has been one of the worst years of my life. I say one of… because in 1966 I was sexually assaulted, and a tornado attacked Belmond, Iowa with both of my parents there for work… and me not knowing if they were alive or dead for about eighteen hours.
This has been another dragon of a year. The pandemic took away my substitute teaching job, removing permanently the last chance I had to do a thing I loved.
And, of course, my father has had a series of strokes that took away his memories of his wife and family and has left him dying in hospice care
He had another incident yesterday. They called my mother on her one day she was allowed to visit him (due to the pandemic) and told her not to come in. He hadn’t awakened that day, and they didn’t expect him to make it. So, she started calling all of us to let us know the end had come. Except it hadn’t. He did wake up after all. And Mom had to undo the final notices she had already done.
But he lost some ground. Before he could talk, even though his memory was mostly gone. He would talk about crazy things, like working in a Hardware store in Lubbock and needing to retire because his 89th birthday is this month and he was exhausted from working. (He did somehow remember his birthday accurately, though he has never worked in Lubbock, Texas.) Now he can only mumble incoherently. He is emaciated and loses ground daily.
And it is wearing on my mother who is 87 and has not been so alone since they married in 1956. I fear once he is gone, we will lose her too. I have spent long hours on the phone with mother and sisters for most of three months now. There has been tears and heartache over long-distance phone lines. The Trump Pandemic has kept us hundreds of miles apart.
I am reminded that my life has been pretty good compared to that of Jews and Gypsies and political dissenters in Germany and Poland in the 1930s and 40s. And the plague now is probably better than the Black Death in the Middle Ages. But, in the space of a year, we have reached a point where those comparisons are no longer merely exaggerations.
But bankruptcy, illness, and misfortune have not changed who I am. There is still more in life to be lived. At least until there isn’t. And on that day when I play that final game of chess with the Grim Reaper… Who knows? There’s still a chance I might win the game.
Ham sat at the pilot-seat controls aboard his safari ship, looking out the main portal into the cavernous docking bay of the Bregohelma. It was depressing. Trying to suicidally destroy his enemy, he had become a mere prisoner instead.
Admiral Tang didn’t see him as anything more than a flea that needed to be slapped. He was glad he and his crew were not dead, but he was irked by the fact that he had been far less of a factor in the Battle of Coventry than had his friend the Goofer. And worse, now Goofy and all those potential allies on Coventry were all dead too. What step comes next?
There was activity in the docking bay. Armed men in combat armor were filing in, keeping together in highly organized tactical formations. Dang! Imperial Marines! There would probably be little hope of surviving this encounter.
“Boss! Yo, Boss!” Sinbadh came stumbling into the bridge of the ship with an armload of unattached plasma gun parts. “We gots plenty o’ buccaneers ready to board us!”
“Yes, I know. Stow the guns away. We are gonna meekly surrender and hope they don’t kill us.”
“Blimey, Cap’n! We surrender without a fight?”
“Yes, my friend. The Madonna is pregnant. Sahleck is a little boy. Professor Marou is really, really old…”
“Not that old!” I said as I revealed myself from where I had secretly been watching Ham from behind the bulkhead.
“Hey, Professor, what were you doing hiding back there?” Ham asked.
“Well, I…” I tried to think of a quick excuse. It suddenly wasn’t necessary.
“Ham Aero! Han Ferrari! Come out!” came the strangely compelling voice. We all felt a deep black fear swelling in our guts and pulling us painfully toward the voice like a nose ring attached to a chain being pulled by a steady, relentless strength.
“Good Lord!” swore Ham. “It’s Admiral Tang, and he has us in his power.”
Ham was right. It was Tang’s special Psion power. He could manipulate us with our own fear. He controlled us completely.
“Don’t shoot! We’re coming out!” I heard Duke Ferrari saying it from the exit ramp beneath us. And there was no choice. We filed out of the Shadowcat like puppets on strings.
