Short Story 01 Reformulated From A Poem

Elite Harvard Girls Have Been Taking Over Buildings

They are doing well supporting terrorism. But demonstrations can get exhausting and there’s no Quiche Lorraine or brioche.

The Xyiwa Embassy Hosts A Party For Harvard Girls
    by Douglas Gilbert

    In the neo-post adolescent milieu, the girls of Harvard, Yale, NYU, Columbia et.al. were mesmerized together in a love affair with their Marxist svengalis: they were to sing, to cry, to laugh, to protest, to demonstrate for the pleasure of criminal minds ensconced by tenure, who colonized their minds to justify October 7. Pusillanimous in the face of evil, there could only be academic pussyfooting with Marxist theory that the silly girls would absorb and spout on command. Only students. Yet mean girls can provide purgatory for everyone who knows not the folly of the ancient world: living again in a world of rape, murder, conquest, but unseen for a while in the delusional elegance of writing. Philosophers have slaves seen and unseen.
    The Harvard girls had been good at demonstrations. The famous trio had become experts in the art of hysterical shouting of slogans in the style of a protest song: “Terrorism is blessed by the oppressed.” But as good as they were at rationalizing the torture of an enemy for a just cause, they began to have difficulty suppressing weird anxieties, and the dorm seemed haunted. Simple shadows startled them. They needed a party to consume spirits. Breaking into the library and vandalizing it was no longer fun. A book about poltergeists fell off a shelf during their last occupation.
    There was another building take-over scheduled, but the trio of Amy, Céline, and Erika became fatigued by their notorious Professor Dadahit Lure. They wandered. They resented even an easy assignment: an at least a thirty page term paper with at least twenty references. Even a debutante could fake that easily. Party, party, partying is better though their parents would be shocked at their vulgarities. Erika wanted to be an opera singer, but now she’s an ostensible political science and faux history major who does drunken karaoke and boisterous protest marches like a drum majorette doing kabuki dance and yoga in support of terror: “War is peace: kill the oppressor.” Amy had the pretension and jargon of a scholar, Céline the je ne sais quoi of a third wheel.
    The girls had been told by their magic mushroom guru to avoid the haunted houses and the Xyiwa Embassy, but they threw caution away to ignore the boos that opposed, deciding to going partying, believing the layered seductive lies of a Fauci Lasagna presentation. Excitement was needed.
    New excitement. For them demonstrations were now staid; they were tired of what cant the to-do chants bade, wanted vulgar elegance: festivities in honor of oppressed barbarians gone chic.
    The Embassy invitation said that it was a two-tier deal: it was a dance party with the greatest bands ever and after; there’d be a psychology lecture with experiential therapy exercise and out-of-body experiments. Erika claimed that when she touched one of the engravings on the invitation that she got a shock. Amy said it was static electricity.
    They couldn’t resist the bonuses. “This party month: an entrance fee of seven hundred dollars, but attendees will take away a gold necklace signifying payments for a kiss month.” So they went.
    The Harvard girls, Amy, Céline, and Erika sashayed into the elegant foyer of crystal chandeliers in hypnotic light as if giddy rogue diplomats were twittering to titillate an errant spy or spook.

“Invitations please — cash or credit cards”

    After Amy gave her credit card a security jeweler behind her examined her neck and fastened a gold choker necklace around it.

Céline said, “Gee, Amy, that’s like wide and solid; is that chic cool?”

    Just then, someone jumped behind Céline saying, “Don’t worry dear,” as he snapped her choker on. “You’re exquisite in your collar.”

Erika was last and she found herself aghast wearing a collar before she endorsed her card.

They pranced to the dance floor singing in Bessie Griffin manner “… that’s what my man is for”

Céline giggled to the choir: “Amy, are you Egyptian?”

“Huh Céline… why do you inquire?”

“Curiosity is my middle name and your choker extols Amy right next to some Egyptian symbols.”

“Oh odd. Yours is Egyptian Céline”

“I’m feeling like an angst ankh…”

“Ha, oh… I’m dreaming up an ankh symbol but… where the Devil has Erika gone?”

“Probably being a drama queen somewhere cool with a debonair man whose fleecing skill is as white as snow ha…”

    But like an enchanted evening, the thunderstorm outside erupted looming louder than the music, and inside was a big commotion across the crowded room.

    Amy felt an evil presence, like a guru’s extreme warnings. “Is that Erika screaming?” The lights dimmed.

Céline spotted Erika being surrounded by security guards. “Hey, it’s Erika but I don’t know what
she’s saying.”

“Céline! They seized her by her arms and she’s sobbing.”

    Céline started to feel a thump of panic, and a thunderclap made her jump. The room was getting crammed, and someone or something bumped her hand. “What are they saying to her?”

“A colloquy in effect that the key to safety is to exclude and reject party crashers.”

The guards moved away and left her alone.

“Amy, maybe we better somehow get to her and leave now.” The music got louder.

“I don’t know..it seems resolved, and she’ll be disappointed…”

“Yeah, I guess. Hey let’s dance and hit on a guy… Oh look, she snared a diplomat-type like a dashing attaché. She’s good.”

“Yeah, good, C. and she’s leaving with him. Maybe they’re going to the lecture room. Drama over…
So I’m going to the free bar. Then, let’s meet later to the right of the stage…where rest the unengaged”

“OK. If you get lucky, I’ll meet you at the lecture.”

    There was a generous buffet and casual tables to mingle anywhere sitting down but also an area with paintings for the stand-up comedy of mingling or serious debate with raconteurs — the oppressors and the oppressed, the flirty and the flighty the seductions and the romance.

Céline and Amy roamed through it all with neither conquest nor defeat but fatigued.

After a few hours Céline and Amy bumped into each other.

“So Amy, did you meet a stellar intellect?”

“I’m bored with pompous puffery and the staid jargoneers who fear a joke on them like an egg white meringue, and confronted with counterpoint data deflate like a soufflé when you bang their door closed.”

“Huh what? Geez Amy, banging out a thesis tease of the oppressed?”

“Um yeah. I’m ruminating out loud chewing on it with my mouth open I suppose…”

    The crowd had thinned out. Many had gone to the first round of lectures. After another round of thunderclaps, the music was turned up with lights and theatrical smoke.

Erika reappeared like an enchantment across the room. Amy and Céline screamed
“Erika!”

    Erika didn’t acknowledge them. They pushed their way across the sprung flooring making people stumble into a new tarantella of the elite.

“Erika!”

