LISTEN TO THIS!

http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-of-a-Chance/dp/B00LV7YBOM/

Only $10.46!

Some of you know that I am part-Lakota ...

     What you don't know is ...

          That the more I write, the more real my creations become until ...

                They take on a life of their own!

Join me in my LATEST AUDIOBOOK ...

     where I am accused of killing the ghost of Ernest Hemingway!

Can the ghosts of MARK TWAIN and MARLENE DIETRICH guide me safely through my own fictional worlds

to find the true murderer before MY OWN CHARACTERS KILL ME?

Listen to my audiobook GHOST OF A CHANCE and find out!

Mark Kamish  will entertain and amaze you with his skill.

GHOST IN THE NIGHT_prelude to GHOST OF A CHANCE

Before GHOST OF A CHANCE ...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0097Z99YM

there was a ghost in the night.

It was that moment between waking and dream. I was sitting on my apartment terrace. The night spoke to me in its velvet silence.

Owl happily was not speaking my name. He perched on the cypress branch opposite me, studying me as I was admiring him.

Brother raccoon scurried in the bushes below, carrying some prize in his front right paw.

My cat, Gypsy, twitched her tail on the window sill, the mysteries of ages whispering in her half-closed, green eyes.

My own eyes were heavy. Too many miles driven. Too few hours slept.

I put the period to the last sentence of my blog post about Marlene Dietrich with the troops in the front lines during WWII :

**
One afternoon after VE Day, she was walking through a little French village. All around her was rubble, and she couldn't understand why -- all the buildings along the street were still standing with curtains blowing frilly and snapping clean-crisp in their windows.

Then, she looked through one of the windows to see that there was nothing behind it. The fronts of the buildings were still standing, but everything behind them had been destroyed. There wasn't a single living person past the false fronts of those caricature buildings.

Only one lone doll lay forlorn in the rubbled middle of nothing.

With her face cupped in trembling hands, she stood in front of that window, weeping silently, refusing to be comforted ...

"... for there is no comfort for the dead," she whispered.

***
Beside me a husky voice intoned, "Keine Komfort für die Toten."

I went cold and still, sliding my eyes as far to the right as they could go without moving my head. My mouth became salt.

Marlene Dietrich.

In a frilly black night wrap and not much else.

She was perched over the top of a wavering, insubstantial leather chair like a cougar ready to strike.

"You write so beautifully of me. Why?"

"Y-You were brave, selfless -- entertaining the troops on the front lines with a death sentence from Hitler on your head."

I cleared my fear-thick throat. "People have forgotten that."

She reached out and stroked my cheek with chill fingers of mist.

"It is not important for the world to remember me -- only that I did not forget myself when I was needed."

"And words like that are why I write of you."

Marlene fluffed my hair with ghost fingers. It tickled.

"Do you know what they call you in the ShadowLands, liebling?"

"N-No."

"Sänger von Träumen -- DreamSinger."

"I - I don't understand."

Her ice blue eyes hollowed. "One day you will."

In ghost whispers, she murmured, "Death and love."

"What?"

"I thought I knew them, liebchen. I was so sure. I died. Then, I saw life with new eyes."

She leaned forward, her eyes suddenly sparkling. "See you in your dreams, liebling."

And like a cloud robbing me of sunlight, Marlene was gone. I was alone. Well, not quite.

Gypsy was in my lap, yawning. It takes a lot to shake up the granddaughter of Bast.
***
GHOST OF A CHANCE is #41 on AMAZON'S 100 Best Selling Angel Novels. LIKE it on its Amazon's page for Marlene, will you?
***

TO WRITE YOU MUST BLEED THE WORDS_GHOST OF MARLENE DIETRICH

GHOST OF A CHANCE:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0097Z99YM

triggered a ghostly midnight visitation --

The sound of a book hitting the floor hard awakened me. I pried open protesting, heavy eyes. They flew wide when I saw her.

Marlene Dietrich. Or her ghost, actually.

In a frilly black night wrap and not much else. She rose like the spirit she was, picked up the book and threw it down once more. Harder.

"Deine mutter hurt in der stadt!"

"Ah, do I want to know what that means?"

"No!"

She spun her ghost chair around, sitting with easy grace upon it so she leaned upon its high back, and looked hotly down at me. "HOW TO SELL A MILLION eBOOKS! Its author ... oh, there are no good English words. Dorf trottel!"

Marlene smiled wickedly. "And no, you do not want to know the meaning of that either."

She shook her head. "It is like listening to a good joke told badly. Much build-up for little pay-off."

Haunted eyes stabbed into me. "Liebling, the end of the rainbow is just another lonely place where hopes and dreams slowly fade away."

Her long blonde hair slid to half cover her face as she leaned forward and down to my bed. "Do you want that single moment they call fame ... or do you want to touch the heart?"

"You have to ask?"

Her smile illuminated her lovely face, showing the lonely soul within. "Ah, Ich liebe dich."

"Do I want to know the meaning of that?"

Her smile rivaled Mona Lisa's. "No, but later, if you are lucky, I will show you anyway."

She suddenly frowned. Not bending to pick up the book, she merely pounded a pretty foot on it.

"He wants that moment ...

and the money that writing bestsellers will give him. Ha. He promised secrets to success and gave endless pages of self-praise and using people as means not ends. Bah."

She jabbed a long, slender finger at me. "You want to touch the heart, to write a story that others will come back to again and again?"

"Certainly."

"Then, you must give them dreams, danger, mystery ... and most importantly, you must give them love."

She sat up, running those long fingers through her wavy tangle of hair.

"And you must not make it easy, liebling. There must be two problems : one inside the hero -- one outside him."

She looked intently at me, her eyes sparkling like knife points.

"Your hero must be his own greatest enemy not some Nazi. Nazi's. Ha! They give him something to hit when all she wants to hit is her - I mean - himself."

Marlene sighed, her eyes looking into places that seemed to break her heart.

"If we have the wit, we can conquer those who would bind us. But against ourselves ...."

She bowed her head, slowly raising it.

"Against ourselves, we need help. We need love. The fire burning from one good heart will draw us out of the darkness of ourselves and onto the road leading to healing, to the light. Perhaps not triumph but ...."

She hugged herself. "Ah, but to die in the arms of one you love and who loves you ... that is a victory no Nazi can take away."

Marlene tapped the laptop on my night stand. "Here is the stuff dreams are made of, liebling."

Her eyes looked beyond me.

"Set your stage quickly. Bring all the players on stage in the first three chapters. Be honest with the audience : let them know who the hero is so that they can attach their hearts to him or her -- tell them the theme :

does money equal success, does fame, or does the trust of one good man mean your life has not been in vain?"

She blinked back sudden tears.

"Let the readers have fun with your heroes. Toss everything in the air. Snatch happiness and safety from their heroes. Give the hero one slim chance to get it all back. Take that all away."

Marlene smiled bitterly.

"Life is quite good at that. But fiction, unlike life, must end well if you would have publishers buy your tale. Give them that happy ending. Oh, after much darkness, storm, and strife, of course."

Her smile was brittle. "Bring everything down to a single, seemingly impossible showdown. Make the enemy unbeatable."

Marlene leaned down, and her lips brushed my ear. "And unlike life, let the hero win and come away wiser, better, stronger."

"Marlene?"

"Yes, liebling?"

"You did walk away a winner: stronger, wiser, and better."

Marlene cocked her head, letting her hair become a wavy waterfall.
"Dass Liebe, die aus Trümmern auferstand,
Reicher als einst an Größe ist und Kraft."

In a husk, Marlene translated,
"And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater."

"Shakespeare," I said.

"Truth," Marlene smiled sadly.
*********************************************
To understand a bit of Marlene watch this video. It is fascinating ... and sad. She mentions the many countries whose bloody battlefields of WWII she traveled with the U.S. Army

THE LATEST HORROR HERO ... ME?

