Category: Fiction

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents reside only in the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is completely coincidental.

Chapter 5

The things which I have seen I now can see no more. William Wordsworth Intimations on Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

I like the day. Times past I worked most at night; the time on my beat as a street cop, the night-set cases I was assigned when I made shield. I learned a great deal. I found that the night hosts things that scrape the walls of a conscience and abrade the soul.

Under the dome of the daytime world, I reach my hand to the sky and touch the clouds. I close my right eye and puncture a passing cloud with my index finger. There it is; I feel blueness through the white and fluffy gauze. No dark shadows that blocks a streetlight, no evil to flavor the wind.

I was reading Cassiodorus’s Through the Looking Glass on Abrupt Climate Change, which is quite a good read, and realized that this was the third time this week that I’d seen that same quote he uses from Humpty Dumpty.

The other two citations, which I have no idea where they are, were both in the context of the Obama/Mcbush mashup this past week. The English language has been sorely abused these last eight years, by politicians and the traditional media, and I expect things will only get worse as the campaign season runs on.

Some years ago I used that same quote from Lewis Carroll as an epigraph to a short story. I’d like to share “The Investigation” with you now, so…

Hop in a barrel and follow me over the fa-a-a-a-alls……

When you despair, as I do, frequently, of what will become of you…

When you are out of work and have no money to pay the rent…

When your boss is a tyrant and you don’t know how you can last another day…

When the politics finally has you beaten down because the idiots outnumber you…

There is an answer.  Albeit a temporary answer…an answer nonetheless…

And her name is Connie Willis.

Connie is one of the most brilliant people I have ever met…and I consider it an incredible privilege that I was able to meet her at all…at a few cocktail parties, years ago.  She probably doesn’t remember me, but that’s all right.

She is a brilliant writer.  That’s all that matters.

More below the fold.

(Iglesia is a serialized novel, published on Tuesdays and Saturdays at midnight ET, you can read all of the episodes by clicking on the tag.)

Previous episode

Rogers opened the door and led his shocked charges into a typical suburban type soothing beige living room with nice enough sofas and recliners and lamps and rugs and electronic equipment. He lead them through to a dining alcove where the table was set with a veritable steaming feast of comfort foods…and then led the tour past it. On to the two pleasant, large beige bedrooms with large fluffy looking beds with lots of pillows and opened doors to closets full of clothes and to the private baths where both tubs were full of bubbles. He clapped his hands and soothing amorphous music began to play as he led them back to the dining table and sat them down, pulling out Abe’s chair and then Iglesia’s. And then sort of shoving them down into them one at a time.

Who then both proceeded to stare down at some of their favorite foods without moving…. or blinking.

(Iglesia is a serialized novel, published on Tuesdays and Saturdays at midnight ET, you can read all of the episodes by clicking on the tag.)

Previous episode

“What The Fuck?” Iglesia, of course.

Her voice came from where her mouth used to be but wasn’t now, visibly at least.

Well, I am afraid to say” Rogers said solemnly “that it has come time to remind you that you are both, for lack of a better word, dead. You no longer have physical form, that you no longer possess bodies. Up until this moment it has been necessary and desirable for you to retain your ‘identities.’ Otherwise it was quite possible that you would just, well, disperse…as a sizable portion of  dead people are wont to commence doing when the realization of their fate penetrates and overtakes their consciousness. The forms that you have seemed to inhabit in your time here have been but constructions of you sense memories, augmented and enhanced by your humble host, myself.”

“However now that your true training is commencing in earnest, certain concepts that would interfere with that training….such as the concept that you retain, um, bodies…must be eliminated, or at least severely modified. You left your bodies behind on the earth plane, when you came here”

(Iglesia is a serialized novel, published on Tuesdays and Saturdays at midnight ET, you can read all of the episodes by clicking on the tag.)

Previous episode

“Now, if you would each read it again, quickly and without any assistance from me.”

When Abe read it, nothing happened but a light glimmer in the air around them. When Iglesia tried, a few rough shapes barely appeared.

“So what’s the trick, Slim?”

“In the reality you are accustomed and conditioned to inhabiting, a reality your mind is still convinced it is existing in…. physical force powered by physical energy, the electrically (for want of a better word) animated power of the body, and how it is used in reaction to other bodies, is the key to existence. Here, thought is your only weapon, and  only defense….and the only energy

(Iglesia is a serialized novel, published on Tuesdays and Saturdays at midnight ET, you can read all of the episodes by clicking on the tag.)

Previous episode. Previous pertinent episode.

Paul ran down the stairs, trying to catch Iglesia before she left.

He had bolted upright in bed just a moment ago, stunned form sleep by remembering that he hadn’t had a chance last night to tell her that he would be working even later at the Medical Center tonight than usual. It was important, since it was the penultimate day of the peak of her cycle and he was supposed to try to to get her pregnant tonight.