Erika looked confused, and wasn’t wearing her necklace. “Are you talking to me? Um sorry,
my name is Tikva. Is this IDF headquarters?”

Amy was frightened. “Erika, where were you? What are you babbling?”

“I’m Tikva. I was in hell in the tunnels, under Shifa Hospital.”

“I’m Céline, yeah good joke Erika…”

“Who is Erika? I’m not Erika.”

“I’m Amy, and so um, you should find your necklace. It’s worth at least $300…”

“Oh hell, I have no need for a slave shock collar. But hell, listen you, Amy, you Céline: I was… ”

In chorus they watched her shake. “What? What?”

“I was raped, and torn, and tortured and…”

Céline gasped. Erika-Tikva pushed, and knocked people over running out the exit door.

“Céline, shouldn’t she go to the hospital and the police?”

“She’s acting weird. I’ll find her. I’m gonna bounce.”

“Yes, find her and get her to the emergency room expeditiously. Céline?”

“I’m jittery and uneasy queasy.” She reached behind her neck to unfasten the necklace. “Amy, help me with this.”

“Turn around. OK, um. I don’t see a latch.” She tugged on it hard. “Um, uh, well. Ut oh.”

“What?”

“It’s locked on. It needs a key and…”

Céline frantically yanked on it, and tried to turn it around. It seemed tighter. She screamed, and three security guards ran over.

Two seized her arms, and one stood in front of her. “Calm down. The key to safety is to exclude and reject party crashers.”

“Get this off. I have to leave now.”

“Let’s see. You’re Céline. You’re registered for the seminar, and you signed the legal papers. Don’t worry; we’ll take care of Erika.”

“Unlock it now! Let go of me.” The two held her arms tight.

“Let’s have a look.” He went behind her and put a key in the lock.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m tightening it a little so you won’t turn it around. Now why don’t you just go to the seminar quietly.”

“Amy, get your FBI friend… go, go, go…”

Amy ran toward the exit, but someone tackled her.

Céline was sobbing. “Ow, ow, ow, ow…”

“That’s just a small shock. we can make it stronger. So now you can be calm, and we’ll send a dignified escort for you. Or we can parade you around in handcuffs behind your back in front of your friends. We’ll leave now so you can decide.”

Céline was searching for Amy when the house lights dimmed down and stage lights of renown came up. “Attention. We have a special announcement: We are pleased to present the first annual J. Bliss Vanderbilt Award to our beloved Professor Alice for her work as the first female Musicologist of the Gay 1890s Society. You might say it’s the Gilded Age and as you may know, in the 1890s “Gay” meant showy and bright, cheerful, carefree which is why they called it the gay 90s. So let’s give a big hand of applause to our carefree Alice Harrison!”

A man rose in the audience near the stage with a Champagne glass in his left hand seeming to make a grand toast. With his right hand he rose up an ax. He drew it up and back, shouting “Blasphemy! There will be no gays from the river to the sea.”

He threw it into Alice’s chest and blood gushed into the audience before she fell in a thud splat back.
He rushed up on stage, and kneeling beside her chopped off her head.

From the wings someone shouted, “Close the curtain”

The audience was freaking out.

The manager came to center stage. “Is there a Doctor in the house?”

Someone shouted, “You idiot, she has no head.”

The manager was nonplussed. “Is there a clown in the house? … you? Yes, come up” He jumped onto the stage.

“I am Pagliaccio star of the buffoons. Yeah, so, tell ya ’bout my play. I stabbed Nedda because
she was unfaithful. The audience loved it but they thought it was part of the play. I killed. … Yeah, I think it’s a great added feature: an ax instead of a stiletto. Dead Alice: a triumph! And did y’ hear the joke about…”

Alice came out from the wings walked behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. He said, “Don’t bother me now, I’m killing it… So Alice is actually completely dead?” Alice tapped him on the shoulder again.

She said, “Is there a doctor in the house?” The ax man came out. They all bowed. “I hope you enjoyed our play.”

The lights came up. Céline found herself standing next to a handsome uniformed escort.

Céline jumped. “Who are you?”

“I’m your escort. Shall we go to the Astral Projection lecture now?”

“Well, um, is that relaxing?”

“Indeed.”

Céline was totally absorbed in thinking about what just happened. She didn’t notice where she was going.

“Here you are. You can sit on the mattress. The lecture is starting now. Bye.”

The lecture started. “Astral Projection. You’ve probably heard of it. OK, don’t worry… Alright, make yourself comfortable. Put on the mask but make sure the hose doesn’t get tangled.”

Céline was exhausted. She lay down and almost started to fall asleep.

“We will do ‘mind awake, body asleep meditation’”

Céline was about to do mind asleep, body asleep because she was so tired.

“Stay with me. Focus on my voice. Cover yourself with your heart blanket. Put your arms at your side, palms up, hands through the loops.”

Céline wanted to sleep and dream, but listened carefully, trying to follow along.

“You will meet your energy body — the subtle part of yourself. Softly spread your legs out, allowing them to slacken into the stirrups and loops. Now totally relax and make yourself perfectly comfortable falling into the mattress. It is important to remain perfectly still. Take 5 big cleansing breaths: huge inhale, sigh out… Imagine a pure white light flowing through each part of your body, relaxing and calming — body asleep, mind awake. Energy is swirling around.”

The voice was still in her head. “Bring your energy body away from your physical body float out and tell yourself ‘open the portal’. Repeat, ‘Portal now, portal now…’ ”

Céline heard another voice say, “We’ve stopped her heart successfully.”

The lecture continued. “Know that you are karma and can return by thinking of the physical body that justice brings you in Gaza… Now think of the physical body you are drawn to. Wait for an entity to leave it and take possession of the body now. This is your body now.”

When Céline woke up, her hands were tied behind her back, and she found herself in a cave near a tunnel with another woman who was also bound. “Help! Help! Untie me.”

“I can’t. My hands and legs are tied.”

“What happened? How did we get here? Who are you?”

“I’m Amy.”

“That’s funny. I had a friend named Amy. You don’t look like an Amy. You look like a Rivka or something.”

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Céline.”

“That’s an odd coincidence. I had a friend by that name. But you look nothing like her.”

“Oh damn Amy, my voice is totally ruined. I sound like a different person.”

“Me too. Oh wait. I have a peculiar feeling. Céline, how do I not look like your friend Amy?”

“Well, um, you have black hair, and my friend had blonde hair…”

“You’re telling me I have black hair now?”