Admiral Brona Tang was not only the scariest being I had ever met up to that point in my life, he was also the biggest. He was easily six foot eleven, and encased from head to toe in powered battle armor. The armor was even a bright red color, as if to emphasize the blood he had spilled and the blood he still intended to spill. His face was a red mask with black eye portals, an alien, evil sort of face. He also wore a hat on top of the helmet, a wide-brimmed red hat that looked vaguely like the kind of hat worn by Catholic friars in the long-ago Dark Ages, the fourteenth century. In fact, as I thought of it, images of the Inquisition and power-mad Cardinals leapt to mind.
“Good. You have decided to relent and surrender.” The voice was electronically enhanced and almost sounded like three voices in one to me.
Ham, Duke Ferrari, and I stood in front, as if to shield the others. Sinbadh stood behind with the poor Nebulon Madonna on one side, and the trembling Lupin boy, Sahleck Kim on the other side. The wolfman put a hairy paw around the shoulders of each.
“Neither you nor your brother can escape me, Ham. I have you in my possession, and one of my most trusted agents is by Ged’s side, reporting his every move. Your brother is even now beginning the quest that will dispose of that Ancient device that proved to be such a thorn in my side here at the Battle of Coventry.” Tang laughed. “I couldn’t ask for a sweeter vengeance.”
“Who… who is the agent?” asked Ham, against the force of Tang’s terrible will.
“Ah, no! It’s not that easy! How do I know you haven’t manifested some terrible Psion power too by now? It runs in our families. Mine comes from my father. Your brother’s is from Mammy Aero, a powerful Psion as well known to my father as Ged. My mind is shielded, and I will tell you nothing.”
“Aren’t villains always supposed to brag about their evil plots to take over the galaxy?” I asked sarcastically.
Tang laughed again. “I know you too, Dr. Marou. I learned of you from those accursed Time Knights. You are the one person here that future history books guarantee had to survive this encounter. The same is not true for the rest. Most of you will live no longer than the coming battle against Tron Blastarr at Outpost. Oops! Did I give something away? How about this; I am committing what remains of the entire Imperial Navy to that battle. I am going to win it and put an end to any possible time line where your so-called good guys can win. The Imperium has kept order for hundreds of years. It will last for thousands more.”
Sinbadh winked his doggy eye at me. “Clever how ye got him to spill the ol’ soliloquy there, Doc.” he whispered. “Tip o’ me hat to ye.”
“What will you do with us, then?” asked Ham.
“You will sit right here in the docking bay, prisoners aboard your own ship. I am told I cannot destroy you tonight. It has to wait for the battle. But if I can outthink and kill a Time Knight, I can kill you.”
Yes, she was a real car. My dad bought her in the 60’s as a used car. But she was a hardtop, not a convertible. She was the car he drove to work every day in Belmond. We called it the “Pink and White Pumpkin”, my sisters and I, referring to the pumpkin in Cinderella which the fairy godmother changes into a coach. But it would only later become the car of my dreams.
You see, she was killed in the Belmond Tornado of 1966. Her windows were all broken out and her frame was twisted. So the pictures of her, though they look exactly like my memories of her, minus the rust spots, are not actual pictures of the car in question. Our next door neighbor, Stan the Truck Man, was a mechanic always on the lookout for salvage parts. He took her apart piece by piece while she sat in our driveway. We continued to sit in her and play in her until all that was left was the bare frame. My friend Werner told me for the first time about the facts of life and where babies really came from in the back seat while she was being gradually dismantled. Of course, I was nine at the time and didn’t really believe him. How could that grossness actually be true?
But she still lives, that old dream car… She is the reason that I objectify my imagination as a ship with pink sails. My daydreams, my creative fantasies, and those long, lingering plays in the theater of my imagination as I am drifting off to sleep all start in the three-masted sailing ship with pink sails. And that dream image was born from the Pink and White Pumpkin. I have sailed in her to many an exotic place… even other planets. And when I die, she will take me home again.
Yes, I have reached a snag in the novel-writing process. I am definitely at the end of the story. The crisis point is past. The characters who have to die to resolve the central conflict are dead. The characters who needed to be rescued are already rescued. I have probably less than a thousand words left to write. But I still have to tie the knot in the end of the plot to keep all the main ideas and themes from pouring out and floating away with the wind. I need the final scene and a memorable end line.
