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.
********************

THE MAGIC OF FIRST LOVE is our ignorance that it can ever end_FRIDAY'S ROMANTIC CHALLENGE_NEW HORIZONS

Both hands of the clock on the city's distant tower reach up beseechingly to the stars.

Hear the ghost-chimes?

It is midnight, the dark start to a new day,

to NEW HORIZONS.

Come. Sail with me aboard the cursed DEMETER in responce to Francine's and Denise's ROMANTIC FRIDAY CHALLENGE.

http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/

Peek from the the night's shadows upon the first meeting on a 1853 midnight of Samuel McCord and the one great love of his long life, Lady Meilori Shinseen, most feared of all the Ningyos. (399 words)

{Samuel's other than human senses have felt deep pain and hollow loneliness up on the midnight-shrouded deck of the transatlantic steamer, DEMETER.

He has used the teachings of his Apache blood-brother to render himself invisible by wrapping the threads of night around his lean, horseman's body. He goes to investigate.}



I slowed as I spotted a woman, sitting right on the wooden deck by the railing, huddled over something.

I wrapped the threads of night tighter about me and stepped closer.

The faint smell of jasmine tickled my nose. She was in a long, flowing scarlet and black Victorian gown.

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.

Her long black hair was styled up, her eyes were cast down. She was stroking a dead seagull, its slender neck bent awkward. I guessed that it had hit the rigging in the fog and killed itself, tumbling to the deck.

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. What was I getting myself into? Her words were almost lost in the night.

"Poor little creature of air. Like last month, I came upon you too late. Too late."

She spoke as if the two words were a summing up of her whole life. 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.

Maybe mine looked the same.

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 called and warned at the same time.

She stroked the bird's head tenderly as if afraid of waking it up

and sighed,

"Dreams drift like clouds,

I reach to touch the moon,

I grasp but empty night."

I couldn’t take her in such pain anymore and stepped into view. “Ma’am, you were a blessing.”

She stiffened at my sudden appearance, but said calmly. “How so?”

"That seagull got to die in the arms of one who cared and cried over its passing. How many of us get to die that loved?"

Her face flinched. "Not ... very ... many. And ... too many."

***

"YOU TWO-LEGGEDS," sighs THE TURQUOISE WOMAN

You two-leggeds ...

You think you know. But you do not know.

How could you? You can know only what you have experienced. And your experience is so stunted.

I look out from my consciousness surrounding the world that is my body, and my horizon spans the the swimming bodies of my sisters

who wheel in their sweeping dance of gravity about our Father Sun.

Roland, he whom I call Little Lakota, talked of me yesterday ...

with respect and with the knowledge that his grasp of me was limited.

So I honor that respect by telling you what little your limited minds can understand of my existence. Your minds are much like a song unfinished.

And nothing makes you more aware of the fragility

of existence than a song unfinished.

Here is a secret :

We are all songs unfinished.

We start with names. But what illusions are names.

Some call me Turquoise Woman.

Others call me Gaia. I call all of you temporary ...

Some I call cherished.

Others of you are but a fleeting rash upon my surface.

Irritating, viral, and in the end, self-destructive.

Sadly, your race is like a tick that will gorge itself until it bursts.

Bemused, I watch you scurry along my skin, moaning you are bringing an end to me.

I would laugh if it were not so pathetic.

You are merely bringing an end to yourselves.

I count the moments. You make my scalp itch.

You think you know what life is. Sad.

Do you know what life is?

A firefly's flicker in the night,

the breath of a buffalo in winter,

a cloud shadow that races across the green grass to lose itself in the blood-red of the sunset.

Do not try to understand me.

I look, not only down upon you,

but out across the vast glittering sea of eternal night.

The colors of my thoughts are the Northern Lights

and the reach of them is from horizon to horizon and unto the vastness of the stars.

The electro-magnetic field of my body gave birth to my consciousness

long before there were human hands to chisel stone into mute, blind idols

or to brush your world in blood on cave walls.

Your only true contribution to me was your language.