“Yes. And well, you have tiny boobs. My friend was big-breasted. Oh geez. It’s you Amy in a different body. That out-of-body thing, remember — you came back in the wrong body.”

A man with a machine gun came in the room. He looked at Céline. “You’re next. I’m going to spread you out — sa’akun bidakhilik mae alhubi alshiriyr.”

Céline screamed and tried to kick him. He deflected and she fell down, got up and was running up and back. “Untie me. My friends will kill you.”

Four other men came in the room. They spread her legs and tied her ankles to a log.

“After we rape you, we will tape a rocket to your body, and bring you to the surface. The IDF will get the blame. Welcome to Gaza.”

The women were gagged. Thus, the Harvard girls no longer had praise for these oppressed people, the praise that they might offer at a rally.

The Furin Cleavage Site Welcomes Fauci

Fauci News
    by Douglas Gilbert

Some new exotic resorts have recently opened. A very exclusive one has begun operations in the Say Shell Islands. Celebrations have started.

The First Annual Fauci Festival At The Furin Cleavage Site

    The Corona Family Resort proudly welcomes Fauci our hero. Please join in our celebration and book signing of his classic work: “Accessory To A Million Murders.”
    All conspirators are welcome. We are located on the Say Shell Islands, an Archipelagic Republic. For your convenience, The Republic has no extradition treaty with any country. Your personal concierge will provide you with complimentary surveillance sweeps, room sterilization, and free money laundering service. Our most famous island is the Island of Dr. Moreau which is still available for vivisection studies, which although known for its pioneering studies of humanized mice, has advanced greatly since the 1895 studies of the H. T. Wells Institute.
    We have a fully equipped gym and laboratory located a short distance away from the Grand Spike Ballroom at the junction of S1 and S2 streets. Animals can be shipped at a reasonable price from The Island of Dr. Moreau. Humanized mice* that carry the human ACE2 protein that lines the airways are produced in unlimited quantities. Larger humanized animals can also be provided as pets.
    The amino acid sequence, proline-arginine-arginine-alanine, or PRRA is our pride and joy. With our infectious humor, it is what has made our viruses so happy to fuse with human lung cells. The PRRA sequence which is “the furin cleavage site” always giggles when the human furin, while cleaving, invites the virus to come inside. The dance of death is charming to watch. Tiglekso, don’t worry, ’bout a thing, every micro thing is gonna be reggae smooth.
    The islands of the archipelago provide many layers of security. Isolation can be provided for both political asylum and insane asylum, as well as retirement services and quick burial down an endless pit.

Activities

    During the festival there will be music, and the Inaugural Lecture from Mr. Science himself. The lecture will include the topics of propaganda, lobbying, intimidation, the technique of the layering of lies, commonly know as the “Fauci Lasagna” presentation, and the use of research grants as bribes.
     Samples of our finest cuisine will be served:
~ SayShell’s Fruit-Bat Curry
~ Fruit-bat Lasagna
~ Fauci Sardine Pancakes
~ Fauci Chicken With Bats

The Fauci Lasagna Linguistics

L’informatore ha parlato del sito di scissione del furin. Si scoprì che stava finendo nelle Fauci di un lupo.

Loosely speaking, “Fauci Lasagna” refers to the propaganda and obfuscation pronouncements of the grant-money prostitutes of the academic and scientific community. They generally forgo morality for the sake of their careers — The Shush Dictionary of Slang, 2019

From the Ancient Latin Hypocrite’s Oath & Swearing Poem

Poemata Imperatoris: Faucibus percurrit mendacium

Pestilentia decurrit per dona pecuniarum

Faucibus percurrit mendacium, pestilentia per dona pecuniarum,
Fauci culpa, Fauci mendacium.
Caesar Fauci iuvare morbum quaestum functionum quaerit.
A plena fauci lauda: O fauci Imperatoris salve!
    ————
Poems of the Emperor: A lie runs through his mouth

The plague runs through donations of money

Lies run through mouths, pestilence through gifts of money,
Fauci’s fault, Fauci’s lie.
Caesar Fauci seeks to help the disease gain functions.
Praise from a full throat: Hail, O throat of the Emperor!

The Corona Family Resorts Inc. Official Slogan

“Cave cantum in fauce Fauci Domini lasagna pro diabolo.”
Beware of the song in the throat of Lord Fauci’s lasagna for the devil.

If you receive an invitation, make your reservations now.

As explained in your invitation, the cost is very dear, but it’s well worth it. Remember that expression about the cost of buying a yacht: “If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.” Do not come directly to the main island. Leave your ship at the designated port and we will pick you up and transport you by submarine. We will also ship your luggage by different means. But keep in mind that this a long term commitment explained in the legal documents that you must sign.

Bon Voyage!

We will see you soon. It will be the best experience of your life and the most luxurious as long as you follow the rules.

*The Origin of COVID: Did People or Nature Open Pandoras Box At Wuhan
**Fauci Gives False Testimony
*** The Creole Melting Pot
H.G. Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau, A Possibility, 1896, New York, Stone & Kimball, MDCCCXCVI.

Ancient Artifacts of the Ut’ishsih People Gone Awry

Trapped by Ancient Artifacts

So had I reached a fabled resort of the Gods? Or was it something else. OK, so Zawmb’yee said to take a shower…

Zawmb’yee came running in, dropped all her stuff on the floor and laughed. She said, “Wow, I didn’t know that this is what it would take to be a participant-observer in our ancient culture.”

“Um yeah. I think you’re starting to get into the up-top jargon stuff. Ha. I’d say you need to give yourself a Jargon Promotion…”

“A what?”

“Here, you’re only picking up gossip, but there you’ve learned a dignified smirk.”

“Huh what? Jargon what?”

“Anyway. Yeah. Here’s the idiomatic thing: you said you’re an Anthropology student explorer…”

“Um, sort of…” She laughed.

“But you’re doing cultural stuff. Right?”

“Uh huh”

“So, you’re a Cultural Anthropologist and…”

“Ha! Professor Higgins, Shakespeare fool, what’s in a name, a rose?”

“Oh yeah My Fair Lady Juliet, but the “the jargon’s the thing. They’re really into Jargon as a sacrament.”

“So?”

“You’re jumping around like a kangaroo comparing cultures…”

“I guess… I’ve got my notes in my pouch and I can box.”

“Congratulations. I promote you to ‘Ethnologist’. ”

“Do I get a prize?”

“Um, no, but I think you have a problem…”

“Ut oh.”

“In up-top terms you’re doing research and you need to get it validated… like in a thesis.”

