me.

‘You will be Man’s only briefly, whisperingof the road between realities and the path into the stars. Yet soon theirs nolonger.’

I felt a slap on my rump.

‘Now, off with you! It is timefor you to pull a miracle out of your own hat for a change.’

Abruptly, I was in the midst ofmy Spartan 300.

Taylor gasped, “The Major’s back!And he’s glowing!”

Beside me, Darael groaned, “Ofcourse, he is.”

Porkins gulped, “And the angel ison fire!”

“Which one?” grumped Reese.

I sighed. Things were back tonormal:

Incomprehensible.

 ***

“For thin is the veil betwixt manand the godless deep.

The skies are haunted by thatwhich it were madness to know.

 Strange abominations pass evermore betweenearth and moon and athwart the galaxies.

Unnameable things have come to thisworld in alien horror and will come again.

Beware: the evil of the stars isnot as the evil of this world.”

- Darael

FOREVER IS COMPOSED OF NOW'S _ A TALE OF MEILORI'S

 I walked to my table at Meilori's and paused. 

The ghost of Emily Dickinson was already sitting there, frowning at my open laptop.

She looked up.  "Dearest Roland, I am somewhat overwrought.  Could you help me?"

To my right, Mark Twain vigorously shook his head at me and gruffed, 

"Missy, you are always overwrought.  Why I declare most of your verses have hernias from being wrought over in knots."

Emily rolled her eyes at him and sighed, pointing to my laptop "Your words  tear at me.  You ask: "Does the world need another writer?"

"I know how wretched and galling it feels to have one's carefully crafted words misunderstood or ignored."

{Thomas Bailey Aldrich, in a review of Emily Dickinson’s poetry published anonymously in the Atlantic Monthly, January, 1892:

"But the incoherence and formlessness of her —

I don't know how to designate them — versicles are fatal….

An eccentric, dreamy, half-educated recluse in an out-of-the-way New England village (or anywhere else) cannot with impunity set at defiance the laws of gravitation and grammar." }

Mark knew how deeply those words had wounded Emily.

He snorted, "Emily, dear,  whose name is familiar to the world today: yours or that jaybird Aldrich's?"

Mark bent over her slender shoulder and read my words.  

"Dang it all, why should we bother ourselves asking if our books are needed?  Is beauty needed?  Is humor needed?  Is love needed?"

The ghost of Hemingway paused beside us as Marlene Dietrich waited impatiently for him to pay attention to her again.

He said roughly.  "I see your point, Clemens.  We need to eat, sleep, and breathe ... all else is extra."

"No," Emily murmured.  

"For living souls must soar above mere appetite.  It is our yearning for beauty, for humor, for love that raises us above the level of an animal."

Marlene's ghost sat beside the poet and patted her hand.  

"As odd as it may appear after my spit-fire life, I agree with you.  

Why, one of your verses meant much to me my whole life --

 Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all."

Hemingway bent and read my words, too. Dang it all, I wrote those words to myself, not to all of Meilori's.

 Hemingway glared at me,  "Writing, at its best, is a lonely life.

Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness, but I doubt if they improve his writing.

He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates.

For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.

You know that fiction is possibly the roughest trade of all in writing.

You do not have the reference, the old important reference.

You have the sheet of blank paper, the pencil, and the obligation to invent truer than things can be true.

You have to take what is not palpable and make it completely palpable 

and also have it seem normal so that it can become a part of experience of the person who reads it."

Marlene rose abruptly, "Enough, Papa, you owe me a tango."

And off they went into the shadows.

Emily sighed, 

"Publication is the auction of the mind of man, and I prefer my bare-foot rank best as it affords me the freedom to write as I wish."

She looked off into the shadows that had swallowed Hemingway and Marlene.

"Success is counted sweetest By those who ne'er succeed. To comprehend a nectar Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host Who took the flag to-day Can tell the definition, So clear, of victory!

As he, defeated, dying, On whose forbidden ear

The distant strains of triumph Burst agonized and clear!"

Emily looked up at me.  "I wonder if your friends will continue to write should success elude them?  

Are the words burning within them, as they are with me, to find life on the written page?"

Emily squinted to make out the head of Marlene in the darkness as she finished the verse which meant so much to the actress:

"And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me."