Once upon a time ...

What if there was an author whose pen sparked his characters into life?

What if they were not pleased with the hell he put them through?

What if that author were you?

In GHOST OF A CHANCE, I am framed for the murder of the ghost of Ernest Hemingway.

To protect me from my pursuers, Sam McCord takes me to his haunted jazz club, Meilori's.

Have you wondered what Meilori's is like the deeper into it you go?

Find out with me as my guides, the ghosts of Marlene Dietrich and Mark Twain, try to keep me in one piece as all my creations vie for the pleasure of killing me.

Can they keep me safe from Shakespeare, Chistopher Marlowe, the Angel of Death, and the frighteningly intelligent and powerful DayStar?

And can my cat, Gypsy, possibly prevail against the Sphinx of Thebes even with the help of the Apache diyi, Elu?

GHOST OF A CHANCE is now available!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0097Z99YM

Only 99 cents. C'mon. Give it a shot.

Ah, guys, the ghost of Marlene is beginning to pout. A dangerous sign. Why not "LIKE" GHOST on the top of its Amazon page?

This just in:
On Amazon's Native American Dark Fantasy Best Selling Novels List CALL ME TOMBS is #5! GHOST OF A CHANCE is #11! BRING ME THE HEAD OF McCORD is #12!

NO GRAVES IN THE SHADOWLANDS_Ghost of Raymond Chandler here

A long time ago in a blogverse far away ...

I wrote a blog serial, GHOST OF A CHANCE,

Its first chapter: http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2010/07/chapter-one-living-in-crosshairs.html

where I found myself on the run in my own prose universe. Each post depicted a page from the seared journal that the ghost of Mark Twain found, the only clue to my ultimate fate.

Here is a post from GHOST OF A CHANCE written by the ghost of Raymond Chandler with a few tips for writers of any age:



{"If two people love each other there can be no happy end to it."
— Ernest Hemingway.}

Chandler here. Raymond Chandler. Or rather his ghost.

I started with that quote from Hemingway because it was too damned appropriate not to.

Some of you are dropping in, expecting to read something from Roland. He’s been on the run in the Shadowlands, falsely accused of the murder of Hemingway’s ghost.

The same ghost who has been laughing up his sleeve here in Roland’s apartment, pontificating on how to write good literature. Apparently, he forgot how to live a good life or be a good friend.

No, he was too jealous of how the ghost of Marlene Dietrich felt about Roland.

He’s been rubbing his hands in pure joy as the ghosts closed in for revenge and others in the darkness bayed at the kid’s heels, seeking to tear the secret of how to kill ghosts from him.

Now, where is Hemingway? On his way to Hell if there's any justice. But there isn't.

Word in the Shadowlands is that he is just walking aimlessly into the darkness, his eyes deep holes into nothingness.

I only have the cold comfort that I knocked him on his arrogant ghost-butt. How did a Hollywood hack like me do that? Easy. I cheated.

I surprised him. I walked into Roland's apartment looking clean, neat, and sober, smiling my best "ain't we chums?" smile. Then, I let him have it with the blackjack in my fist.

He went down hard. Not hard enough.

"Good news, boxer," I grunted. "Word in the Shadowlands is that Roland's dead. Died in the arms of Marlene."

His eyes fought to focus. "Is she --"

"Yeah, hero. She's dead, too. Killed by the one who poisoned you. I hope you're --"

I didn't get the chance to finish. The most godawful yowling came from the head of Roland's bed. Then, I saw her -

Gypsy, his ghost cat, all covered in sand. I could have sworn she hadn't been there when I first came in.

Her head was reared back, her eyes full of tears. Hell, his cat was crying. Crying.

And Gypsy howled like her guts were being cut out of her. I can hear it still. It seemed to go on forever.

I pray to God I never hear such a sound again. She stopped abruptly and looked at me with eyes gone sick and insane.

Then she just slowly faded away into the darkness like an old photograph left out too long in the sun. I shivered. And I knew. I knew.

I would never see his cat again.

I turned to Hemingway as he struggled to his feet, and I managed to get out the words. "Roland trusted you."

My grief and anger were battling so inside my heart, it felt as if I was standing outside myself. "You hid in his apartment, knowing he was being blamed for your murder, knowing he was being hunted by things that would make a pit bull puke."

I realized I was literally shaking with my anger. "You could have stopped this. You should have."

He turned hollow eyes to me. "Right on both counts."

And with that he walked out through Roland's door. And I knew something else. I would never see him again either.

So here I am, sitting in the dark at Roland's laptop. What do I write that would express just what the kid meant to me? It's all too fresh. I - I can't.

There are no graves in the Shadowlands. No place where I can lay one black rose. To die there is to disappear utterly both body and spirit. But I have to do something. Something.

What I will do is reach out to you, his friends. He wrote to you, trying as best he could to help you write better.

So that is what I'll do. Just a short post. I don't have a long one in me.

Besides, I'm not sure how delicate this thing is -- if tears on the keyboard will short something out or not.

All right. I'm a big boy. I can do this.

Where to start?

Rules. Most struggling writers think there are mysterious magic rules out there that if followed will insure success.

There aren't. But I'll give them to you, anyway.

Rule #1 :
The most durable thing in writing is style. I had mine. Hemingway had his. We're both imitated.

Be inspired by your favorite authors but leave them be. Keep the original. Lose the copy. Be yourself. But a self that grows each day.

Rule #2 :
Unlike the age of Jane Austin, this age is not remote. It is as intimate as a lonely heart and as intense as the bill collector over your phone.

Do not cliche your words. Brutality is not strength. Flipness is not wit. Do not mistake cool for character, attitude for competence.

It is not funny that a man is killed. But it is sometimes funny that he should be killed for so little, and that his death should be the coin of what we call civilization.

Rule #3 :
It's the journey, the struggles of the hero that grab the reader and keep him turning the pages. Make the hero sweat. But let him get the girl. Even Roland -- no, I won't go there. I can't.

Rule #4 :
Pull your nose from the computer keyboard and live life -- don't just write about it. Tasting each drink, feeling each breeze, touching the soft skin of the woman who loves you and only you.

God, I hope Roland did that with Marlene ...

if only for a moment.

Sorry, you don't need to read an old ghost's keening.

Rule #5 :
Remember that human nature has learned nothing over the centuries, yet has forgotten nothing either. Men do things for reasons.

Your characters, if they are to be believed, must do so, too. You cannot shove them into actions that your prior words would not imply they would take.

Yet human nature is fickle : a man who is steel in the fires of adversity will melt at the glance of a pair of ice blue eyes. Eyes like Marlene had ....

Sorry ... that ... that is all I have the heart for.

I will sit out on Roland's terrace now and look out as the night fog slips away from the bordering bayou.

The rains are over. The fields are green.

And with my ghost eyes I will look out over the vastness of America to the Hollywood Hills and see snow on the high mountains.

The fur stores will be advertising their annual sales. The call houses that specialize in sixteen year-old virgins will be doing a land-office business. In Beverly Hills the jacaranda trees will be beginning to bloom.

And none of that will matter ... for my friend is dead.

The French have a saying that to say good-bye is to die a little. They are right. I am a ghost, and I thought I was past feeling dead inside. I was wrong.

I think I will always see him driving down lonely roads, sitting in lonely rooms, saddened but never quite defeated.

Down those mean streets he went who was not himself mean, who was neither tarnished nor afraid ... only mortal.

I will miss you, my friend.
****
He liked this prayer, so I will end with it:

WE FORGET THE HEROES_Memorial Day Thoughts

We forget the heroes. Evil, however, clings to our memories like scars on a beautiful woman's face ... or heart.