She was going to be pissed enough at him for having to work late. The thought of how pissed she would be if she stayed up to wait for him …and then him standing her up…..well, his balls literally shriveled a little at the thought of that confrontation. Part of ‘the deal’ of their marriage was that he was a receptor for her temper. He preferred it that way, since he could usually deal with the tempest with a certain grace and equanimity, and it beat having her assault random strangers at the drop of a hat.

(Iglesia is a serialized novel, published on Tuesdays and Saturdays at midnight ET, you can read all of the episodes by clicking on the tag.)

Previous episode

Pommel horse, vaulting horse, parallel bars, basketball hoops, climbing ropes, dumbbells, a rack of Indian clubs on the wall, a medicine ball, padded mats on a portion of the floor….but mostly…space, scads of empty space with a very high ceiling, with old fashioned hanging light fixtures.

Abe and Iglesia were following Rogers into the gym, Abe was trying to estimate the height of the ceiling when Rogers whipped around and kicked him very hard,  squarely in the testicles. Pinning them to Abe’s pelvic floor with the top of his foot and crushing them. Abe dropped to the floor and curled into a ball from the literally crushing blow. So hard that even Iglesia had flinched and clenched as she stood there in shock for a split second, before she launched into  a vicious full body sweep of Rogers’ legs….which of course passed right through the very foot that Rogers had just used to try to emasculate Abe.

Previous episode

Balance is precisely what we are dealing with, yes. I am afraid I must confess to ignorance on the subject of a ….batphone? But having now spent a considerable length of time in your …delightful…presence, I believe I have achieved enough of a familiarity with your various forms and tones of communication to dismiss the reference in question as some sort or another of sarcasm or facetiousness. Therefore, we shall move on to the gist of the briefing and indeed, the balance… or to correct myself, the imbalance that is currently directly tied to the fate of your earth and her population, and, I must admit to being increasingly reluctant to say, your critical roles in affecting said imbalance. Unless I am in error?” Smirk and a raised eyebrow. He must be darned proud of that particular load of polysyllabic spewed crap, thought Iglesia.

“Please walk this way,” Rogers said, and turned his back on them with a bit of a flourish and moved towards the cave with his normal clipped and proper gait.

(Iglesia is a serialized novel, published on Tuesdays and Saturdays at midnight ET, you can read all of the episodes by clicking on the tag.)

Previous episode

But when she said “shit,” something clicked inside her. And when a split second later a crumpet hit Abe square in the side of the head….triggering all of his impossible to ignore, highly trained warrior instincts, (since his instincts just perceived an attack, and not the fact that it was by a harmless breakfast pastry) the spell was broken. His instincts forced him to look at Rogers, who was now hefting a rather large rock.

And triggered by a treasured memory of a similar moment at a poignant time in the courtship with her husband, (stubbing her toe on the bed and saying ‘shit’ on their first night together, which had broken the tension between them then too, not the crumpet thing) she had thought of Paul.

Before they could lock gazes again, Rogers hurriedly spoke. “May I inform you that we did not go to the very considerable trouble of bringing you both here across and beyond the bounds of time and space to form a lonely hearts club, but indeed to fight the Forces Of Evil with the future of humanity in the balance? Now that we have eluded the opposition and have a small period of opportunity to address the necessity of briefing you thoroughly, I certainly hope it would not be asking too much for you two to put aside your quaint carnal instincts for a few moments to actually attend to the business at hand?

(Iglesia is a serialized novel, published on Tuesdays and Saturdays at midnight ET, you can read all of the episodes by clicking on the tag.)

Previous episode

Raised heart rate, shortness of breath, unblinking eyes, the unintentional and unavoidable rumbling rousings of the most primal and ancientest biological systems, (interesting in itself, under these circumstances) tunnel vision excluding everything peripheral to a small corridor bored through space by their eyes. Unquenchable interest. Unbidden but undeniable desire. Tingling.  

(Iglesia is a serialized novel, published on Tuesdays and Saturdays at midnight ET, you can read all of the episodes by clicking on the tag.)

Previous episode and previous pertinent episode (won’t be needing that again for awhile!

Rogers appeared startled by the sudden outburst after so much silence, he answered a bit louder than usual, his voice carrying in the twilight air. “I’m afraid I must impose upon your patience, and request that you wait for just a wee bit longer…”

“NO! Talk.” Abe exploded out of his seat and began to pace in circles around the fire pit. “NOW! I have put up with all of this, the endless walking,” he was getting warmed up, “all of these different places we have been through, desert and forest and…underwater…and,” gulp, “walking down that road and seeing ……and the giant cats and fucking being shot in the fucking head and waking up inside a fucking tree and…all of it. Like a good soldier I have just followed behind you and, and now I can finally think again and, and, NOW, Rogers, you insufferable ass, you….

Pause. “….you will….” A sudden revelation pops into his head with as much force as the bullet had. “Wait, wait, wait….wait! You said she was married, you bastard…..you  know  who  she  is…..”