Before you crafted words into being, my consciousness was unfocused.

I listened with wonder as you spoke to one another,

slowly piecing the concept of language together in my thoughts.

Through the prism of your languages, my awareness crystalized.

I became aware.

Now, I know a haunted melancholy. Like a windmill's blades, my thoughts dip into my memories.

In misty after-images, I see your fleeting lives walking soft like prayers across my green fields only to fade into the inflamed oblivion of the sunset.

My son, Elu, will survive.

Hibbs, the bear with two shadows, I have spirited safely away into a sister dimension.

But Samuel, my sad-eyed, adopted son, will soon die I think.

Not at the hands of his life-long enemy, DayStar. But by the two-edged sword of his love for his wife, Meilori.

And that trickster scamp, Victor Standish, he, too, will die. I will miss him, for he, also, will be "consumed" by his love for the unnatural creature called Alice.

You are wondering why I am talking to you?

You are close to my heart as well, for all of you craft with words.

So I have come to say seven words to you :

"Live well. Soon I will miss you." ***

BLOOD MOON_which Blogger obviously hates!!

Blood Moon.

I was watching it rise as I waited for the Beaumont blood courier at the Texas gas station we couriers call the "Star Wars Cantina" --

for all the colorful folk who frequent the place. I was actually followed into the men's room once by a woman offering financial romance, as it were.

I was saddened by how her addiction drove her to such desperation. I declined as politely as I could to save what remained of her pride.

I know the blood moon was a trick of the atmosphere bending the light rays. But it was beautiful. As I watched it slowly rise, I saw it change eerily from vanilla creme to stark skull white.

The Lakota believed the full moon's face of shadows belonged to the fearsome Turquoise Woman, for whom you should have respect for she had none for you.

And I thought how we change like this blood moon as we rise from the horizon of our birth.

Our spirits are bent by the atmospheres we send them through : the atmospheres of hope, dashed dreams, courage under pressure, and faith in he whom the Lakota call the Great Mystery.

I sometimes call Him that as well, for what He is up to much of the time is a great mystery to me.

When I was a substance abuse counselor, a client once told me his theory about the anguished history of this haggard world :

God put all the mad souls from the rest of the universe on this asylum called Earth,

where life after life, the souls would have the chance to learn to be wiser, saner -- most stayed insane because it was familiar if not comfortable.

Seeing the scufflings and hustling at the gas station night after night, I thought how my client's theory looks more and more credible.

The daily headlines help there, too. Then, again maybe I was just blood moonstruck.

What did Thomas Wolfe write?

"We are always acting on what has just finished happening.

It happened at least 1/30th of a second ago. We think we're in the present, but we aren't. The present we know is only a movie of the past. So, then, to every man his chance -

to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining, golden opportunity -

to every man the right to live, to work, to be himself,

and to become whatever thing his soul and his vision can combine to make him."

May the windmills of your mind be a journey of peace and joy the rest of this week.

And here is an ancient but reflective song by Noel Harrison from the equally ancient classic movie THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR :

***
Blogger has prompted Hibbs to beckon me to walk off into the sunset, seeking new, fun horizons :

BLOOD MOON

Blood Moon.

I was watching it rise as I waited for the Beaumont blood courier at the Texas gas station we couriers call the "Star Wars Cantina" --

for all the colorful folk who frequent the place. I was actually followed into the men's room once by a woman offering financial romance, as it were.

I was saddened by how her addiction drove her to such desperation. I declined as politely as I could to save what remained of her pride.

I know the blood moon was a trick of the atmosphere bending the light rays. But it was beautiful. As I watched it slowly rise, I saw it change eerily from vanilla creme to stark skull white.

The Lakota believed the full moon's face of shadows belonged to the fearsome Turquoise Woman, for whom you should have respect for she had none for you.

And I thought how we change like this blood moon as we rise from the horizon of our birth.

Our spirits are bent by the atmospheres we send them through : the atmospheres of hope, dashed dreams, courage under pressure, and faith in he whom the Lakota call the Great Mystery.

