Canto 86 – Landing in the Sand (the Blue Thread)
The spaceship known as The Magic Carpet landed gracefully in the desert downport of the planet Djinnistan. But even as graceful as the landing was, clouds of sand were kicked up in all directions.
“That was a beautiful landing,” Arkin Cloudstalker said to the Black Fly. She smiled at him. She was a stunning beauty without the black mask on.
“Thank you, Captain. You see now why the argument about who flies this ship was pointless?”
“Oh, yes. In fact, when this is all over, I want to recruit you to fly with the Lady Knights.”
“Ah, you flatter me, Captain. I am apparently good enough to fly with a troop of space pirates and criminal rim-world scum.”
“You know what I mean,” he said with a laugh, rising from the copilot’s chair on the bridge.
“Captain?” Lazerstone entered the bridge. “We seem to be under siege by a hoard of children of your species.”
“Oh?” Arkin looked out the viewport and down at the monitors. Child-sized humanoids, both male and female, were everywhere. Some were placing weather-clamps on the landing gear. Others were polishing everything they could reach, and with a strange group of what appeared to be robotically animated ladders, there was no surface on the Magic Carpet they couldn’t reach, even if it meant hanging upside down. Some even seemed to be probing at electrical connections with unidentifiable tools.
“Those are Peris, one of the species of Freaks created and mass-produced on this planet.” Black Fly seemed unconcerned at what was happening to her ship.
“Do you think they might break something, or do damage?”
“No. Dr. Bludlust created them with brains more facile than any computer, and much more creative than any human being, even human beings on psychedelics.”
“They are scanning things,” said Lazerstone. “I hope you have no secrets to conceal.”
“Well, scanners don’t read minds. And the ship itself has no real secrets at this planet’s tech level anyway.”
“The point is, they must not scan me. And I can feel some very uncomfortable scanning frequencies already.”
“They can read your mind or something that way, my friend?” Arkin asked.
“No. But they could disrupt me and cause me to explode with the wrong frequency.”
“How big of an explosion?” asked Black Fly.
“Twenty thousand megatons of thermonuclear energy, depending on how many harmonic stones surround us for my death to activate.”
“That sounds like a potential problem,” Arkin said.
“I have the word of a time knight that such an event will not take place,” Black Fly calmly told them.
Three of the small Peri creatures entered the bridge at that moment. One was a boyish male, and two were childlike girls.
“Greetings, travelers. We welcome you to the enchanted planet of Djinnistan. How may we be of service to you?” said the red-haired girl Peri.
“Well, to be honest,” said the Black Fly, “We have come to liberate this planet so that it can join the New Star League.”
“Oh, that sounds very ambitious,” said the boy Peri. “You do realize that you will have to defeat the minions of Dr. Havir Bludlust, right?”
“Yes, and are you sure it is a good idea to tell these natives that we are invading?” Arkin asked Black Fly.
“Oh, of course. These are not so much natives as they are slaves. Many of them not happy with how they were created, exploited, and abused. We will be calling them our army soon enough.”
Catch a Falling Star 
Self-Reflection
Every writer, whether he or she writes fiction or non-fiction, is really writing about themselves. The product originates within the self. So, that self has to gaze into the mirror from time to time.
So, the question for today is, who, or possibly what, is Mickey?
I have been posting stuff every day for a few years now, and in that time, I have been much-visited on WordPress. Maybe not much-read, but then, you cannot actually tell if somebody read it or not. Most probably look only at the pictures. And, since I am also an artist of sorts, that can also be a good thing. Though, just like most artists, my nude studies are more popular than the pieces I value the most. But unless the looker makes a comment or leaves a “like”, you really have no idea if they read or understood any of the words I wrote. And you have no idea what they feel about the art. Maybe they just happened to click on one of ;my nudes while surfing for porn.
I rarely get below 50 views of something in my blog every day. The last three days were 86 views, 124 views yesterday, and 88 views already today. My blog has definitely picked up pace over the length of the coronavirus quarantine. But no definable reason seems obvious. Some of my posts are polished work, but Robin is right when he says today’s post is merely fishing with the process, which is true almost every day.
As a person I am quirky and filled with flaws, pearls of wisdom that result from clam-like dealing with flaws, strange metaphors that shine the pearls, and obsessions like the one I have with nudism that leaves me properly dressed for diving for pearls.
I have demonstrated throughout my life that I have an interest in and experience with nudism, though not the boldness to parade my naked self before the world outside of the writing that I do. I also spent most of my bachelorhood dating reading teachers and teachers’ aides, finally settling down and marrying another English teacher. I completed a thirty-one year career as an English teacher, which means I spent a lot of time teaching writing and reading to kids who were ages 12 to 18. Twenty-four of those years were spent in the middle school monkey house. And all of that led to being so mentally damaged after all that I wasn’t good for much beyond becoming a writer of YA novels or possibly subbing for other mentally-damaged teachers in middle schools around our house.
A real telling feature of what I have become is the fact that most of the characters I write about in my fiction are somehow a reflection of me. Milt Morgan, seen to the left, is illustrated here with a picture of me as a ten-year-old wearing a purple derby. Yes, I was that kind of geeky nerd.
And most of the plots are based around things that happened to me as a child, a youth, or a young teacher. Many of the events in the stories actually happened to me, though the telling and retelling of them are largely twisted around and reshaped. And I am aware of all the fairies, aliens, werewolves, and clowns that inhabit my stories. Though I would argue that they were real too in an imaginative and metaphorical way.
So, here now is a finished post of Mickey staring into the metaphorical mirror and trying in vain to define the real Michael, an impossible, but not unworthy task.
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