And, I am ill. My chest hurts. My head hurts. And I have needed to sleep every time I have settled down to write it. What happens if the old Grim Reaper shows up again with a sharper scythe than he had on his last visit?
I don’t know
what comes after the last chapter. I don’t know it for the book I am writing, nor for the life I am living.
I freely admit that I have no confidence whatsoever that after I die I will wake up in Heaven. Baptists have told me I will go to Hell for not believing what they believe. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have assured me that there is no Hell for me to wake up in and be eternally tortured in. But they also tell me I get no Paradise forever because I stopped believing what they believe. I have repeatedly said in writing and conversations that I am a Christian Existentialist. And I have explained that I think that makes me an atheist who believes in God. That leaves me, more or less, as an agnostic, not knowing anything until it’s proven to me, and realizing that nobody can prove it besides the God that I believe in but who doesn’t exist.
Our lives are like a book.
Things happen before the book is opened and you begin to read, but they are not technically something that the book contains within it. And when the book is finished and you close it, the story is complete. But the book still exists even when it’s closed.
I am not concerned about the fact that my story will end. But with both the book I am working on and the life I am living still unfinished… well, I hope both stories will be finished.
Slaying a blue dragon wasn’t the biggest event at the cardboard castle, but it was among the most memorable.All sorts of people show up to parties I hold there. Of course, the guests don’t really have a choice in the matter.Celebrities make an appearance if I can afford them. Mickey and Minnie cost me less than five dollars.The place isn’t actually Hogwarts. It’s made of cardboard. I believe Hogwarts was made of polystyrene.All sorts of heroes try to save the day in the cardboard castle.Heroes at the cardboard castle are made, not born.Sometimes the cast is a bit crazy.’It is possible to take the Snowball Express from the castle to Toonerville. Mickey and Minnie are always ready to jump in front of the camera.Of course, a few evil wizards are essential to the game.Voldemort may have mistaken the place for Hogwarts too.Sometimes I question the prevailing religion at cardboard castle. But Princess Jasmine seems to be fine with it.But the old castle is a bit run down in parts of it. Maybe Princess Aurora can convince the Prince to invest in a few wall repairs.
Bernie Wrightson in 1972, when I was a freshman and sophomore in high school, created for D.C. comics the character known as The Swamp Thing.
Of course,
being a stupid kid at the time, I totally ignored his genius with pen and ink, ink and brush, and fascinatingly dense forests of intricate detail.
I didn’t really get it until he joined The Studio with Jeffery C. Jones, Michael Kaluta, and Barry Windsor-Smith (whom I idolized for his work on Conan.)
And while in college, consuming everything available by The Studio that I could find and afford, I fell in love with his deeply dark and brooding illustration work for a new edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Frankenstein had 50 illustrations by Wrightson that firmly established the fact that by drawing with black ink you could show in startlingly real ways the qualities of white light. That appealed to me both literally as a way to make beautiful art and metaphorically, as that last thing was what I was doing with my own life, drawing the darkness to get to the beautiful light.
Most of his work
was drawing monsters; werewolves, zombies, the creatures of H.P. Lovecraft, and numerous things from nightmares.
But it has a definite beauty of its own. Darkness, evil, and corruption brings out the quality of what is light, righteous, and pure. There is truth in approaching reality from the dark side of the equation.
Of course, he would also do work on heroes like Batman, because the darkness breeds its own defenders of justice.
I am not so much a fan of monsters as I am a believer of taming the monsters who beset us as we try to make a worthy life for ourselves. But I can definitely see where Bernie Wrightson has been doing exactly that with his brilliant pen-and-ink artwork. Sadly, he will be doing no more of it since we lost him in 2017. But it is a legacy he left behind that will make his light continue to shine forth from dark places for a long time to come.
The story is coming to an end. I am halfway through the last chapter. The climax of the plot is now finished and the final resolutions of the plot are being concluded. And so, soon you will be able to find this book on Amazon and see for yourself if the amazing levels of nonsense and fantastical lunacy were worth the wait.
