Tommy's Novel, Part 12
Tommy's Novel, Part 12
I've got more than this, but this seemed like the most comfortable stopping point. I'm excited about the section right after this. It's mostly written, but I want to finish that part before I post the whole thing, because I like how it's going.
Now this? I'm a little iffy on, but I bulled through. I'd have no problem writing it for myself, I can tell myself to just move on and fix it with the next draft. But I'm posting this first draft mess, for the whole world to see, warts and all. So it's mildly stressful. I mean, a lot of it sounds (and feels) so hackish to me.
But, a few of you are enjoying it, and I hope you will continue to do so.
I say that, but I think there's good there, too. So, I hope you guys like this part. I'm figuring there are two or three more mornings writings to do on what I'm currently calling The First Act.
Anyway. Here are the first 11 parts.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
And now, part 12, which picks up write after part 11....:
“It is time for you both to open your minds.”
That’s the last thing I remember, for sure, that was said. The woman in the long red flowing robes took down her hood, and Ronnie and I just stared. Growing up in rural America, I never gave much thought to the idea of what royalty was. But when the lady in the red robes took down her hood, I had the thought that I was gazing into the most regal countenance I ever had, and most likely ever would.
She was older, but not old, if that makes any sense at all (and to me, at this point, it honestly wasn’t). She was older, but beautiful. With eyes that displayed both a fierce intelligence and an assured presence. I said she was regal. I took her for somebody used to giving the orders. And not in a haughty, vindictive sort of way. I immediately took this woman for somebody who knew that she was the leader.
The last thing my mind said to me before she started speaking again was that this was not a woman who had found her destiny...rather, destinies were molded around her.
“Come forward,” she said to us. Willie and I took a quick glance at each other, and we both stepped forward to the front of the chapel.
“Sit, please,” and she extended an arm toward the first pew in the little room.
Willie rounded the corner first, and walked to the center of the pew, and sat. I sat beside him, on his left.
The woman in red smiled. It was an easy smile. She pulled slightly on the seams of her robe (bright, bright red), and my initial thought was that she was going to curtsey for us, but I then saw that she was settling into a chair behind her. The top of the chair extended above her head, almost like a crown, only adding to her regal bearing. “This has been an interesting day for the two of you, no?”
“You could say that,” I think I said. Willie said nothing.
“Let me first thank you for your presence. These are certainly trying circumstances, and we are most grateful for your attendance.”
She smiled again. It was a warm smile, but there was something more behind it. I think she may have been waiting for Willie or me to say something in response. Neither of us did.
“My name is Lamanda Triune. And I am the facilitator of Lyndon Waverly’s passage to the other side.”
“Facilitator?” Willie asked.
I realized then that the lady was picking her words carefully. I didn’t know why. She spoke with no accent that I could pick up, but the way she spoke made me feel like she was picking each word out of a mental foreign language file, rolling it and shaking it around in her head to make sure it filtered out correctly.
“Among the brotherhood, it is my role to ensure that Lyndon is ushered from this world to the next, safely, so that he may rest in peace, with the rest of his family, in the next world.”
I’d never felt so stupid as I felt right that moment. She was speaking English, but I didn’t have the first idea what was being said. One look at Willie and I saw he was confused, but he asked:
“Are you a preacher?”
I could almost see her tumble that word through her mental filters.
“I am a priestess.”
“Priestess?”
“I am Priestess in the Second Order of the Friggian Orthodoxy.”
Now, I’ve never met nor heard of a priestess outside of a Tarzan movie or a Marvel Comic book, and I didn’t have the first fucking clue what the Second Order of the Friggian Orthodoxy was. But the confidence she carried sold the title, at least in that moment. I think if she’d told me her name was Demonextra J. Frankenstein and that she was Queen of the Moon Monsters, I’d probably have given her the benefit of the doubt.
Willie had other thoughts: “What the hell is the Friggin’ Orthodoxy?”
She pursed her lips, and paused in thought.
“I do hope you might forgive me for asking,” she said, “but do you know why you are here?”
“Some feller showed up at my door and told me Lyndon wanted me to be his pallbearer,” Willie said. She looked from him to me.
“Yeah.” I have a way with words.