On one of Marlene Dietrich's last pictures before WWII broke out,

a lowly assistant director was sent home with a high fever, along with harsh words for ever having shown up. He awakened late in the evening to find a woman on her hands and knees scrubbing his kitchen floor.

It was the star of the picture he was working on : Marlene Dietrich.

She had heard he lived alone and had brought over some hot chicken soup. Finding his kitchen floor could stand a washing, she was doing the job herself.

For three solid years during WWII, Marlene entertained our troops on the front lines, despite a death sentence on her head. She was with the troops in winter frosts and under broiling sun.

She bathed out of a helmet like an infantryman, slept on the ground, and refused to be evacuated when artillary pounded the ground around her. She was willing to do anything to amuse the troops : playing musical saw and wearing a jeweled sheath over long G.I. underwear to parade to the sound of enemy fire in the distance.

3 years. And she didn't make one movie all that time and cared not a bit. She was awarded the Medal of Freedom. Hitler would have given her a bullet ... after long hours of torture.

Marlene came back from her three years on the front lines of WWII very much changed. She never got over the horrors she saw there. She slept for months in jeeps, on floors, even on bare dirt.

One afternoon after VE Day, she was walking through a little French village. All around her was rubble, and she couldn't understand why -- all the buildings along the street were still standing with curtains blowing frilly and snapping clean-crisp in their windows.

Then, she looked through one of the windows to see that there was nothing behind it. The fronts of the buildings were still standing, but everything behind them had been destroyed. There wasn't a single living person past the false fronts of those caricature buildings.

With her face cupped in trembling hands, she stood in front of that window, weeping silently, refusing to be comforted ...

"... for there is no comfort for the dead," she whispered.
*********
Ernest Hemingway also wrote this of her : "She is brave, beautiful, loyal, kind, and generous. She is never boring and is as lovely looking in the morning in a G.I. shirt, pants, and combat boots as she is at night or on the movie screen.

She has an honesty and a comic and tragic sense of life that can never let her be truly happy unless she loves. When she loves, she can joke about it -- but it is gallows humor.

TODAY is the LAST DAY to get THE RIVAL for FREE by buying END OF DAYS:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0082ZJD08
***********


***************
Ernest Hemingway wrote of her : "If she had nothing more than her voice, she could break your heart with it. But she has that beautiful body and the timeless loveliness of her face. It makes no difference how she breaks your heart if she is there to mend it."

***

M is for MEILORI_I AM MEILORI SHINSEEN, EMPRESS OF THE NINGYO SHADOW EMPIRE

No painting exists of me. No photo. This sculpture is the only Aztec carving I did not destroy.

The human, Angelina Jolie, comes closest to my bearing.

I am Meilori Shinseen, empress of the Ningyo Shadow Empire,

wife to Samuel McCord --

owner of the jazz club/dimensional nexus, named after me.

captain of the Texas Rangers,

King of fools,

and captor of my heart.

None have painted me and lived ... until my husband painted me with words. Listen to Samuel's description of me when we first met :

"I stiffened as the fog thinned enough for me to make out her slanted eyes, not quite Japanese, not quite Chinese, but a beautiful blend of the two.

But no. She was of a different race entirely. The fog had thrown me off.

The woman spoke, and it was as if her vocal chords were velvet. Her accent. It sent shivers through me. It was like human speech itself was a foreign language to her.

She was one of those haunted-eyed women you attached your own hidden fears and silent sorrows to.

Close-up her eyes weren't cold jade as they had seemed farther away. They were filled with echoes of regret. The coldness had just been a bold front to hide the fact that they'd lost their way a long time ago.

There were disturbing depths of sadness in those eyes. Depths in whose darkness swam the monsters which drive us or haunt us or both.

Those depths whispered of age more ancient than the Aztecs, more dangerous than even my past. They both beckoned and warned at the same time."

***

If you listen with your third ear, you will hear a young Marlene Dietrich singing of me in the decadent Berlin of 1927 :

"Want to buy some illusions,
Slightly used, second hand?
They were lovely illusions,
Reaching high, built on sand.

They had a touch of Paradise,
A spell you can't explain :
For in this crazy Paradise,
You are in love with pain.

Want to buy some illusions,
Slightly used, just like new?
Such romantic illusions --
And they're all about you.

I sell them all for a penny,
They make pretty souvenirs.
Take my lovely illusions --
Some for laughs, some for tears."

Frederick Hollander wrote that for me. Marlene sang it at my table in her black tuxedo. Samuel held my hand -- and my heart -- throughout the song. It did not help.

I am Meilori Shinseen. I am Ningyo. I am Empress.

And I alone know the dark end of my song -- and Samuel's.
***

TO WRITE YOU MUST BLEED THE WORDS_GHOST OF MARLENE DIETRICH

The ever-entertaining Henry Mazel wrote a provocative post, THE SECRET LIFE OF MARLENE DIETRICH (Her ghost pointed it out to me) :

http://www.ahro-at.blogspot.com/

Henry has also written a thrilling book : THE PLOT AGAINST MARLENE DIETRICH :
http://www.amazon.com/Plot-Against-Marlene-Dietrich-ebook/dp/B00588T5NW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1309534786&sr=1-2

Now, on to my ghostly midnight visitation --

The sound of a book hitting the floor hard awakened me. I pried open protesting, heavy eyes. They flew wide when I saw her.

Marlene Dietrich. Or her ghost, actually.

In a frilly black night wrap and not much else. She rose like the spirit she was, picked up the book and threw it down once more. Harder.

"Deine mutter hurt in der stadt!"

"Ah, do I want to know what that means?"

"No!"

She spun her ghost chair around, sitting with easy grace upon it so she leaned upon its high back, and looked hotly down at me. "HOW TO SELL A MILLION eBOOKS! Its author ... oh, there are no good English words. Dorf trottel!"

Marlene smiled wickedly. "And no, you do not want to know the meaning of that either."

She shook her head. "It is like listening to a good joke told badly. Much build-up for little pay-off."

Haunted eyes stabbed into me. "Liebling, the end of the rainbow is just another lonely place where hopes and dreams slowly fade away."

Her long blonde hair slid to half cover her face as she leaned forward and down to my air mattress. "Do you want that single moment they call fame ... or do you want to touch the heart?"

"You have to ask?"

Her smile illuminated her lovely face, showing the lonely soul within. "Ah, Ich liebe dich."

"Do I want to know the meaning of that?"

Her smile rivaled Mona Lisa's. "No, but later, if you are lucky, I will show you anyway."

She suddenly frowned. Not bending to pick up the book, she merely pounded a pretty foot on it.

"He wants that moment ...

and the money that writing bestsellers will give him. Ha. He promised secrets to success and gave endless pages of self-praise and using people as means not ends. Bah."

She jabbed a long, slender finger at me. "You want to touch the heart, to write a story that others will come back to again and again?"

"Certainly."

"Then, you must give them dreams, danger, mystery ... and most importantly, you must give them love."

She sat up, running those long fingers through her wavy tangle of hair.

"And you must not make it easy, liebling. There must be two problems : one inside the hero -- one outside him."

She looked intently at me, her eyes sparkling like knife points.

"Your hero must be his own greatest enemy not some Nazi. Nazi's. Ha! They give him something to hit when all she wants to hit is her - I mean - himself."

Marlene sighed, her eyes looking into places that seemed to break her heart.

"If we have the wit, we can conquer those who would bind us. But against ourselves ...."

She bowed her head, slowly raising it.
"Against ourselves, we need help. We need love. The fire burning from one good heart will draw us out of the darkness of ourselves and onto the road leading to healing, to the light. Perhaps not triumph but ...."

She hugged herself. "Ah, but to die in the arms of one you love and who loves you ... that is a victory no Nazi can take away."

Marlene tapped the laptop by my air mattress. "Here is the stuff dreams are made of, liebling."

Her eyes looked beyond me.

