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Thursday, April 28, 2016

X is for NOT WHAT YOU MIGHT THINK

"I hate the sun because it gives light to see the world but not enough for the lost to see the way home." 
- Meilori Shinseen

Freud sneered at Mark.  

"So, Twain, you, too, must be damned, for you are imprisoned within Meilori's walls as am I."

Mark snorted, 

"Not so you'd notice.  Why I visit the apartment of the boy here so often, I know exactly what he will say to X -- Xena."


Mark smiled wide.  

"Why I am rather partial to that filly's corset and long legs myself.  The boy has a virtual shrine to her on one of his bookcases: 

autographed photos, metal statues, porcelain statues and ... bust."


Mark waggled his eyebrows.  

"I imagine you have something suggestive to say of that last word."

Freud kept silent, turning to me with a raised eyebrow, and I shook my head.  

"To me, hers is a story of redemption, of striving to balance the sins of the past by helping the hurting of the present."

Stretching out the word into three syllables, Freud said, "Really?"

I shook my head again, saying, 

"But tonight I would not have said 'Xena.'  What I would have said is that X brings to mind: 

Crossing Out, Crossing Lines, and Crossing the Rubicon."

Mark sighed, 

"I recall old Ovid saying to me: 

'We mortals always strive for the forbidden and wish for the impossible.'"

Freud nodded, "Everywhere I go, I find a poet has been there before me."

He turned to me.  

"Unexpressed emotions do not die.  They are buried alive.  And like the undead of whom you write, they dig their way out later in uglier ways." 

Mark said, "Well some of those ways Wyrd just spoke of here were sure enough ugly."

Freud turned to me.  "You say nothing?"

I sighed, 

"I didn't live in your shoes, sir.  I am not God to judge -- and I don't have the job qualifications to step into His place."

Freud snapped, 

"Bah!  When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance of living a normal and healthy life."

Mark Twain drawled, "Unless they are your wife and sisters."

16 comments:

  1. Love the quote by Meilori (and hence it's yours, Roland?).

    I watched a few episodes of Xena when it was on some years ago--I liked that she was strong and there was humor in the episodes. But the only one I watched straight through was staged as a musical, and that was a hoot.

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    1. I enjoyed the musical episode, and I am impressed that someone coming in cold to the series would like it, too.

      Yes, that is my own quote -- but I thought it sounded more dramatic coming from an empress! :-)

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  2. Well done for finding a way to introduce X (I had to resort to Latin).

    Susan A Eames from
    Travel, Fiction and Photos

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    1. X is a hard letter to do in this challenge all right! :-)

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  3. Being freed of religion, perhaps. But being freed from spirituality and knowing the connectedness one has to all things in nature and the universe... no. I believe it's becoming more connected that one has a better change of living a healthy, normal life.

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    1. As I have McCord say in the story detailing the last moments of his life: "I don't do religion; I'm just being respectful."

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  4. Ha! Another great comeback for a last line!

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    1. I have Mark Twain go with Oscar Wilde on two fantasy expeditions in the deserts of 1895 Egypt, and I have true joy in writing their witty banter one with another. :-)

      GHOST OF MARK TWAIN here. The boy is too shy to mention the titles of those classics, but "SHY" and me have never been traveling companions!

      The titles to those two books, made superior by my presence, are DEATH IN THE HOUSE OF LIFE and THE STARS BLEED AT MIDNIGHT.

      You ever feel poorly, why you buy and read them. If they don't make you feel better, the purchases will certainly make the boy and me feel better!!

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  6. Twain is very hard to beat when it comes to zingers. He may well have invented the zinger.

    @Kathleen01930
    Meet My Imaginary Friends
    #AtoZchallenge

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    1. His ghost assures me he did, though the ghost of Oscar Wilde insists that honor belongs to him! They have wandered away arguing about it now.

      See what you started? :-)

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  7. Poor Freud. Always following the footsteps of poet. Now you've locked him up with Twain who holds his feet to the fire at every opportunity!

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    1. If Freud didn't come across so pompous after all he'd done, Twain would let him be. It is not Freud's sins that bother Twain, but rather Freud's casual dismissal of them that rankles him.

      We are winding down now to the last two letters: the best for the last.

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  8. Hi Roland - Xena - yes I can understand men's fantasy ... while I'd just like the shape! Crossing lines - I never go straight and am always moving along ..

    Cheers and looking forward to the next 2 letters .. Hilary

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    1. What did Abraham Lincoln say? "I may go slow, but I never go backwards!" I wish I had Chris Evans's body!! :-)

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