“Oh yeah, and what pray tell is YOUR damn thesis?”

“Um, well, the Ut’ishsih people’s culture was based on what they call up-top a “cargo cult.” When the Gods came in about 20,000 B.C. they brought magical things or ‘cargo’. ”

“And when they told us to hide in the caves, we got totally confused and mixed up…Right?

“Um, I think the Gods were actually extraterrestrial beings who in the analogy are the “Colonialists” who brought magical devices from Heaven or from Super-Gods between the stars in space.”

“Ut oh, that’s Sypmauiyig! Should you be saying that?”

“Well, it explains why we have a few mixed-up hybrid devices that are non-sensically part science and part “magic” and don’t always work right. It’s like someone finding a car engine and using it for heating and the spark plugs for lighting torches.”

“Do you always have to talk so much. Shall we be clean now?” she said. “You know, Utcoozhoo says, ‘when lust is exhausted by overindulgence, the subtleties of love can be appreciated,’ ”

“That doesn’t sound like something Utcoozhoo would say…”

“OK. Yeah. He didn’t say that, but I say that. How about that expression, ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness.’ What was that … Benjamin Franklin or something — I don’t know. So let’s be clean.”

We went in the first open door. The Gods, I think, have good taste in the design of a bathroom. There was a dry marble basin thirty feet long, ten feet across. At the far end was a waterfall pouring into a drain. Along the near tile wall was a towel rack, and shelves with bars of soap.

“Take a bar of soap,” she said.

Zawmb’yee ran under the waterfall, and came out saying, “Swoosh me with the soap.”

I am always inclined to be indulgent under such circumstances, and enjoyed the cleansing of the savage breast, while she endeavored to exhaust my lust as in her own prophesy, and I was not one to deny her. As they say, ‘one good poem deserves another’. She is like the rainbow under a waterfall.

Zawmb’yee Finds Ancient Gadgets

When Zawmb’yee came out of the waterfall, I had noticed what looked like a metal dress and a suit of armor. Now I asked, “What are those?”

“Those are used to let us be washed by the Gods. It’s sort of like a washing spacesuit.”

“How do you mean?”

“Here let me show you.” Zawmb’yee picked up the dress. It had hoses coming out the back of the waistband, and from there up to the wrists. She said, “Help me put this on. Now these cups with the clear hoses go over the breasts — see. Fasten it in the back for me … and these are washing panties … . Now you. Here … get into these metal briefs and …”

“What are all the hoses for?”

“That’s for the washing fluids … Here let me do this for you. Now this hose goes on like a condom, see … and we lock on the metal shorts — There, that snaps shut. ”

“Wait a minute … I don’t think I like wearing solid steel underwear. This is like a chastity belt or something and I can’t touch anything. How do I get this off …”

“Well, you don’t. It unlocks automatically when the wash is over. Don’t worry. Now we put on the rest of the suit. These armlets go on here.”

She looked very strange standing there in her dress with hoses extending from her wrists to her back. Another hose came out of her back and was anchored in the floor. She said it seals like a spacesuit. She told me to fasten her neck collar and wrist cuffs firmly so there’d be no leaks. She tightened her waist belt.

She said, “OK. As soon as I tighten up your suit, the wash of the Gods will start.”

As soon as the suit was sealed, our back hoses were pulled into the floor and we fell to the ground. Water sprayed in from the wrist hoses and they were drawn short into the back of the belt. I felt a lotion ooze into my briefs and then a massage and a vibration began. I felt an armlet tighten and then a needle prick. I looked at Zawmb’yee who was struggling, trying to get up. Her hands were pulled tightly behind her back.

I said to her, “I don’t think this is a ‘wash of the Gods’. This thing is collecting semen and blood.”

“What?” said Zawmb’yee. “Get up, get up — get this off me.”

The harder I tried to get up the shorter the hoses were pulled until my wrists were clamped together in the back of the belt. Then, we heard footsteps behind us, but we were pinned to the floor and couldn’t turn around to look.

Zawmb’yee shouted, “Help! We need some help here …”

I began to yell, “Yeah, we could use suh …” Suddenly, Zusoiti, the High Priestess jammed a ball into my mouth.

Zawmb’yee screamed, “What are you doing?”

Zusoiti said, “I’m gagging him because he’s going to be here for a day or two, depending on how long it takes for the Gods to get enough samples, and we don’t need all the yelling.”

Zawmb’yee screamed, “Unlock me, unlock me …”

The High Priestess shouted back, “Shut-up, or I’ll gag you too. This is sacrilege. Where’s your supervisor? You don’t belong here …”

“Get me out of this,” Zawmb’yee whispered.

“Well, it’s too late now in any case. Only the Gods can release you.”

“When will they do that?”

“It depends on your hormone levels. They have to analyze that and your DNA. Probably in a few hours.”

“What about him. What did you mean a day or two?”

“Well, that’s more complicated.”

Zawmb’yee started screaming again, “The armlets are stabbing me … unlock me, unlock me …”

“I told you I can’t.” Zusoiti gagged her. “Now, calm down, you’ll get through this. You weren’t supposed to just wander in here on your own. Don’t tell me — Ngheufel got you to do this.”

[continued]

A Dangerous Cave Encounter, Diary & Short Story

I think these entries from the diary can qualify as a Short Story

Do these entries as a unit qualify as a Short Story? What do you think? What is the theme?

A Call For A Meeting in the Caves
    diary by Kvizee Doug

    It was really weird early today when I got a phone call from Zawmb’yee. I mean, I see her in the cave all the time. She would seem to pop out of nowhere whenever I wrote at the Nipeiskwari. I guess I’ve always thought of her as a cave person even though Utcoozhoo makes her mingle in the up-top world quite often — it’s just that I’ve never seen her there. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised because she can pass quite well as an ordinary, run-of-the-mill, common gorgeous model. It’s odd though because in the cave world she used to be teased all the time: they used to call her the hairless albino. But that was so ridiculous. She has blond hair, but she’s not albino. Her eyes are blue like the color of the pfambuuisen.
    She called to say she wanted to meet me. Zawmb’yee is going to show me a meditation exercise she’s been learning and maybe she’ll reveal some “oral history.” She said to meet her past the glass wall, around the sword of the silver-red stalagmite to the left of the pothole marker, and up the narrow ledge to the ngtqua.
    An odd thing though. Before hanging up she said, “I want you to gargle with salt water, and then gargle without water to just make the sound. Then make the ‘ka’ sound first in the back of the throat and then like you’re scraping the roof of your mouth, purse your lips, and add the gargle sound until you sound like a motor forcing air out hard until your whole face, sinuses, and head vibrate. It’ll feel like a face massage.”
    She hung up before I could ask a question.