"Set your stage quickly. Bring all the players on stage in the first three chapters. Be honest with the audience : let them know who the hero is so that they can attach their hearts to him or her -- tell them the theme :

does money equal success, does fame, or does the trust of one good man mean your life has not been in vain?"

She blinked back sudden tears.

"Let the readers have fun with your heroes. Toss everything in the air. Snatch happiness and safety from their heroes. Give the hero one slim chance to get it all back. Take that all away."

Marlene smiled bitterly.

"Life is quite good at that. But fiction, unlike life, must end well if you would have publishers buy your tale. Give them that happy ending. Oh, after much darkness, storm, and strife, of course."

Her smile was brittle. "Bring everything down to a single, seemingly impossible showdown. Make the enemy unbeatable."

Marlene leaned down, and her lips brushed my ear. "And unlike life, let the hero win and come away wiser, better, stronger."

"Marlene?"

"Yes, liebling?"

"You did walk away a winner : stronger, wiser, and better."

Marlene cocked her head, letting her hair become a wavy waterfall.
"Dass Liebe, die aus Trümmern auferstand,
Reicher als einst an Größe ist und Kraft."

In a husk, Marlene translated,
"And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater."

"Shakespeare," I said.

"Truth," Marlene smiled sadly.
*********************************************

ATTACK OF THE PROLOGUE

So there I was, long ago, minding my own business.

Ah, all right, I was dozing in my chair before my laptop. There. Happy? Hey, I'm a weary blood courier.

And I dreamed. Of William Faulkner. I know. I wanted Megan Fox or Marlene Dietrich.

But I got a grizzled William Faulkner in search of the innocence of his lost youth in New Orleans.

New Orleans. Yes, you've already guessed it. In my dreams strolled that lean wolf of an undead Texas Ranger, Samuel McCord.

And there in misty scenes unfolded a prologue to my RITES OF PASSAGE set in 1853.

http://www.amazon.com/RITES-OF-PASSAGE-ebook/dp/B004XQVPYM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1323818833&sr=1-1

It was eerie, haunting, and full of yearning regret. I awoke slowly, my mind reluctant to let those words and images go.

Marlene Dietrich then appeared in the ghost chair next to mine. "Use it, Liebling."

"What? Everybody skips prologues."

She tapped my nose with her empty cigarette holder. "And everybody is usually wrong, liebling, and you know that."

She gazed half-lidded at me. "You have a good mind, Schatzi . Use it and tell me why a prologue could be good."

"Well, I guess a prologue could spotlight a time not covered in the novel."

"As does yours. Think, silly. Your novel happens in the far past. Starting with a more modern scene would help slip your readers more easily into your story."

"You seem to have a pretty good grasp of story telling."

She smirked like an evil cat. "The best screen writers and directors of Hollywood often had a pretty good grasp of this ..."

She gestured to her body now leaning against mine. "I learned to tell a good script from a bad one. My career depended on it."

"I don't know. Bad prologues can kill a novel."

Her eyebrow arched. "I do not sit on the lap of bad writers."

"Well, now I have incentive."

She mussed my hair with ghost fingers, thumping on the top of my head as if it were a door. "You have more than that. You have a brain. And talent."

She whispered in my ear. "And in your prologue, you have your protagonist shown in the future, haunted and sad for his lost love. Everyone loves a sad love story."

She stretched in her chair like a lazy cat, letting the slit in her long gown show her long legs. "These legs are not so beautiful. I just know what to do with them. As you must know what to do with your words."

She stroked my cheek. "Without tenderness a man is uninteresting. Your prologue shows McCord's tender side. And it shows it from another's perspective. It adds a touch of the real to your undead Ranger."

She fluffed her long blonde hair. "I never dressed for myself, for fashion, for women. No, I dressed for the image. And you must write this prologue for the impression it will make on the reader."

"You might be right."

"Of course I am right. Glamour, allure, mystery, these are my stock in trade."

She tweaked my nose. "Think of me as your make-up artist. And the relationship between the make-up man and the performer is that of accomplices in crime."

Her lips curved in a way that would have made Mona Lisa jealous. "You make me feel dangerous again."

I figured having a ghost look at me like that could be dangerous in itself. "Ah, I guess I could make it a mini short story with a hook of its own to draw the reader in."

Her head cocked. "You remind me of Jimmy Stewart. You and he are the only ones who could blush without blushing."

She suddenly smiled wide. "Do you know how I know your prologue is right for your novel?"

"No. How?"

"It is not necessary for the main story. If it were, then you would need to re-write the first chapter. Your prologue lends perspective and depth, like the beginning of DUEL IN THE SUN."

She looked past me into the shadows. "Affection, companionship are the most necessary food for the soul. More important than the living realize or want to realize."

She gazed deep into my eyes. "Your McCord makes his family with the hurting, the lost, and the defenseless. Your prologue shows this."

She sighed, and it was more open wound than sound. "Write your prologue. I will be watching from the shadows."

And with that she was gone. Her perfume lingered ... as did her haunting eyes. I straightened with a jerk. I had a ghost to make smile again. I set to typing.

Above me I heard her murmur, "Ah, a knight errant. A species that sadly is all but extinct. And remember when you write your prologue : the best measure of your love is sacrifice."

And here is what I typed :

A man's moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream.
- William Faulkner

One day during the time while McCord and I walked and talked in New Orleans – or I talked and he listened - I found him sitting on a bench in Jackson Square, laughing to himself. I got the impression that he had been there like that for some time, just sitting alone on the bench laughing to himself.

This was not our usual meeting place. We had none. He lived in his French Quarter night club, Meilori's. And without any special prearrangement, we would meet somewhere between his club and the Square after I had something to eat at noon.

I would walk in the direction of his club. And if I did not meet him already strolling or sitting in the Square, I would simply sit down on a bench where I could see his doorway and wait until he came out. I can see him still –

A ramrod straight man in his late forties, clad entirely in black : black broadcloth jacket, shirt, tie, and slacks. His boots were black, as well, and polished so that the sun struck fire from them. Even his Stetson was black.

All of which made the silver star on his jacket stand out like a campfire in the night. It was said he had once been a Texas Ranger. He never talked to me of those days - at least not before that afternoon.

This time he was already sitting on the bench, laughing. I sat down beside him and asked what was so funny. He looked at me for a long moment.

"I am," he said.

And that was the great tragedy of his character, for he meant it. He expected people to mock and ridicule him. He expected people nowhere near his equal in stature or accomplishment or wit or anything else, to hold him in scorn and derision.

Until the Darkness came for them. Then, they scurried to his club, praying that the rumors were true : that he, indeed, was an undead champion for those who could not fight for themselves.

Perhaps that was why he worked so earnestly and hard at helping each wounded soul he met. It was as if he said to himself : 'They will not hurt as I have hurt. I will show them that they matter because their pain matters to me.'

"Why do you speak of yourself like that?," I asked.

"Today marks the seventy-five year anniversary," he said.

"Of what?"

"Drop by my table at the club this evening, and I will tell you."

And that evening I did just that. We sat, with a bottle now, and we talked. At first he did not mention the anniversary. It was as if he was slowly working himself up to something long avoided.

We talked of everything it seemed. How a mule would work ten years for you willingly and patiently just for the privilege of kicking you once. How clocks kill time, that only when the clocks stop does time come to life. And how given a choice between grief and nothing, he would choose grief.

When he had said those last words, McCord met my eyes with his own deep ones and said, "Let me tell you a story."

And I listened.

It hit me as McCord talked that Man would not merely endure as he had not merely endured. No, like McCord, Man would prevail. Man is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice. But because he has a soul, a spirit capable of endurance, love, and sacrifice.

