Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Some journeys take you exactly where you know you’re going. You know exactly what to expect when you arrive. Other journeys are just a stopover in the larger picture.
But some journeys are mystical. You don’t know if it’s the final stop or the start of a full new journey. All you can do is wonder.
A friend has gone into hospice. Failing heart. Surgery to replace his pacemaker was aborted a few months ago. Measures were made to help him sufficiently recover for a new pacemaker. Whatever happened since, he’s in hospice.
I thought about him and me, and him and his life, trying to find words for where we’re at. I finally decided, I was happy to know him, enjoyed his company, admired his accomplishments, respected his principles, and enjoyed his company. The words feel empty and lost, as satisfying as reaching into an empty bag.
It’s the nature of existence as we know it to live and then die. Sometimes the space between the beginning and end are cruelly small. His was not. He’s done the first. Now he will do the second.
Time to start the day and get underway. We’re at the port of Friday, January 20, 2023. Next destination: Friday evening. We’ll get there after the sun sets on Ashlandia, 5:10 PM.
“Ashlandia, where time is never the same.”
Sunrise at 7:36 AM found Ashlandia frost bound beneath full blue skies. Snow and ice still cap higher mountains and ridges, a winter photo delight against that blue. 25 degrees F says the local weather station while prognosticators tell us that a 48 degree F high is expected. That’s a little cold for Ashlandia’s winters. We usually see the thermo squeaking down to 30 before braking to a full stop, but we’ll live. We’ll complain, but we’ll live. Well, some, such as me, complain, but others just march along with it. The shelters are open for whoever needs them, and hot meals are being provided gratis in several locations. Crews have remained busy removing fallen trees from the month’s earlier windstorms. A drive around yesterday showed all were gone. No houses or buildings experienced major damage, so we’re thankful for that.
My wife remains in bed, affected by her RA and Raynaud’s. One of her fingers looks ghastly, white and waxen. She says it’s painful and stiff but doesn’t complain. She was planning to make me a cherry pie yesterday but I nixed that. We just had sugar pie instead. She skipped her exercise class this morning, which is never a good omen.
Mom’s list of issues continuous a daunting trend of increasing. Little seems to improve for her and pain shadows every decision and conversation. She soldiers on, a tough old broad, as she likes to self-reference, but she seems so tired from the constant fight to live.
With all the dreams I had last night, The Neurons packed the morning mental music stream with songs on dreaming. I ignored them. We lost David Crosby this week, another talented musician who brightened my life. The Byrds were on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1965, which was my childhood, playing “Mr Tambourine Man”. I was nine then. Though a little too mellow for my budding rock and roll tendencies, I admired their style and harmony and their songs stayed comfortably lodged in my mind. Formation of CSN and then CSN&Y was a positive addition to the folk-rock scene, where their harmonies and smart lyrics adjusted my budding teenage attitudes.
Got my coffee. French roast, which is my usual. Unsweetened and untouched by milk or cream, it offers a sharply bitter living on my tastebuds, with a friendly chocolatey overlay.
Stay positive. Sail on to new horizons. Here’s the music, in living color. Cheers
It was another military dream but with a marked difference. First, a friend, Jeff, who was also in the military was in the dream.
I was at some unidentified Air Force base. I was a chief master sergeant, E9, and was due to attend a conference of CMS that was due to start. (This is two ranks above my RL retired rank.) I worried about my hair, my uniform, and my shoes as attendees began arriving. But I slipped away and pressed my uniform, taking care of that, putting razor sharp creases in it. Then I stayed low until the barber opened. When I walked into the barber shop, there were two barbers and no customers, so either one could immediately cut my hair. Both knew me by name.
After getting my hair cut, I left the shop and looked down at my shoes. They were scuffed and old. I said to myself, those aren’t my shoes, and they immediately changed into highly polished new shoes.
I felt a lot better about myself. I ran into Jeff, also a CMS. He and I chatted. I ended up telling him about a cousin who died of cancer (a cancer did die of cancer in RL). We were walking around as we talked. Female military spouses were all over the place, and they kept flirting with me. The attention flattered me.
Jeff and I stayed together through the morning, sitting down and eating. Then the conference was due to start. Another CMS came up and asked if I was going, because it was getting under way. I told him that I’d left the military twice and came back twice, but now I’m done. I wasn’t going to attend. I was taking off my uniform and leaving.
I went off to find a bathroom. When I found one, I undressed and then peed and discovered that my pecker was half purple. One of the wives walked in on me. While taking a long look at my body, she apologized for entering. I replied, “I don’t mind. I’m just wondering why my penis is half purple.”
Dream end.
The window of opportunity for Sunday 11/27/2022, has opened. By the numbers 7:15, 39 F, 49 F, 4:42. That would be AM sunrise, current temperature under an off-gray sky, today’s high, and to close the day, sunset this evening. Snow warnings are issued for later this week but we’re not expecting anything like what hit New York earlier this month. Old photographs of the digital type remind me that we’ve had snow in October and November before, always wet, heavy stuff that didn’t stick around for longer than a fruit fly’s life.