Gathering My Writing Materials

Ever since I almost dropped my notes in the river, I’ve been carrying all my writing paraphernalia with my camera in a waterproof case. Hmm, protecting the notes for this diary — that sort of assumes they might have some importance. I’m not sure I’m even finding this cathartic. It’s only slightly amusing to me when I can imagine a future audience. (I suppose if I were to be writing in the cave and died, someone would take these notes and transcribe them for me, enter them in the computer and continue…I guess they’d be like a ghost writer.) But I can’t see a diary of a boring person as a stage play. I could see Zawmb’yee on the stage or maybe Chloë. I’m probably more like an adequate ‘extra’ who’ll never be an actor.

I’ve had sigh mornings
leaving sighs to mourn
the heave on traipse
on feet’s defeat
a hunched up shoulder,
looking for a walk-on day, say

I could have missed a cue
if you’d not staged a
run in radiance

In the running of my soul
you make me bullish
playing on my horns

Stages of my performance
in the footlights
of your delight
gives me this role
in run-ons
carried away with you
stage right into the wings of love

I’ve Practiced the Mantra

    Well, I’ve practiced Zawmb’yee’s head vibrating sound or mantra or whatever it’s supposed to be. It is a weird sound. I wonder what it will sound like as a duet. Well, I should pack up my stuff and go meet Zawmb’yee at the Ngtqua. (Oh, I just realized there’s another flaw in these entries: I haven’t marked which ones I’ve made here in the apartment and which ones I’ve made in the cave. Actually, this is the first entry I’ve written in my apartment. So it’s a quick turnover to put these handwritten notes into the computer. I hate typing directly — I’m more fluent scribbling than typing. Ah geez — another point-of-view problem.)

Meeting Zawmb’yee at the Ngtqua

    There was no comfort in a familiar scene. Many times I had traipsed past every limestone drip in time, every ancient erosion, but as I traversed this common maze to reach my appointed meeting with Zawmb’yee, making my way past familiar speleothems, some loomed like broken talismans. An ominous insight seemed to trickle into my consciousness that some of these formations were not natural. It is said that the Qukwerpfm, the glass wall, once was double silvered to hold the lightning of the Gods. The sword of the silver-red stalagmite spoke to the Gods in heaven, the legend said, and I walked past to the left, up the narrow ledge.
    On edge, I hummed a few umm’s as I put foot to each stone, trying to remember the sound I was supposed to make for Zawmb’yee’s incantation.

    She waved as I approached the Ngtqua….

Strong Vibrations

    She was standing with a Gnolum that she had evidently removed from a wall. I didn’t even know you could do that. I had always just taken the gnolums for granted — common glowing crystal lights that have always been. They were just like streetlights of the cave. Most people don’t ever question how streetlights work — they’re just there.
    Zawmb’yee said, “Doug, I’m so excited. But I forgot to tell you, you have to add a deep voicing, like a bass hum, to the ‘ka’ and the gargle, like this…” The whole cave vibrated, a small stalactite fell out of the ceiling, and a stone fell off the ledge. “Except a little deeper … you try…”

    I made my whole face vibrate and my eyes shook like little REM’s from a dream. No stones fell.

    She said, “Good, perfect. Now we just have to harmonize. OK, now, we stand by the entrance to the Ngtqua. We do the ‘ka’ together, but when I point up, I want you to raise the tone of your voice, and when I point down, I want you to lower the tone with more bass. When we get the beats right, you’ll hear a ‘wah-oh-wah-oh’ sound, but think that you’re focusing your energy at the entrance…”

    Somehow, her giddiness just didn’t seem to match the occasion. I said, “Do you know what you’re doing?”

    Zawmb’yee said, “Um, well, let’s just do this.”

    When we did the sound together the wah-oh was intense. The large square stone pivoted on one edge, opened like a door, but smoothly without creaks. The inner surface of the door was smooth and polished, not at all like a rock, but more like the vault door of a bank.

    She said with confidence, “Now, we go in.” We walked into the Ngtqua. The door slammed behind us with the sound of locking bolts. The inner surface glowed red hot for a moment and a frost of rock formed, making the door indistinguishable from the surrounding rock of the chamber. There was a trickle of water on the floor.

    Zawmb’yee covered her gnolum with her back pack until it was totally dark. She took my hands in the dark, said, “We are of the universe, the distant stars, we diffuse into a unity of chaos, a smear of light, the glow of love; we are the moment. See the pfambuuwisen, and choose the one that glows the most. Let it expand. Dive into the blue light, and let it expand into a dream. What do you see?”

“I see a woman in a helmet with a spear.”

Zawmb’yee laughed. “Oh sorry, I lost my focus. That’s an opera that I went to. Actually, I should tell you that I saw Chloë at the opera…”

“You know Chloë?”

“Well, yes.”

    The trickle of water was increasing and I found myself standing in ankle deep water. “Don’t you think we should go…?”
Drowning in the Sealed Chamber
    The water is rising more rapidly by the second. We’re doing the ka wah-oh up and down the scale.

    It’s not working — the door is not opening. Zawmb’yee is screaming. I’m telling her that screaming is not the right chant. She’s looking around. She’s running to the back of the chamber where the golden steps are. She’s taking a deep breath, diving underwater, swimming down the stairs.

    Returning, gasping, Zawmb’yee says she doesn’t see an exit. She’s screaming at me to stop taking notes. The water is up to my neck. Seems like a rainy day today. I’m putting this in the waterproof case but I’m not going to be able to fix the spelling, and this doesn’t seem complete enough, but I think incoherence is acceptable under these…

    We’re floating towards the ceiling. Zawmb’yee has put a sheet of paper on top of her floating backpack, and she’s making notes.

    I feel a buzzing panic … thought I’d have a traditional birthday cake this year — maybe this time really have a wish come true when I would blow out the forest of candles. It never seemed to work before. I think I had my first cake with candles when I was three…

Rising Water

    The water is still rising. I smile at Zawmb’yee. She is praying. I wonder about the golden steps we were to step down, each one more relaxing, more soothing. We were to reach a plateau, make a bubble of protection, be bathed in white light. I see a glowing blue globe. I remember when I was three. “Uncle Coozie, Uncle Coozie, I’m fwee today.”

“You’re three?”