And so now I give you McCord's words as he gave them to me. Make of them what you will. For myself, I never know what I think about something until after I've read what I've written on it. So read along with me, and we both will come to our own conclusions.
- William Faulkner, August 1923.
*************************************
And so that is my prologue. It follows my three personal rules for prologues. 1) It should be compelling. 2) It should be short. 3) And it should be removed from the body of the novel by time or space.
******************************************
Next is another music video by Thea Gilmore. Whenever I've heard this song, I've seen the image of Sam McCord on the decks of the Demeter, a Colt in each hand, facing overwhelming odds in his last great battle.

H P LOVECRAFT_IMAGO OF HORROR_SECOND CAMPAIGNER CHALLENGE

{Another advanced post ... 200 words exactly.}

Ghost of Lovecraft here.

Did my prose mirror truth?

I dare not say.

My imagination was too stunted to paint what lies beyond.

I believe that this less material life is our truer one,

and that our vain presence on this transitory globe is

the secondary phenomenon.

I was wandering Thalarion, a synchroni city,

where none return,

where walk only daemons that are no longer sane, who stumble from gaps in reality that oscitate eerily.

These ruins project a diseased miasma as if the very stones are cursed.

The ghost of Samuel Clemens

made his cautious way to me.

Wise he was to be careful, for I am no longer ... human.

Bemused, I watched from the shadows.

He, though ghost, was human still, self-centered in opinion, with lacunae of astounding ignorance.

Clemens said, "You can roll around in your horrors like they were catnip. But Roland is ill. He needs your help."

"Of course I will help."

{I have looked upon all that the universe has to hold of horror,

so that the skies of spring must forever be poison to me.

So should you have breath left over from your prayers for Roland --

sing a canticle for me.}
***

GHOST OF A CHANCE_CHAPTER TWO : HOW DO YOU SPELL SCREWED?

{He who learns must suffer.

And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget

falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
- Aeschylus}

Tonight there was a new way to spell screwed : R-O-L-A-N-D.

The dead ghost of Ernest Hemingway was lying on the floor next to my bed. The ghost of Marlene Dietrich, his unrequited love, was in my bed. All the creatures of the Shadowland were on their way here to tear the secret of how to kill a ghost from me.

And me? I was in deep shit. I didn't have the secret. Someone had set me up. But who?

"Who did this to me, Marlene?"

Her china-blue eyes grew sad. "Who is not important, Liebling. 'Where' is. Where do we run that they will not already be there waiting?"

A Texas drawl like summer thunder rumbled beside me. "That would be Meilori's, partner."

"Sam?"

I looked up. Impossible though it was, there he stood. Tall, all in black : from his wide-brim Stetson to his long broadcloth jacket, jeans, and boots.

Ramrod straight, wolf eyes, and grim lean face. Captain Samuel McCord, hero of three of my novels stood in the undead flesh beside my bed.

I tapped my head. "But you exist only in here."

Marlene gently stroked my cheek with icy fingertips. "No, Liebling. The world is more than you know ... more than your mind is capable of knowing."

Sam grinned like a wolf. "The world wide web, son. You wrote of me, Meilori's, my world, my friends. It hit a chord deep within thousands of minds. That and ...."

Marlene turned my head to look at her. "Your Lakota blood, Schatz. It holds a strange power that only a handful of shamans had before you. What you write ... becomes flesh."

"What? But I've written of all sorts of creatures that haven't popped up."

Sam said, "I'm real only at Meilori's ... and here."

"Why here?"

Marlene stoked my neck. "Because here your ... your Geist, your spirit fills this place."

Sam sighed, "And that's another reason those polecats rushing up the stairs out there will think you have the secret of how to kill ghosts."

"Rushing up my stairs?"

And sure enough, there was a hollow moaning and keening headed straight towards the outside of my door. Closer. Closer. Shit. They were almost here.

"Time to think sideways, partner."

He pulled me from the bed. "Buddha on a pogo stick, son. You always sleep in your blue jeans?"

I nodded. "Ever since the fire. I can't relax unless I'm dressed to face the world."

There was a sudden pounding on the only door to my apartment. "Well, not that world."

"C'mon, Roland. Let's head to the bathroom."

"Not that I don't feel like throwing up, Sam, but what's in the bathroom?"

"A mirror."

I got even sicker. "You mean GO INTO the mirror like you do?"

"The only way, son."

"Yes, Liebchen. But do not worry. I am going with you."

I turned towards where she now stood. "Dressed in ...."

Her tall, lithe body was fair to bursting out of a snug old-style Prussian Calvary Officer uniform. I almost swallowed my tongue.

"How?"

Marlene smiled in a way that made me uncomfortable. "Clothes are easy. Naked is even easier."

Sam cleared his throat.

I frowned. "Why that uniform?"

Marlene pulled herself up proudly. "Father was a Prussian Calvary Officer. He taught me the art of the saber hims--"

The pounding at the door got more crazed. Marlene placed a light hand on the sleeve of my black T-shirt. "Ghosts have to be invited in."

"Well, call me a poor host, but I'm not inviting anybody in."

Sam tugged at me. "Not every creature in the Shadowlands need an invitation to kill, son."

Feeling ten kinds of creeped-out, I plucked my hiking boots out from under the unmoving, insubstantial body of Ernest Hemingway. I shoved my feet hurriedly into them. I bent to tie them.

Sam snapped, "Run now. Lace later."

I hurried to the cat carrier and snatched up a startled Gypsy, shoving her hissing and angry into it. Sam shook his head.

"She'll be safe under the bed, Roland."

"I took her with me for Katrina and Rita. I'm taking her now."

He shrugged and literally dragged me into my tiny bathroom. "Hell, son, there's not enough room in here to cuss a cat."

"Ask Gypsy how wrong that is," I said.

The sink mirror became milky, singing a strange deathsong of noise.

Sam gestured, "In you go, Roland."

I turned to Marlene as she was pulling a very sharp-looking saber from its sheath. "Ladies first, Marlene."

She leaned in close, kissing my cheek lightly. "And that is why gentlemen are a dying breed, Liebchen. You first. Here, give me Gypsy. She'll be safe with me."

I didn't like it. The ceiling tiles above me started to bulge. I remembered what Sam said about some Shadowlanders not needing invitations. I took in a deep breath and scrambled awkwardly onto the sink top.

Feeling three kinds of stupid, I eased to touch the mirror with one hand. Sam shoved me hard from the back. And INTO the mirror I went. The world was white, filled with frigid fog smelling of lightning strikes and pine trees.

I hit something soft yet hard. The fog disappeared suddenly as two strong arms wrapped around me. I saw the face I never wanted to see.

"Death," I squeaked.
********************

GHOST OF A CHANCE

"To all of life there is a shadow. The shadow of sadness, doubt, despair. Still it is but an echo of a heart moving forward."
-Roland Yeomans

{Here is the first chapter of my blog-serial, GHOST OF A CHANCE, where I am a hunted fugitive, running through all my created worlds.}

Something was tickling my ear. "Schatz! Schatz!"

Someone shook my shoulder. "Oh, Liebling, wake up. Wake up! You are in danger."

Fire.

My apartment was on fire. Ever since I had awakened long years ago to see flames rolling across my ceiling, I had lived in dread of it happening again.

My eyes flew open. I sat up straight in bed. Darkness. No flames. Only a naked blonde in the bed beside me.

Naked blonde?

It was Marlene Dietrich. And she wasn't exactly naked, but heavily clothed she wasn't. She was in a black silk nightgown seemingly made of flimsy spiderwebs.

"Ah, Marlene ..."

"Hush, Liebling. Look down beside your bed."

"Really ...."

"Do it!"

Marlene had never shouted at me before. This was obviously important. I looked down.

"Shit."

Sometimes "Oh, darn" just doesn't cover it. Gypsy was nudging the unmoving body of Ernest Hemingway sprawled beside my bed. His smoldering cigar was just going out.