Have you ever played the game where the first of a circle of people will whisper a phrase to the second, and the second will carry it to the third, and on around the circle, and by the time it reaches the last person “I rode the train to work” has become “Buster Keaton is the strongest one there is?”
Such is the line of managerial progression. There’s an old saying: If you want to have it done right, you need to do it yourself.
And that is precisely what I saw on the face of Lamanda Triune in that moment. What I took from this sudden display was this: There was a message, apparently, that should have been passed to us, even before the two of us appeared at Lyndon’s house, and apparently, neither of us had gotten it.
“You were told that you were to come here to serve as pallbearers?”
“Yeah,” Willie said. “That John feller. He came to the house.”
She nodded once.
“I ask for a moment of your time.”
It wasn’t really a question, and she didn’t wait for either of us to say yes.
With a flutter of robes and a rush of wind, she disappeared. Except, she didn’t disappear. The wind came from nowhere, and it caught in her robes, and sent her red hair flying in the wind. And then she seemed to shrink. Her legs floated up into the air, and her head seemed to fall to meet in the center. A little, and then a lot. It couldn’t have taken more than a second and a half, but floating in midair that little bit of time later was the very same cardinal that Willie and I had noticed on the perch of the pulpit minutes before.
And just as quickly as the bird had replaced the priestess, the cardinal flew out the back of the sanctuary, and behind it, the heavy wooden door slammed shut.
“Huh.” I said, after a second of the both of us staring at the door the cardinal had just flown out. I hadn’t quite begun to wrap my mind around the fact that the woman who’d introduced herself moments before as Lamanda Triune had transformed into bird and flown away.
But I hadn’t kicked the idea out as ridiculous, either.
Willie had other thoughts.
“Huh?” He said to me.
“Huh.” I said back.
“Is that really all you got to say?
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know,” he said, the whites of his eyes as big as two babies’ fists. “Maybe you can talk to me about how the lady who wasn’t there a minute ago and then appeared out of nowhere just turned into a Fucking Bird and Flew The Fuck Away!” That last part had become a scream.
“Did you see it, too?”
I was trying to joke, and I saw his jaw clench and his eyes begin to water. I really think Willie was right on the verge of losing his mind, and I say that without exaggeration. I wasn’t the only one dealing with the weirdness of the weekend.
“Willie,” I said, turning again to look at the door. “What do you want me to say? Do you think I have a lot of experience in people turning into birds? That’s a major goddamn first for me.”
I stood, and walked up the step on the pulpit. I pressed in on the flooring with my feet as much as I could, to see if somehow I’d missed a trapdoor, though I couldn’t think I’d have missed such a thing having been a mere six feet from the lady as she played human/bird transformer. I leaned over and felt the seat of the chair, which was slightly warm to the touch. I looked back at Willie, and shrugged.
He got up, and walked to the back of the sanctuary. He pulled at the door, which didn’t budge.
I don’t think Willie actually wanted out of the chapel until after he’d tried the door. The door which didn’t budge. Now, Willie’s a smaller guy. Maybe 5'5" in workboots. And he’s what they like to call “wirey.” He’s not a pushover...he’s covered with that ratlike farmer’s muscle. But all told, he probably doesn’t weigh much more than 120 lbs.
And we found out with in seconds that the door to the chapel could support that, and easily. I almost found it more difficult to accept than having just watch a Priestess of the Second Order of the Friggian Orthodoxy just turn into a bird right before my eyes. But Willie, all he of one arm, managed to get both feet off the ground and against the door jamb, pulling on the handle of the black door with every fiber of his being.
The door didn’t budge, and he ran out of energy. He didn’t fall all the way to the ground, but he stayed on a knee long enough to take a couple of deep breaths.
“We’re trapped.”
“We’re not trapped,” I said. “Why would they lock us in?”
I walked up the aisle to the door of the church, and pulled. I might have well just pulled my truck down the street. It didn’t give. I think that I expected that Willie had just missed the mechanism to release the latch. But I couldn’t find any. I put both hands on the handle, and gave a tug. Again, nothing.
Now I was wanting out of the chapel. I don’t think I was thinking of leaving, but I knew that I didn’t want to be locked behind this heavy door.