“I’m fwee-years-old and I can sing: ‘Haffy Birffy to me/Haffy Birffy to me/Haffy Birffy dear Dougy, haffy birffy to me.’ Uncle Coozie, Mommy chased the angel away — she says ’cause it’s jimagery. Daddy said to hurry up and blow out the damn candles and I forgot to make a wish. Can I still make a wish after everybody’s gone? I made a wish on a teddy bear…”. Zawmb’yee is asking me what we do now. I am saying, “Utcoozhoo says to feel along the beam in the ceiling for a lever.” I am reaching up. There is a beam. The water is only an inch from the ceiling. There is a piece of metal sticking out. I’m pulling it. The water is draining.

Nearly Drowned But Not

    The water drained slowly. Treading water wasn’t much fun. My backpack was too heavy — I had brought a picnic blanket, a bottle of that two dollar wine that won a prize from the blindfolded snobs, and blue cheese. I tried to arch my head back to float, but having to do the elementary backstroke to stay afloat, made me crash into a wall. I switched to breaststroke, swimming around Zawmb’yee who was holding onto her floating backpack.

    Slowly, as the water drained, we floated down to the floor. Little rivers gurgled down the stairs. The water was gone.

    Zawmb’yee was shivering. I took the blanket out — good that it was old, because I could easily tear it in half. I said, “You can use this as a towel to dry off.”

We were soaked and there were breezes leaking in from somewhere. I was getting cold too. I took my wet shirt off.

Zawmb’yee stroked my chest hair, pressed the water out, combed it with her fingers, and handed me the blanket. She tilted her head down, unbuttoned her shirt, said, “Dry me off.”

I took off her wet shirt. The towel carried me into her cleavage, and I wiped her stomach, stroked her face. Her arms were still cold. I massaged away the goose bumps and the water, pulled down her bra straps. She lifted her arms, unbuckled my belt. I felt much warmer. It was to be a fine picnic after-all, as I looked into the blue of her eyes and dried the crest of her globes. In the joy of my breathing, my pants fell off. Floods can be fun when not alone.

“You look cold,” she said, and dried my legs with the tickle of the towel. She saw me bulging. Her fingers pushed under the elastic band, pulled down the briefs, teased the towel around. “I wouldn’t want you to get cold,” she said.

“The heat is on,” I said. “You’ve…” — kissed her lips — “taught me … a lot … today” — caressed — “Can you feel my … thank you?”

“Uh huh…”

Softly a fine slide, a rocking in her spirit, her cuteness, her day this day, her pulse, my heart, a throb, a bob, her joy is my joy. Releasing …

We cuddled and I looked at the wine — we hadn’t needed it. But a little dessert didn’t seem like a bad idea. I opened a plastic bag, took out two cups, poured the wine, put cheese on a cracker.

“I love the salty blue,” she said.

“Yes, the Danish blue cheese is best.”

“Mmm.”

“Umm. could I ask, where did you learn to open the ngtqua? I thought Utcoozhoo made you turn your back when he did it.”

“Funny thing: When I went to the opera, it was a horrible performance. I thought if it had been Italy, they would have thrown tomatoes, and …”

“I meant to ask you — you said you saw Chloë at the opera?”

“Yeah. She was with Ngheufel. They couldn’t get over the incredible faux pas: one passage was supposed to be a simple running up the classical scale by a soprano, but Ngheufel said there was a flat 3 and a flat 7; 2 and 6 were missing. He said that’s obvious — they lapsed into a pentatonic blues scale. The singers themselves were stunned as if they didn’t know why they did that. During intermission, somehow, I got into a discussion with Ngheufel about tones and codes.”

“Ngheufel was with Chloë?”

“Yeah. He was with Chloë. Chloë sends her regards. She knows you don’t like the opera,” said Zawmb’yee.

I was feeling odd, maybe a little jealous. Chloë did ask me to go to the opera — maybe I should have gone; she said it’s more casual nowadays, but I don’t think I would have fit in. “Ngheufel told you …”

“We got into talking about harmony and we did the sound … that was embarrassing …”

“What do you mean?”

“We put a crack in a wall and security escorted us out. They were going to call the police, but Ngheufel did a weird thing …”

“What?”

“Well, I don’t know how to explain it exactly … he did a weird humming thing and said ‘don’t you think it’s too nice a day to do that’ or some such, and the staff all started humming and went off into the park. We went back inside. Chloë was upset — she wanted to know why I ran off with Ngheufel. I just told her we were discussing harmony. She was real angry, but the second act of the opera went well.”

“This is incredible,” I said, “Utcoozhoo was worried about Ngheufel making mischief, and this trouble seems deliberate…”

Zawmb’yee turned pale. She said, “He’s always been a prankster — he once tried to tell Utcoozhoo he knew the peace symbol in common vogue, but instead of showing two fingers, he told him that raising the middle finger was a sign of respect. Utcoozhoo gave him the middle finger but in proper context … We could be in trouble, but never mind. Have some more wine.”

We both didn’t want to even contemplate what conspiracy might really be going on. I drifted into something more neutral, “I don’t like opera very much. When it comes to music, I like the blues and improvisation. Utcoozhoo said to do something with that. He wanted me to write something casual in idiomatic English. He’s always saying to master simple poetry before attempting the poetry of the Gods.”

“Yeah. He always makes strange demands. Well, I don’t know, but I thought the poem you wrote on the canvas was pretty good. Are you still keeping your poem diary? ”

“Uh yeah … ”

“Um, and so, you brought wine and cheese for a surprise seduction, and then maybe, I’m thinking you brought your poem book. No?”

“ … Uh, how do you know these things … Well, I’ve got a pretty long one that rambles all over the place. I’m sort of wondering if it’ll pass in the up-top culture. It’s maybe too quirky and …”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re dying to read it. Hey, I’m the one who’s supposed to practice meshing with the mainstream culture. I can take it. You’ve got something better to do? … Have some wine and let’s hear it.”

Our clothes were still too wet to put back on, and needing a diversion from arousal, I thought reading might be a good idea (I vowed never to go to a nudist colony because I’m easily distracted, and I could imagine having a problem constantly being seen…). I fumbled through the plastic bags, opened the book and turned to ‘Sax Piano Bird’

She said, “Well, what are you doing? Let’s hear it.”

“No, I’ve changed my mind, and I think I should stop writing poetry altogether.”

“Why?”

“Well, I’ve a bad feeling that they’re about to outlaw it in the up-top world except for Shakespeare,” I said.