"Damn, Marlene. I know he's a ghost and all. But ... he looks ... dead."

"He is, Schatz. He is."

I turned to her. "Ghosts can be killed?"

Her finely etched eyebrow rose dangerously, and I said, "All right, dumb question. Obviously ghosts can be killed. But I never knew that."

"Neither did I or any other ghost I have ever met. Which means you are in terrible danger."

"Danger? Why?"

"All through the Shadowlands it is known Papa was jealous of how I felt for you."

"But ..." She placed fingertips I almost felt on my lips.

"He is here. Dead. I am here. In your bed. It will be thought he attacked you, and you killed him out of self-defense."

"Yeah, self-defense. You're right. It will look like self-defense. I mean, I didn't kill him. You know that. But if they think I just defended myself, I'll be in the clear with the other ghosts, right?"

Marlene turned her head so that her waterfall of hair hid her eyes from me. "Wrong, Liebling. All they will care about is that you know how to kill them. And so to protect themselves, they will kill you."

"Ghosts can kill the living?"

Again the eyebrow arched. "O.K. Another dumb question. So all the ghosts are going to come gunning for me?"

"And the others."

My voice rose so that the dogs in the next block must have been awakened. "What others?"

"All the others in the Shadowlands, Liebling. They will want you alive just long enough to tear from you the terrible secret of how to kill ghosts."

"But I don't know how!"

"They will not believe you with the 'proof' of poor Papa's body beside your bed. And it is even worse than you fear."

"Worse? How can it be worse?"

"They are coming now."

"They who?"

Marlene's eyes sank into her pale face. "All of them."
***************************

MARK TWAIN, ghost_HOW I FIRST MET MARLENE DIETRICH

{“I have heard it said that truth is mighty and will prevail.

There is nothing wrong with this … except that it ain’t so.”
Mark Twain.}

Samuel Clemens here. His ghost really. I can’t rightly call myself the ghost of Mark Twain.

Mark Twain was my pen-name. And isn’t a pen-name a ghost of sorts? Whoever heard of a ghost of a ghost?

I decided to spell poor Roland from going into that dang-blamed oven of an apartment. Now, let's see if I remember how to use this blamed contraption called a laptop, of all things!

In this terrible heat, I look at these teeny tiny keys then, like some misty rose, I see the face of my brother, Henry,

whose seared hand I held as he died from those terrible burns from that steamboat explosion.

The damnable explosion that I had dreamt in detail a whole month earlier.

It was then I realized that life was more than I had supposed.

No, I realized that the night when I first met Roland and Marlene Dietrich in my nightmare at the age of twelve …

in the Shadowlands. For you see, time is fluid and strange in that dark place.

Shadowlands you ask. You’ve seen them, too. Yes, you have.

That flicker of movement out of the corner of your eye. You turn cat-quick to catch it clear, saying it couldn’t possibly be what you thought.

And it wasn’t. It was worse. Worse than you could possibly imagine.

The Shadowlands are not Dreamtime, though they are connected, usually by the bridge of nightmare.

Roland’s mother could walk them, as could her Lakota grandmother. But only Roland is called a Name in them :

DreamSinger.

He who sings to life dreams … and nightmares.

It was in a nightmare that I first met Roland. I was alive then, for the dead do not dream. I was twelve years old and caught up in the hunt. I was not hunting. I was being hunted … by the spirits of my vengeful and dead sister and brother.

What to write of those times? They burn in me, and they keep me up at night. But now they can never be said. Besides, they would require a library and a pen warmed up in Hell.

As with most dreams, I will start this one in the middle :


It was night. It was Missouri. But not Hannibal.

It was the almost invisible village of Florida. It was a scrawny pup of a place. Only two streets, each but a hundred yards long. The rest of the pathways would be paved with tough black mud in winter, rain or thick dust in summer. I had been born there.

The skies were blood. The clouds rolling billows of fire.

Those sermons my mother had dragged me to were surely making an impression on my nightmare. I almost expected the chariot with the struggling figure of Elijah to come streaking across such a night’s sky.

The rumble of summer thunder echoed overhead. A wolf’s howl pierced the shadows with its mournful wail.

I tried to bolster my wavering courage. “N-Now, Sammy, that there’s just an hungry old wolf. That ain’t no omen of death. No, it surely --”

An unseen owl hooted. “Oh, Lord! I didn’t mean no harm to Bennie. I surely didn’t.”

And then behind me, I heard a deep voice like a happy stream. “These woods sure are a little scary, huh?”

I whipped about. And that was the first time I saw Roland. Lord, his eyes. The memory of them haunts me still.

They seemed to have seen all the pain in the world and felt most of it personal and close-up. Dressed in a strange black shirt I later learned was called “T,” jeans, and boots, he winked at me.

I winked back. “Little? Why these woods are humongous scary.”

And I relaxed just like that. He was a friend. I could just tell. And with the foolish trust of a twelve year old, I stuck out my hand. “Name’s Sammy. What’s yours?”

“Why, it's Roland. Good to meet you, Sammy. Are those spooks over there friends of yours?”

“S-Spooks?”

I whipped around so fast I left my smile in the air behind my head. And there they were : my dead sister and brother.

Their wispy figures of black mist flowed to my right. I felt my face go tight. They were apparitions from the spirit world.

No, not the spirit world you might be thinking of, but the spirit world each of us carries deep within the dark of our souls, the prison for our mistakes and those regrets they give birth to.

They were giggling, a hungry, soulless sound, and I made my throat work,

“Benjamin. Margaret. You leave me be.”

“What he said,” laughed Roland.

I turned to him. Why in tarnation was he laughing? Couldn’t he see they was about to make a meal of me?

He pulled out a battered pad of paper from his jeans pocket and looked over to me.
“There is power in words, Sammy.” (And that sentence of his changed my whole life. Although at the time, I did not realize their impact.)

Margaret and Benjamin both bent in unnatural ways as they turned and glided towards Roland, but only my sister spoke, revealing tiny, needled teeth. “Lakota, you have no hold on us.”

Roland just chuckled, bending towards me so that I could see what he was writing :

“And Margaret and Benjamin were caught up in the winds of forgiveness never to bother Sammy ever again.”

A keening moan hollowed from my right. I looked to where my sister and brother had been. They were gone. I turned to Roland like I had been whalloped in the head by a mule’s hooves.

“H-How did you do that?”

“I think it has something to do with my Lakota blood.”

“What blood?”

“Lakota Sioux Indian.”

“You’re an Injun medicine man?”

“Sort of. What I write sometimes comes to pass in dreams.”

“Only sometimes? Then, why was you laughing just now?”

“I always laugh when I’m scared spitless.”

“Now, you tell me!”

I edged closer to him. “You mean you could write anything down there and it might happen right now?”

He nodded. “Oh, sure. I could write : the most beautiful woman in the world flows out of the night mist and falls in love with Roland. But I won’t.”

“Why in tarnation not?”

“Being selfish with your gifts always turns out bad somehow.”

“Really?,” husked a woman from out of the fog that flowed in billows to our left.

We both jumped a foot up in the air, and the most beautiful apparition of beauty I had ever seen glided up to us. A long gown of gleaming satin, as alabaster as the moon’s face, clung to her so that even the twelve year old boy I was started to come to attention in certain places.

“I – I didn’t write anything down,” stammered Roland.

“What a strange dream this is,” she smiled, sending tingles all through me.

She looked down at the shaking page in Roland’s hand and lightly tapped them. “Does this mean you see me as the most beautiful woman in the world? I, who you have never before seen?”

And Roland said, “All men have seen you in the lonely corner of their hearts. Only a very few are lucky enough to ever meet you – even in dreams.”

Years later, when we were both ghosts, Marlene Dietrich confided in me that was the very moment she fell in love with Roland. But right then, her eyes just got deeper. Then, she faded away with the night mist.