I sometimes call Him that as well, for what He is up to much of the time is a great mystery to me.

When I was a substance abuse counselor, a client once told me his theory about the anguished history of this haggard world :

God put all the mad souls from the rest of the universe on this asylum called Earth,

where life after life, the souls would have the chance to learn to be wiser, saner -- most stayed insane because it was familiar if not comfortable.

Seeing the scufflings and hustling at the gas station night after night, I thought how my client's theory looks more and more credible.

The daily headlines help there, too. Then, again maybe I was just blood moonstruck.

What did Thomas Wolfe write?

"We are always acting on what has just finished happening.

It happened at least 1/30th of a second ago. We think we're in the present, but we aren't. The present we know is only a movie of the past. So, then, to every man his chance -

to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining, golden opportunity -

to every man the right to live, to work, to be himself,

and to become whatever thing his soul and his vision can combine to make him."

May the windmills of your mind be a journey of peace and joy the rest of this week.

And here is an ancient but reflective song by Noel Harrison from the equally ancient classic movie THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR :

***
Blogger has prompted Hibbs to beckon me to walk off into the sunset, seeking new, fun horizons :

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."
***************************

A MOMENT OF LOVE ... and DEATH

I am a romantic.

Not just on Fridays. Just because I am taken with this brief glimpse into the mythical, lyrical love of Blake, son of Man, and Fallen, last of the faes,

I share it with all of you, my friends :

{Blake and Fallen have just arrived in the lethal beauty of Avalon. Fallen is spent from her earlier ordeals. The two seek a place where they might rest with the shelter of a lush green slope behind them. Fallen lays slumbering as Blake sits protectively beside her.}

(When they speak in thee's and thou's, they are speaking in the tongue of Faerie - Blake was given the gift of Tongues in LOVE LIKE DEATH.)

The moon had risen just enough to send a shaft of its light through the umbrella of oak branches above us. A diffused glow of icy white lanced down to caress Fallen's face in a shimmering halo. And suddenly, she looked as angelic and pure as an angel. My heart seemed to grow and burn within me. I loved her so. Her eyelids flickered apart slightly, and she smiled dreamily up at me.

"Who needs a campfire," she murmured, "when thy love burns so bright beside me?"

Reaching out with her right hand, she softly touched mine, never taking her gleaming, mysterious eyes off me. “To find something, one must picture it first in one’s mind. No wonder I could never find love, for I had yet to see thee.”

I forced my lips to whisper, “I am an orphan, Fallen. A pauper. I have nothing worthy of thee to give.”

“Just love me, Blake. Simply love me, and I wilt be the richest Sidhe in all Avalon.”

“That’s a given, Fallen.”

She wrinkled her nose like a rabbit. “Oh, I knew that.”

Then, she laughed in her sleepy, impish way and shifted just enough to nestle her head in my lap. And just like that, she was asleep again. And I felt the richest orphan in all the world.

I don’t know how long I sat there with her head resting in my lap. I could have sat there for eternity and never regretted a second of it. After a time, I gingerly reached out and stroked her soft, velvet hair, careful not to mess up its intricate knots and weaves. Instead of waking up, Fallen just wiggled and started purring like a lost kitten having found home.

I stiffened just a bit. Home. I smiled. I had found home again. And it wasn’t Avalon. It was Fallen. I was home. And it felt wonderful.

I just sat there as the minutes flowed into hours and soaked up the peace and contentment I had thought would never be mine again.

As I sat there, trying to burn this scene, this moment, this feeling so deep into my heart and mind that I would never forget it, something white in the corner of my eye moved slightly. I went stiff, fear shooting across my chest. I turned my head slowly so as to not draw attention to the fact that I had spotted what was approaching. And then, I saw her.

The White Lady of Montaigu.

The slayer of all lovers who crossed her path.
***
And now to share with you the music of Josh Groban that I was hearing in my heart and mind as I wrote (the love theme to ROMEO & JULIET) :

***