“Why would they do that?”

“Because it’s subversive,” I said.

“But Shakespeare’s subversive.”

“Yeah, but it’s Old English and young people are forgetting how to read it,” I said.

“Well, at least tell me what your subversion is about,” she said.

“Well,” I said, “shall I glorify a paraphrase for love…”

“Yes do.”

“Well, the now secret title is ‘Sax Piano Bird’… Um, I’ll change it a little.”

“Yes, yes, yes, get on with it — do your best translation on the go.”

“Zawmb’yee dear, if you will play, I will kiss your tune lips, because anything goes when I’m slinking down your keyboard, tickling doleful note doodles, plinking your chords, caressing pianissimo, bopping forte, top a’ ya board, yes indeed, I’m chording love accolades that stay for improvisations when cool mistys get hot, and if you will play, I shall be cool.

I will kiss your tune lips if you will transpose your glory keys to high toned harmony that sees me exposed with whistling kisses blown all sax-ified, but that’ll be after the race. Y’know it was a mystery that birds of a feather could have gotten the winner’s name from the horse’s mouthwash, but I had heard them say that you used to play with your pet cockatoo at the piano bar down by the racetrack at the end of the race, and so I decided to see for myself. When I got to the piano, the bird said, ‘Leave a tip.’

I said, ‘Baby Needs Shoes to win, place, or show me a new tune.’

But as they had said, it was your habit to nag the feathers off it to make it snatch bills out of patrons’ hands.”

“And um, uh…”

“Yes, continue the prose translation. I think you’ve kept most of the poetic spirit in it. So go be subversive. I won’t tell anyone,” Zawmb’yee said.

“Um yes, OK,” I said. “After you had played with your pet cockatoo, I tipped it into a snifter, hoping you’d play with me, because I bet on the nag. But then I had said to you, let’s go to the showers.

I had said that to install the clean in a froth of warmth, above a soapy love, you should join me in the shower stall by the steamy wall where flights of fancy are never scrubbed.

I had said to you that if you will, then I, with fragrant soap, will wash in tribute the toe that tested my waters, will in tribute cleanse the foot feats that two-stepped when I was a mere calf and you were knee high to a love like a soap opera. I had said to sing in the shower from your diaphragm where no melting soap is barred while I swoosh below your breasts with swirling helicopter hands taking off with haste as whirlybirds land on nipple pads.

I had said, if you would say, taxi to the terminal then the refueling hose could dock and the passengers could be served hot blessings, but I said remember: the fifth race is soon, time to place bets by the river on the sailboats, although we could check out the entries swimming in the racing waters where in trepidation you can put a toe in the water of my soul as I kiss it as I would a child’s boo-boo, offering you a future, a splash of my essence; I breathe your perfume, a cherry-flavored love.

You undress in my river and I kiss your thigh in baptism before lips. Like a mallard I swim aside, a breast in hand and hand in bush.

All goes swimmingly, as I reminisce first kisses raising my mast, sailing our ship, and now anything goes, even past the sunset in moonlit tunes splashed across the stars.’ ”

She gave me a sultry look, touched her hips, cocked her head to the side, and hugged herself. She said, “It does sort of ramble, but I like it … I see that your thank you is rising again …”

“Uh, umm, well umm …”

She ran naked down the stairs giggling.

Coming Back With Good News

I was still gathering up our stuff when Zawmb’yee came running back up the stairs.

“It’s a miracle,” she said.

“What’s a miracle?”

“The pfayohoqwaahujpi sealed all the doors downstairs during the flood, and …”

“Yes?”

“And the bidet is working!”

“Doors? There are rooms?”

“Yeah. Didn’t I tell you? Oh, well … A lot of akwaki are just plain cisterns, but some are qwuakwaki even all the way down here. The Gods were remarkable; weren’t they?”

“Um, isn’t that a little vulgar for ‘Gods’: that they needed flush toilets …”

“Well, maybe, they just built it for us … I mean, they did save all the ice for us when the ice age ended and …”

“I didn’t know about that … is this part of the history Utcoozhoo is teaching you?”

“Yeah. Um, OK, let’s get organized here. I’ll finish cleaning up here … OK, all the doors are open and the lights are on. I think we’re safe for now, but I don’t think we’re going out the front door …”

“Is there a …”

“Go take a shower. I’ll be there in a minute — I have to get my stuff together.”

With all the commotion, I hadn’t even looked at the back of the ngtqua. Maybe if we had gone to the back in the first place, we would have escaped.

Towards the back began a marble floor, a sudden intrusion in the irregular limestone floor that led to the stairs …

The Special Staircase

    I stepped onto the marble floor, and peered down the stairs. The first seven steps were glowing with the colors of the rainbow. An intense red glistened almost like a traffic light, but it was a go signal, a beckoning, not a stopping. My left foot plunged onto the red step. An orange shimmered on the second one. My right was pulled onto the orange slab, and a bright yellow beam forced me to squint. Intense yellow light made me wonder if the third would be hot like the sun. Looking down at the step, I was blinded and couldn’t see the rest of the stairs. I squatted down on the orange slab and reached out with my hand to see if there was any heat coming up from the yellow. Then I reached down, touching the third step with my finger. It was cool.

    I stood up. There was a pull like an invisible tide. I was drawn onto a wide green landing with both feet, my legs feeling heavy, wanting to lie down, but I looked carefully, picked up the pace, got into a rhythm: left on blue, right on indigo, left on violet. The slabs became more regular, but now with colors in reverse order.

    Running down the stairs, resisting the invisible tide wasn’t possible. Violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and again. Thirty-five steps. Arriving where?

Zawmb’yee Offers Inspiration

The Pfayohoqwaahujpi Energies

Lately I’ve just been staring at the rippling waters of the K’ut’mbletaw’i. It is said that the Gods left behind many pfayohoqwaahujpi (lightning boxes for guardian spirits to dwell in) that power the Endless Light and purify the river. The river is always pure even after many reckless picnickers have frolicked with abandon. There are smaller ones too of a different nature. It is still unknown what type of energy it is. Some are like electrical power plants, but many are not. The shapes vary. Some are like orbs that fly and disappear, some can be seen only during meditation.

I look into the beautiful blue ripples of the water hoping for a splash of inspiration to lift my writer’s block.