We’re celebrating another friend. We learned yesterday that she passed on Wednesday night. An artist with three sons, she was 96. I’ve only known her for sixteen years, since she was eighty, but she enthralled me with stories about growing up in Klamath, OR. Her late teens had her decide to move to San Francisco to study art. She went to school and lived the life, falling in love, marrying, moving to Sunnyvale, raising three sons while zipping around in a red Triumph sports car. There were trips to New York and Broadway plays, and then her husband’s death, and her return to Oregon. All that happened before she was fifty. I so loved talking to her and enjoyed her spirit. Her mind had slowly trickled away in its abilities, leaving her puzzled about people’s identities and what was going on, and disassembling her ability to paint and write, but she always shared a fantastic smile. Her youngest son has been taking care of her for the last ten years in her house on the hill. Art and laughter used to fill it. It had become more and more silent in the last two years.
The microwave has gone offline again. I did the usual tricks to restore but they resulted in a no-go. So, a deeper, more prolonged process of troubleshooting and repair. So, in case I thought I might have some free time, I don’t.
I saw a bumper sticker yesterday, oh boy. “Give me something to believe in.” read the label on the scratched light blue Volkswagen Beetle. The Neurons immediately kicked “Something to Believe In” by Poison from 1990. It’s a soft rock ballad about losses and inequities. As relevant today as it was back in 1990, noting the TV charlatans living in mansions, driving luxury cars and scamming money from people as the homeless crises rises. Bret Michaels wrote the song and was mourning the loss of friends as he wrote it and felt it when he sang it. You should check out the words.
Stay positive and test negative. Enjoy some fresh air, sunshine, and beauty where you find it. Coffee has been consumed, and more will be consumed. Here’s the music. Cheers
He glanced up when a women entered the coffee shop and strode with long legs to the counter. Then he caught himself from shouting and leaping out of his chair.
The woman looked just like his little sister. If his sister had not been dead for forty years — if he’d not seen her die (God, stop that thought) and hadn’t gone to her services, consoling Mom and his other sisters — he would have been sure it was Sammy, the name she chose when she was little, telling everyone, “My name is not Debby. It’s Sammy.” Asked why she’d changed her name, Sammy thrust out a hip, removed sunglasses from her nine-year-old face and replied, “Look at me. I’m not a Debby.” It was delivered with such precocious contempt.
Carmichael couldn’t stop himself from watching her. Like Sammy, this woman was stunning, brunette with thick hair and sunlight delivered highlights, long-legged, athletic in stance and motion, like she’s waiting for play to resume. All his sisters were the same, except Sharon, who seemed to be from a completely different set of genes, except she shared their grandmother’s hips, face, and neck — well, all of it as she aged, almost becoming Grandma’s spitting image. The other problem was that the woman looked as Sammy had when she’d died, so she couldn’t be Sammy. Sammy would now be sixty-two. So, that was impossible. Also, what would bring Sammy to Corvalis? Sammy wouldn’t be this far north. She wanted warm sunshine. He’d always thought she’d end up in southern California. That’s where she always declared she was going to live, and Sammy had the will to make it so.
The woman turned, strolling from the counter, sunglasses in hand, as Sammy always did. She glanced his way. He met it with a small smile and slight nod. God, the resemblance to his sister was shocking. He should take a photo, maybe explain why, then —
Her eyes widening, she walked toward him. “Carm? Oh my God, is it you?”
Carmichael sat back and held off answering for seconds. Then, “Do I know you?”
The woman stopped six feet away, sunglasses pointed to her chest, long hair held back by the other hand. “It’s me, Sammy.”
“Sammy?” Carmichael dumbly nodded. He refrained from adding, you can’t be Sammy because Sammy is dead. Didn’t seem like a polite thing to say. “Sammy…Sammy who?”
“But — I’m sorry. You — but it can’t — ” Sammy shook her head with small and precise movements. “I’m sorry, but you can’t be Carmichael.” A smile charmed him. “I thought you were my brother. You look just like him. But you can’t be.”
“Why?” Carmichael asked.
“Well, he died almost forty years ago,” Sammy replied with a small sigh. “Car accident, along with my mother and sister.”
“Sharon?”
Sammy froze for two seconds. Her brown eyes narrowed. “What’s going on? How did you know that?”
“Because my sister is Sharon. She was with us when you died.”
A patch to wake up
A patch to fall sleep
A patch to help you pay attention
A patch to take a drink.
A patch to kill your dreams
A patch to keep you sane
A patch to make you eat
A patch to dull your brain.
A patch to calm your nerves
A patch to stay alive
A patch to keep you breathing
And then a patch to die.
His wife, as she sometimes does, came in and said, “Just making sure you’re alive,” and then left for the gym.
It’s something she’s been doing for a few years. But he’d recently stayed with his mother, who twice told him that she was going to send someone down to his room to see if he was alive when he visited her.
Just what kind of vibe was he giving off to others that they wondered if he was still alive?
The winds brought in some news. A friend, Carol, was to meet another for lunch and whatever. Carol, known by habit and character to be punctual, didn’t show. The jilted date went to Carol’s house to learn why. The front door was unlocked, the television was on, and there was Carol, dressed and seated in front of the telly, all ready to go, already gone.
She was always fun at the annual Oscars Party, held at Judy’s house each year. The pandemic put a stop to that nonsense. Carol was also known as an enthusiastic reader and one ready for a small glass of white, and a refill. She was tidy and neat, never a hair out of place, always in stylish shoes, fast with a quip, ready to talk politics and the latest on the war, economy, or technology. She is, of course, irreplaceable, as they all are. News of her passing is going through the community like a high-speed boat.
All agree, we’ll certainly miss Carol. At least, the consensus says, she went out the best way, dressed and ready to go, with little apparent bother, and no long good-byes. She never was one for long good-byes.
Michael Seidel, writer 