I looked up at him. “Does this sort of stuff happen to you a lot?”

He smiled a sad, crooked grin . “All the time.”

And that is the face which comes to me whenever I think of Roland. It comes to me now that in my heart, he is my brother, Henry, given back to me.
***

THE GHOST OF MARLENE DIETRICH_ a visit, a lesson on writing, and wicked promises

The ever-entertaining Henry Mazel has written a provocative post, THE SECRET LIFE OF MARLENE DIETRICH (Her ghost pointed it out to me) :

http://www.ahro-at.blogspot.com/

Henry has also written a thrilling book : THE PLOT AGAINST MARLENE DIETRICH :
http://www.amazon.com/Plot-Against-Marlene-Dietrich-ebook/dp/B00588T5NW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1309534786&sr=1-2

Now, on to my ghostly midnight visitation --

The sound of a book hitting the floor hard awakened me. I pried open protesting, heavy eyes. They flew wide when I saw her.

Marlene Dietrich. Or her ghost, actually.

In a frilly black night wrap and not much else. She rose like the spirit she was, picked up the book and threw it down once more. Harder.

"Deine mutter hurt in der stadt!"

"Ah, do I want to know what that means?"

"No!"

She spun her ghost chair around, sitting with easy grace upon it so she leaned upon its high back, and looked hotly down at me. "HOW TO SELL A MILLION eBOOKS! Its author ... oh, there are no good English words. Dorf trottel!"

Marlene smiled wickedly. "And no, you do not want to know the meaning of that either."

She shook her head. "It is like listening to a good joke told badly. Much build-up for little pay-off."

Haunted eyes stabbed into me. "Liebling, the end of the rainbow is just another lonely place where hopes and dreams slowly fade away."

Her long blonde hair slid to half cover her face as she leaned forward and down to my air mattress. "Do you want that single moment they call fame ... or do you want to touch the heart?"

"You have to ask?"

Her smile illuminated her lovely face, showing the lonely soul within. "Ah, Ich liebe dich."

"Do I want to know the meaning of that?"

Her smile rivaled Mona Lisa's. "No, but later, if you are lucky, I will show you anyway."

She suddenly frowned. Not bending to pick up the book, she merely pounded a pretty foot on it.

"He wants that moment ...

and the money that writing bestsellers will give him. Ha. He promised secrets to success and gave endless pages of self-praise and using people as means not ends. Bah."

She jabbed a long, slender finger at me. "You want to touch the heart, to write a story that others will come back to again and again?"

"Certainly."

"Then, you must give them dreams, danger, mystery ... and most importantly, you must give them love."

She sat up, running those long fingers through her wavy tangle of hair.

"And you must not make it easy, liebling. There must be two problems : one inside the hero -- one outside him."

She looked intently at me, her eyes sparkling like knife points.

"Your hero must be his own greatest enemy not some Nazi. Nazi's. Ha! They give him something to hit when all he wants to hit is her - I mean - himself."

Marlene sighed, her eyes looking into places that seemed to break her heart.

"If we have the wit, we can conquer those who would bind us. But against ourselves ...."

She bowed her head, slowly raising it.
"Against ourselves, we need help. We need love. The fire burning from one good heart will draw us out of the darkness of ourselves and onto the road leading to healing, to the light. Perhaps not triumph but ...."

She hugged herself. "Ah, but to die in the arms of one you love and who loves you ... that is a victory no Nazi can take away."

Marlene tapped the laptop by my air mattress. "Here is the stuff dreams are made of, liebling."

Her eyes looked beyond me.

"Set your stage quickly. Bring all the players on stage in the first three chapters. Be honest with the audience : let them know who the hero is so that they can attach their hearts to him or her -- tell them the theme :

does money equal success, does fame, or does the trust of one good man mean your life has not been in vain?"

She blinked back sudden tears.

"Let the readers have fun with your heroes. Toss everything in the air. Snatch happiness and safety from their heroes. Give the hero one slim chance to get it all back. Take that all away."

Marlene smiled bitterly.

"Life is quite good at that. But fiction, unlike life, must end well if you would have publishers buy your tale. Give them that happy ending. Oh, after much darkness, storm, and strife, of course."

Her smile was brittle. "Bring everything down to a single, seemingly impossible showdown. Make the enemy unbeatable."

Marlene leaned down, and her lips brushed my ear. "And unlike life, let the hero win and come away wiser, better, stronger."

"Marlene?"

"Yes, liebling?"

"You did walk away a winner : stronger, wiser, and better."

Marlene cocked her head, letting her hair become a wavy waterfall.
"Dass Liebe, die aus Trümmern auferstand,
Reicher als einst an Größe ist und Kraft."

In a husk, Marlene translated,
"And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater."

"Shakespeare," I said.

"Truth," Marlene smiled sadly.
*********************************************

WE FORGET THE HEROES_JULY 4TH THOUGHTS

We forget the heroes. Evil, however, clings to our memories like scars on a beautiful woman's face ... or heart.

On one of Marlene Dietrich's last pictures before WWII broke out,

a lowly assistant director was sent home with a high fever, along with harsh words for ever having shown up. He awakened late in the evening to find a woman on her hands and knees scrubbing his kitchen floor.

It was the star of the picture he was working on : Marlene Dietrich.

She had heard he lived alone and had brought over some hot chicken soup. Finding his kitchen floor could stand a washing, she was doing the job herself.

For three solid years during WWII, Marlene entertained our troops on the front lines, despite a death sentence on her head. She was with the troops in winter frosts and under broiling sun.

She bathed out of a helmet like an infantryman, slept on the ground, and refused to be evacuated when artillary pounded the ground around her. She was willing to do anything to amuse the troops : playing musical saw and wearing a jeweled sheath over long G.I. underwear to parade to the sound of enemy fire in the distance.

3 years. And she didn't make one movie all that time and cared not a bit. She was awarded the Medal of Freedom. Hitler would have given her a bullet ... after long hours of torture.

Marlene came back from her three years on the front lines of WWII very much changed. She never got over the horrors she saw there. She slept for months in jeeps, on floors, even on bare dirt.

One afternoon after VE Day, she was walking through a little French village. All around her was rubble, and she couldn't understand why -- all the buildings along the street were still standing with curtains blowing frilly and snapping clean-crisp in their windows.

Then, she looked through one of the windows to see that there was nothing behind it. The fronts of the buildings were still standing, but everything behind them had been destroyed. There wasn't a single living person past the false fronts of those caricature buildings.

With her face cupped in trembling hands, she stood in front of that window, weeping silently, refusing to be comforted ...

"... for there is no comfort for the dead," she whispered.
*********
Ernest Hemingway also wrote this of her : "She is brave, beautiful, loyal, kind, and generous. She is never boring and is as lovely looking in the morning in a G.I. shirt, pants, and combat boots as she is at night or on the movie screen.

She has an honesty and a comic and tragic sense of life that can never let her be truly happy unless she loves. When she loves, she can joke about it -- but it is gallows humor.
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Ernest Hemingway wrote of her : "If she had nothing more than her voice, she could break your heart with it. But she has that beautiful body and the timeless loveliness of her face. It makes no difference how she breaks your heart if she is there to mend it."

GHOST OF A CHANCE_CHAPTER 44_MARLENE BY STARLIGHT {THE END}

A young man of maybe fourteen strolled up to us.

"Toya, you know perfectly well that Captain Sam sent those clothes to Roland to say 'Thanks' for helping him in Hell."

Her coffee cream face became a living sneer. "Victor ...."

She tossed him the package. "Stick it!"

He flashed a gypsy smile. "Sure thing. Bend over."

Marlene chuckled, "I like you."

Victor winked at her, handing her the package. "This contains an evening gown for you, too, ma'am."

She mussed his hair, smiling gently at his blush. "Marlene, Victor. And if you're a very good boy, I will let you escort me to my quarters here in Meilori's."