I've got more than this, but this seemed like the most comfortable stopping point. I'm excited about the section right after this. It's mostly written, but I want to finish that part before I post the whole thing, because I like how it's going.
Now this? I'm a little iffy on, but I bulled through. I'd have no problem writing it for myself, I can tell myself to just move on and fix it with the next draft. But I'm posting this first draft mess, for the whole world to see, warts and all. So it's mildly stressful. I mean, a lot of it sounds (and feels) so hackish to me.
But, a few of you are enjoying it, and I hope you will continue to do so.
I say that, but I think there's good there, too. So, I hope you guys like this part. I'm figuring there are two or three more mornings writings to do on what I'm currently calling The First Act.
Anyway. Here are the first 11 parts.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
And now, part 12, which picks up write after part 11....:
“It is time for you both to open your minds.”
That’s the last thing I remember, for sure, that was said. The woman in the long red flowing robes took down her hood, and Ronnie and I just stared. Growing up in rural America, I never gave much thought to the idea of what royalty was. But when the lady in the red robes took down her hood, I had the thought that I was gazing into the most regal countenance I ever had, and most likely ever would.
She was older, but not old, if that makes any sense at all (and to me, at this point, it honestly wasn’t). She was older, but beautiful. With eyes that displayed both a fierce intelligence and an assured presence. I said she was regal. I took her for somebody used to giving the orders. And not in a haughty, vindictive sort of way. I immediately took this woman for somebody who knew that she was the leader.
The last thing my mind said to me before she started speaking again was that this was not a woman who had found her destiny...rather, destinies were molded around her.
“Come forward,” she said to us. Willie and I took a quick glance at each other, and we both stepped forward to the front of the chapel.
“Sit, please,” and she extended an arm toward the first pew in the little room.
Willie rounded the corner first, and walked to the center of the pew, and sat. I sat beside him, on his left.
The woman in red smiled. It was an easy smile. She pulled slightly on the seams of her robe (bright, bright red), and my initial thought was that she was going to curtsey for us, but I then saw that she was settling into a chair behind her. The top of the chair extended above her head, almost like a crown, only adding to her regal bearing. “This has been an interesting day for the two of you, no?”
“You could say that,” I think I said. Willie said nothing.
“Let me first thank you for your presence. These are certainly trying circumstances, and we are most grateful for your attendance.”
She smiled again. It was a warm smile, but there was something more behind it. I think she may have been waiting for Willie or me to say something in response. Neither of us did.
“My name is Lamanda Triune. And I am the facilitator of Lyndon Waverly’s passage to the other side.”
“Facilitator?” Willie asked.
I realized then that the lady was picking her words carefully. I didn’t know why. She spoke with no accent that I could pick up, but the way she spoke made me feel like she was picking each word out of a mental foreign language file, rolling it and shaking it around in her head to make sure it filtered out correctly.
“Among the brotherhood, it is my role to ensure that Lyndon is ushered from this world to the next, safely, so that he may rest in peace, with the rest of his family, in the next world.”
I’d never felt so stupid as I felt right that moment. She was speaking English, but I didn’t have the first idea what was being said. One look at Willie and I saw he was confused, but he asked:
“Are you a preacher?”
I could almost see her tumble that word through her mental filters.
“I am a priestess.”
“Priestess?”
“I am Priestess in the Second Order of the Friggian Orthodoxy.”
Now, I’ve never met nor heard of a priestess outside of a Tarzan movie or a Marvel Comic book, and I didn’t have the first fucking clue what the Second Order of the Friggian Orthodoxy was. But the confidence she carried sold the title, at least in that moment. I think if she’d told me her name was Demonextra J. Frankenstein and that she was Queen of the Moon Monsters, I’d probably have given her the benefit of the doubt.
Willie had other thoughts: “What the hell is the Friggin’ Orthodoxy?”
She pursed her lips, and paused in thought.
“I do hope you might forgive me for asking,” she said, “but do you know why you are here?”
“Some feller showed up at my door and told me Lyndon wanted me to be his pallbearer,” Willie said. She looked from him to me.
“Yeah.” I have a way with words.