A fatal car accident seriously alters the lives of the three Brown children, Daisy, Johnny, and Mortie. But they are rescued by their mysterious “Uncle Miltie”, a video-game designer who is somehow involved with the military, the CIA, and other strange things that may have caused their parents’ deaths. And Uncle Miltie takes them to live, not in his house, but inside the weird virtual reality game he has had a hand in creating. And something there is going terribly wrong.
The video game they now live in is called The Legend of Hoodwink. And it is entirely possible that they will become trapped there forever. At least the main characters of the game are nice. Hoodwink is the boy hero who looks pretty good to Daisy, and his sidekick is Babbles, the Kelpie who can’t help but talk so fast you can’t really understand him.
I am ill as I write this, but lately that has been the story of my life too. A life or death game with rules you have to learn as you go, and a bizarre place where what is real and what is an illusion may prove to be exactly the same thing.
I wish I had answers. I woke up with a slight sore throat this morning. I have a cough that comes and goes. That is nothing new for me and my allergies this time of year. Still… it might be COVID. I could be dead before the end of the week. My power to affect anything in the world right now is very limited. I have to wait in Texas until early voting starts on October 13th, a very ominously-numbered day. I still have to finish and publish book number 18. And I feel like it is a very good novel. But I may be too ill to write that last chapter today. And it would be a shame to leave this world without finishing it.
We must never give up hope.
We must remember where we came from.
And look for new dawns more than colorful sunsets.
“Let me understand what you stupid… stupid people are saying! You left the defenses of Outpost and Don’t Go Here to go galivanting all the way to Coventry? And in only three days?” King Killer had never shouted so loudly nor had a face so red as it was in that meeting.
“Dude! It woulda been two days if we hadn’a parked invisioble to watch the battle.” Nikki Sixx appeared shocked that Admiral Killer was so mad.
“Wha… ?” burbled Cold Death stupidly.
“Chill oh soon-to-explode-from-rage dude,” said Vince Niell from his safe place behind mirrored sunglasses. “We followed the orders of the Hooey-dude, man. We know how he worked for you in escaping the Imperium, bro. We just assumed that you gave him the orders he gave us, dude.”
“Vince, grab some whiskey. I need you skunk-levels of drunk so I can understand every word you are saying.”
Besides the Admiral and the crew of the Megadeath, Admiral Tron and his wife Maggie the Knife were also present. Maggie, taking a cue from Admiral Killer went to the bar in the back of the conference room and grabbed two bottles of Mundoploovian Suicide Ale to help make Vince more understandable.
“And where was Captain Lee in all of this, Gentlemen?” asked Tron sounding dangerous.
“Oh, he weren’t with us,” said Nikki Sixx. “He and Pamela left the ship to go be rock and roll stars to the stars! Hooey said they was gonna be megastars!”
“So, he officially abandoned his command and went AWOL?”
“Um, yep, thass about the size of it, boss,” said Nikki. Cold Death nodded stupidly but vigorously to back him up on that.
Maggie put the Suicide Ale down in front of Vince. Then she stuck her shiny knife in the table for emphasis. This particular table had numerous decorations from years’ worth of Maggie’s pointed emphasis.
Vince drank quickly and narrowly avoided vomiting out his liver. He became instantly drunk.
“So, tell me this, Vince, dude… How the hell did you make a round trip to Coventry and back in only three days?” King Killer asked.
“Your friend the time knight brought his little time machine booth device on our ship, interfacing his chrono-circuits with the Megadeath’s Ancient computer brain. It reduced a three week trip to two days via a built in time-accelerator that we knew nothing about until the good Doctor Hooey showed us it’s enhanced space-travel ability.”
“And do you think these other Ancient-built space ships are capable of doing the same thing?”
“I am unsure of the probability… but I believe I can find the device in the other ships if they are indeed present.”
“Okay, Vince,” said Tron, “what was this other nonsense about watching the battle invisioble?”
“Well, of course, the mispronounced word was intended to represent invisibility. The Megadeath, it seems, has a most efficacious ability to go into stealth mode. We delivered the good Doctor Hooey into the Bregohelma with his timeship. And then, per his specific instructions, we became mere observers of the gnarly… err…” Vince had to take another swallow of Suicide Ale. “… most great and glorious battle ever seen since Ancient times ended.”