Victor laughed, "And if I'm a naughty boy?"

"Why then, I'll let you peek," Marlene laughed back .

Mark Twain gruffed to me. "I better get Gypsy back to your apartment and apologize to your blog friends."

"Apologize?," I frowned.

Mark rubbed the back of his neck. "Well ... I wrote them you'd died."

"What?"

Mark sputtered, "You looked damn dead when I left, son."

Gypsy took a swipe at him through the carrier. He lifted it up and groused, "You keep that up, gal, and I might have to change my mind about how I feel about felines."

Gypsy yowled at him. Mark Twain chuckled, walking into the growing mists of Meilori's.

I watched them grow smaller and smaller in the fog while their bickering and yowling grew louder and friendlier. I smiled. I was seeing the start of a strange friendship.

I turned around. Marlene was walking arm in arm with Victor. I followed, shaking my head as she tried (and succeeded) in getting him to blush more and more.

Which explains how that photograph of Marlene above came to be taken. She was even more stunning than usual, standing by the piano Ellis Marsalis played. His son Wynton blew his trumpet as Frank Sinatra sang, "Stella By Starlight."

Standing in my new clothes, I smiled as I heard Frank substitute 'Marlene' for 'Stella' in the lyrics. Ava Gardner, sitting at a table close by, winked at her old love for his compliment to her friend.

Glowing slightly from his sojurn in the inferno, Sam McCord strolled up to me, "Thank you is too small a word for you going to Hell for me, son."

He looked like he was biting into a squirming snail, "Which makes me having to ask you to leave a hard thing."

Marlene stiffened at his words. She stormed up to us, proving her hearing was even more awesome than her beauty, but not her temper. "You speak 'thanks' and yet order him out?"

Sam held up a gloved hand. "Marlene, it's for his own good. He's become a legend of sorts here in the Shadowlands. The longer he stays, the more chance someone is going to try and add his scalp to their lodge pole."

Marlene's chin rose defiantly. "An hour. He will have an hour with me here. I will accept nothing less."

Sam shook his head wearily. "I know better than to argue with you when you're in this mood."

Marlene's eyes sparkled dangerously in the dim light. "You are wise."

She turned lazily and floated to Frank, whispering in his ear. Then, she bent by Ellis and Wynton, talking low to them. Frank, smiling wide, walked and sat down by his love, Ava. Ellis and Wynton started playing "The Very Thought of You."

She walked back to us and pointed a long forefinger at Sam. "You will guard Roland's back while we ... dance."

She dragged me to the dance floor, and I protested. "Marlene, I haven't danced in a long time."

She playfully nipped at my earlobe. "With me in your arms, Liebling, you will float."

She wasn't being poetic. We did float. She felt light yet firm and amazingly soft in my arms. We danced close for long moments, then Marlene began to sing low in my ear.

"The mere idea of you,
the longing here for you,
You'll never know how slow the moments go
until I'm near to you."

So with Sam pretending not to see, and Ava winking at Frank, . ... Marlene led me off the dance floor, up the stairs, and into her private quarters in Meilori's ...

And it was a very fine hour.

{END}
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GHOST OF A CHANCE_CHAPTER 43_I ALWAYS COLLECT MY DEBTS

Still sprawled on Meilori's carpet with Marlene half-reclining on me,

I leaned on my left shoulder to look at the monster I had only read about.

To say that the years had not been kind would have been an understatement.

He was sitting at a glowing table, pointing a luger at Marlene. Beside him sat Eva Braun. She was still beautiful ...

in a clammy, undead sort of way.

She was almost wearing a low-cut red evening gown of flimsy silk. Its neckline plunged so that her breasts were almost slipping out as she leaned forward on the glowing table at me. But believe it or not, I wasn't looking at her breasts.

Ah, alright, maybe a little. But it were her pale blue eyes that bothered me. They made the Cheshire Cat's look sane. She leaned even more forward so that any second I was sure one of us was going to get embarrassed.

And I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be her.

But it was Hitler that shook me. He pointed the luger at me as I took the fallen dagger in my right hand. I smiled crooked. What with the Eva's breasts, that made three dangerous weapons pointed at me.

Hitler looked more withered corpse than anything human.
But what was terrifying were the vibrating cables running from the metal pump on his back to his twitching neck.

They were clear so that I could see the red, bubbling liquid pumping into his neck. I watched in horrified fascination as his neck muscles spasmed as the red liquid turned green as it went from the right side of his neck to the left.

That explained why he was still alive. The chandelier's lights striking fire from Eva's long sharp canines explained her long existence.

He sneered at me. "It was never about you, Amerikaner."

The luger shifted to point at Marlene's head. "I put a death sentence on your head, traitor. And I always collect my debts."

He smiled wide. "I had to lure you here to Meilori's where you could die the final death."

He croaked that damn laugh of his. "I found that just a few drops of the liquid in my pump paralyzes ghosts. From there, it was just a matter of having Strasser bait you with those Havana cigars, treated with my liquid, to have this Amerikaner fool framed for Hemingway's 'murder.'"

Eva giggled, "His only refuge would be here ... where you could be killed, traitor."

Marlene spat on the carpet. "Dreck!"

Eva husked, "You are the filth, whore. My love offered you the world to make films for Mother Germany. And you pranced naked before the American troops."

Marlene smiled impishly. "Only for the most fortunate of their generals, Hündin."

Hitler growled, "I think I shall gut-shoot you, Dirne."

He nodded to Death, calmly watching all of us. "See, traitor? Death knows she will soon be needed."

As Hitler had been insulting Marlene, I had pulled up the scortched edge of my T-shirt and plowed a long gash along my side. Blood dribbled out. I was just finishing the fourth word when Hitler turned the luger to me.

"You have written your last, swine."

I edged back to let Marlene see what I had written : "Hemingway appears behind Hitler."

And no sooner had she read the words with wide eyes, Hemingway shimmered right behind the zombie.

"Fuck you, Hitler!"

He took hold of the twin cables from the pump, ripping them from Hitler's neck. He squealed in agony, writhing to the floor. As he fell, great gouts of the putrid liquid splashed onto Eva. She managed a gargled start of a scream before withering away into smoldering corpse.

She fell still beside the moaning mummy Hitler was becoming. Death flowed to them both. "I, too, always collect my debts, ghouls."

She swept her long black cloak around them both and was gone as if she and they had never been there.

Marlene scrambled to her feet as I followed her. "P-Papa? You are alive!"

He nodded as he picked up the luger. "Have been for most of this."

Marlene's face screwed up in sheer fury. "What?"

I said, "Marlene, he saved our lives."

Hemingway pointed the luger right at my heart. "Her life. Not yours."

I heard a heavy thump behind me and an angry yowling. A flash of white and scratched hands blurred by me. Mark Twain slammed a cut-up fist hard into Hemingway's bearded jaw. The man reeled backwards to slam into the carpeted floor and lay still.

Mark Twain chuckled like an evil woodchuck. "I've wanted to do that for years."

He started to turn to me, then whipped about to kick Hemingway's unconscious body. "And damnation, there was nothing wrong with the end of HUCK FINN, you blowhard!"

Marlene sputtered in laughter, "Clemens, what happened to your poor hands?"

He grunted, "A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way."

I whipped around. Gypsy's cat carrier was behind me. She sat glaring at Mark Twain. A massive shiny padlock secured the carrier door.

I turned to Mark. "You padlocked Gypsy in there?"

He laughed, showing me the scratched backs of his hands. "Ain't that the blessed truth!"

Marlene hugged us both. But she kissed me.

A caustic cough sounded to my right. Toya, the manager of Meilori's, who had tried to kill me twice. She was holding a thick package.

"Did you really think you had gotten away scott-free? McCord wants to see you up front."
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