Have you ever played the game where the first of a circle of people will whisper a phrase to the second, and the second will carry it to the third, and on around the circle, and by the time it reaches the last person “I rode the train to work” has become “Buster Keaton is the strongest one there is?”
Such is the line of managerial progression. There’s an old saying: If you want to have it done right, you need to do it yourself.
And that is precisely what I saw on the face of Lamanda Triune in that moment. What I took from this sudden display was this: There was a message, apparently, that should have been passed to us, even before the two of us appeared at Lyndon’s house, and apparently, neither of us had gotten it.
“You were told that you were to come here to serve as pallbearers?”
“Yeah,” Willie said. “That John feller. He came to the house.”
She nodded once.
“I ask for a moment of your time.”
It wasn’t really a question, and she didn’t wait for either of us to say yes.
With a flutter of robes and a rush of wind, she disappeared. Except, she didn’t disappear. The wind came from nowhere, and it caught in her robes, and sent her red hair flying in the wind. And then she seemed to shrink. Her legs floated up into the air, and her head seemed to fall to meet in the center. A little, and then a lot. It couldn’t have taken more than a second and a half, but floating in midair that little bit of time later was the very same cardinal that Willie and I had noticed on the perch of the pulpit minutes before.
And just as quickly as the bird had replaced the priestess, the cardinal flew out the back of the sanctuary, and behind it, the heavy wooden door slammed shut.
“Huh.” I said, after a second of the both of us staring at the door the cardinal had just flown out. I hadn’t quite begun to wrap my mind around the fact that the woman who’d introduced herself moments before as Lamanda Triune had transformed into bird and flown away.
But I hadn’t kicked the idea out as ridiculous, either.
Willie had other thoughts.
“Huh?” He said to me.
“Huh.” I said back.
“Is that really all you got to say?
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know,” he said, the whites of his eyes as big as two babies’ fists. “Maybe you can talk to me about how the lady who wasn’t there a minute ago and then appeared out of nowhere just turned into a Fucking Bird and Flew The Fuck Away!” That last part had become a scream.
“Did you see it, too?”
I was trying to joke, and I saw his jaw clench and his eyes begin to water. I really think Willie was right on the verge of losing his mind, and I say that without exaggeration. I wasn’t the only one dealing with the weirdness of the weekend.
“Willie,” I said, turning again to look at the door. “What do you want me to say? Do you think I have a lot of experience in people turning into birds? That’s a major goddamn first for me.”
I stood, and walked up the step on the pulpit. I pressed in on the flooring with my feet as much as I could, to see if somehow I’d missed a trapdoor, though I couldn’t think I’d have missed such a thing having been a mere six feet from the lady as she played human/bird transformer. I leaned over and felt the seat of the chair, which was slightly warm to the touch. I looked back at Willie, and shrugged.
He got up, and walked to the back of the sanctuary. He pulled at the door, which didn’t budge.
I don’t think Willie actually wanted out of the chapel until after he’d tried the door. The door which didn’t budge. Now, Willie’s a smaller guy. Maybe 5'5" in workboots. And he’s what they like to call “wirey.” He’s not a pushover...he’s covered with that ratlike farmer’s muscle. But all told, he probably doesn’t weigh much more than 120 lbs.
And we found out with in seconds that the door to the chapel could support that, and easily. I almost found it more difficult to accept than having just watch a Priestess of the Second Order of the Friggian Orthodoxy just turn into a bird right before my eyes. But Willie, all he of one arm, managed to get both feet off the ground and against the door jamb, pulling on the handle of the black door with every fiber of his being.
The door didn’t budge, and he ran out of energy. He didn’t fall all the way to the ground, but he stayed on a knee long enough to take a couple of deep breaths.
“We’re trapped.”
“We’re not trapped,” I said. “Why would they lock us in?”
I walked up the aisle to the door of the church, and pulled. I might have well just pulled my truck down the street. It didn’t give. I think that I expected that Willie had just missed the mechanism to release the latch. But I couldn’t find any. I put both hands on the handle, and gave a tug. Again, nothing.
Now I was wanting out of the chapel. I don’t think I was thinking of leaving, but I knew that I didn’t want to be locked behind this heavy door.
posted by Tommy at
11:06
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home