“Okay, tell us what happened,” demanded Admiral Killer.
“Well, sirs, if it please you, the ship we rendezvoused with was the stolen Apatosaurus Battleship.”
“Did you attack on sight?”
“Of course not, sirs. Our orders were to deliver the good Doctor Hooey to the battleship. He was supposed to meet up with the Lizard Lady there and help her destroy the Bregohelma.”
Everybody gasped at the name of Admiral Tang’s flagship, including Cold Death who had forgotten he knew all of this particular battle story already.
“How were they going to do that with one battleship against Tang’s whole fleet?”
“They were trying to convince the Imperials that they were going to turn over the stolen Ancient tech, since Lizard Lady portrayed herself falsely as an Imperial spy. And when the two ships docked, the Apatosaurus Battleship would blow up and take out the Bregohelma along with it.”
“Did the plan work?” Maggie asked, obviously hoping that it would in spite of having been told the final outcome already.
“Naturally, it did not. But this must’ve been a part of the plan all along, because we were asked to remain invisibly as observers to the battle that followed.”
“That’s when you saw Ham’s safari ship and the First Half-Century?” asked Tron.
“Of course, sir. They flew in bravely to take on Tang’s entire fleet.”
“And what happened after that?”
“Well, it was obvious that the First Half-Century was also equipped with some kind of Ancient weapon system of immense power. The thing went off and destroyed all of the Imperial ships but one, the Bregohelma. But Tang’s ship, as well as the two attacking ships were all rendered powerless and completely damaged when something caused the Ancient weapon to target the planet and blast away about a billion people in the planet’s largest three cities. It was a horrible tragedy. And the three starships were dead in space for a while.”
“Why didn’t you step in at that point and finish off the Bregohelma?”
“We couldn’t. Dr. Hooey told us not to interfere with the battle or we could alter time-lines and keep our side from winning the upcoming Battle of Outpost.”
“Bummer!” said Maggie.
“Naw! Itsa good thing, Mama,” said Cold Death, risking Maggie’s notorious wrath. “Itsa meanin’ we is gonna win dat battle what ain’t happenna yet.”
“Can you give that man a Suicide Ale too please?” asked Tron.
“To make him talk better?”
“No. To kill him if possible.”
“Continue, please, Vince. What happened to Ham Aero and the other ship?”
“Admiral Tang’s ship moved first. They completely loaded the little safari ship on board their ship and took off at a slow crawl. The First Half Century hadn’t gotten more than life support working when we had to leave to bring this report to you.”
“I wish you would’ve at least rescued Ham and the Duke,” said Admiral Killer.
“Doctor Hooey specifically told us not to.”
“Oh. Did Hooey survive the explosion, do you know?”
“No. As far as we know, both he and Lizard Lady are now dead.”
“I really don’t know if that’s good news or bad news,” said Admiral Tron. “It is good that such a large part of the Imperial Navy was destroyed. But we may have lost the heart of the rebellion. And what are we gonna tell Ged Aero?”
“The truth, I would surmise,” said Vince Niell, shortly before passing out dead drunk. Cold Death finished his ale. Sat down next to Niell. And passed out too… where he began snoring loudly, thus proving that he was not, unfortunately, dead.
Today I needed to write something short and sweet to be done with it, and yet, actually do it. This was because my head was hurting with a blood-sugar headache, my computer keyboard is still acting up and interfering with writing, and my ability to actually concentrate is seriously impaired.
On Pubby I have started getting reviews on my book of essays, Laughing Blue. They have shown evidence that people who actually read my book, like it a lot. Today has not been all bad news.
The real news for today is that I am almost finished with my work in progress. The Wizard in His Keep is now past the climax of the plot and winding down. I am at the moment around 42,000 words. I am thinking only two Cantos (Chapters) more.
But I didn’t plan on having to learn a whole new WordPress editing system on a day when my head is aching. So, it ends here for today.
Catch a Falling Star 