Zawmb’yee says I should look over my old poems to see if there is one in my trash heap that could be revised and purified. But I don’t have the power of even the smallest pfayohoqwaahujpi. I found an old poem, but it’s too weird to use I think, and I don’t think it is worth reading again:

Enchantment

In warmth
you’ve already read this
but I made you forget it
many spells ago
down the path
you’re on now falling

down the mountainside
to lush green sleepy
pleasant grass under
picnics’ bliss wine
soothing solitude like
a bath, bubbles a
swarming essence
perfumed with
perfect memories cherished
idealized
realized
in sleepy fantasy
that counts to five

enchantments
you’ve read
in many spells
down steeped tea
paths pleasing.

Five
is quintessential
to awaken you again;
are you dressed for the day
or is it night–
but you’ve already read this
in warmth cherished,
and now
forget it,
forget what you’ve done
in warmth unknowing, for
you need not know why
everyone looks at you
again, and sleep
will overtake you eventually
to do what you must forget.
You’ve done it. Thanks.

Utcoozhoo Jumps Out of the Water

    Yesterday, I don’t know when (I forgot my watch again, and in the endless light of the cave, there’s no way to know the day or time), I was startled by a surprise visitor.

    I don’t think I’ve ever seen Utcoozhoo swim. Somehow I couldn’t picture the scene of a wise old Guru, who might sit by a jagged rock face like his own face, impenetrable, not likely to float, swimming, but it is true that this wise one could chuckle like the water splashes.

    Thus, sitting at the Nipeiskwari (Place of Meandering Thought), by the granite intrusion where the K’ut’mbletaw’i twists, I was surprised to look up from my notes to see Utcoozhoo leap out of the water like a dolphin with gray hair.

    “You look surprised,” he said. “Anyone who can hold his breath for a couple of minutes can reach the Akwangtqua, enter the Tzvaleubhoi, cave of the third sun, rest by the Tree of Many Fruits and … but, of course, if you don’t know where the entrance is, you won’t have enough breath to return.”

Actually, I was more scared than surprised to see anything leap out of the water, and nearly dropped my notes in the water. I thought to ask, “Well, then can you show me the entrance?”

“I’ll think about it … but I wanted to thank you for helping Zawmb’yee — she’s a bit young for the Utd’mbts. I had thought to teach you, Doug, but you were too cynical at the time of the Maghuogke. Sorry.”

“That’s alright. I was in a crisis and would have thought the idea ridiculous back then…”

“Yes, I know. You hold your breath too much without going anywhere … always seeming to drown in sorrow.”

I was embarrassed to have too much dust in my eyes to answer…I changed the subject. “So, are you revealing the oral history of our people to Zawmb’yee? I don’t know what’s so secret. It doesn’t seem like such a big deal. I mean, if I want to know American History or Ancient Roman or Greek History, I just go to the library and get myself some text books.”

Asking about secrets made Utcoozhoo grimace. It triggered a long lecture, and a warning of sorts:

    “True thoughts are not at all like words. They are more like dreams. They have many metaphors, many meanings. There are many levels of Utd’mbts to learn. One must be ready. First one must babble like the baby, then a first word, then a sentence, then a complex sentence, and finally the fine points of a dream poetry.

    “The key here is you say ‘many books’. Each is a distortion of a different kind, a glorified hearsay — the gossip of the conquerors, the elites, the propagandists, ravings of madmen with charisma and minor magic. It is the written word of major and minor egomaniacs, words from scribes of the dominate class driven mad by their self-importance; words from scribes of minorities driven mad by their oppression, waiting for their revenge and reversal of role when they will rule and write with a new kind of madness. All of these are the scribbles that blot the world with cycles of boom and bust of ever larger magnitude, notation for melodies symphonic and chaotic, with a tone of hope in overture, an interlude of cacophony, and percussion like tornadoes. History of clash. Not enlightening…”

Utcoozhoo was making it clear to me that the “oral history” was a euphemism, and was much more than oral. “When will you tell her?”

“It’s not a telling as much as a transference. But I have to be careful how I say this to you. Skeptics can be blinded by their anger when it comes to mysticism. There is such a flood of pretenders that usually it is justified to call most crackpots, charlatans, or superstitious fools, but not all. I must tell you to be very careful with ‘Enchantments’… I’ve heard that Ngheufel has been stumbling into some dangerous states-of-mind without knowing what he’s doing. He’s a very stubborn fellow who I fear is on the edge of mischief. ”

With that, Utcoozhoo did some odd breathing exercises and dived into the water, swimming underwater to the Cave of the Third Sun.

Zawmb’yee Is Learning About The Ancient & The New

She’s Becoming An Advanced Student

I think she has another word for it, but she’s into both our ancient anthropology and up-top anthropology. She’s getting to the upper-Utd’mbts language level. I won’t be able to write that down if she’s going to do that all the time. I think there’s some sort of protocol on when to use it.

Zawmb’yee Is a Tease

    Zawmb’yee is more of a tease than I thought. I wrote the poem out for her with a brush on a canvas. She sat by the underground-river Zhushcratylm, gently resting the tips of her fingers on the canvas with her eyes closed. I leaned forward and stared into her like a wild-eyed pupil. “Yes,” she said, “it demonstrates the devotional stage, but there is no sharing of thoughts.”
I stroked the back of my hand across my lips, wiping my tingles. She took my hands, made a gentle humming sound like a ferocious purr, said: thank you and next week I’ll show you a vision in the fifth passage. Then she said, your phone is ringing — don’t you think you should leave the cave. A quick kiss and I found myself leaving hot…Is she psychic? I don’t know. She’s supposed to be.

She’s An Obsession

    I find myself thinking about Zawmb’yee everywhere I go. I wonder how she is able to navigate in the mainstream world above ground. I know she lives in the sacred quarters in the cave but is also expected to mingle in the city and across the world. It’s hard for me to imagine such a spiritual person riding on a common bus to meet me for lunch or come to my lonely apartment, see me type a poem into my computer, pull me away for more embraceable things. I think about what I might say to her about it: “I imagine you drifting in thoughts on the bus by the window with a mystery package. Can you hear me honk; can you see me as the bird that flaps a clap, applauding your reverie. On your way, squealing with the wheeling of the bus, I am the squeaky brakes squawking to see you; I am the roar of the engine. Wake up. Don’t miss your stop; don’t drop your precious package. Arrive soon, because I can’t wait to open you up to ride with me.”
    I imagine her everywhere doing her “learn the culture” exercises for Utcoozhoo — smiling on strangers at every museum, chatting at every Opera, commiserating at every bar, a discreet angel with casual compassion. But I am infused with the perfume of her joy:

You in Me

I woke up to my
longing for you; coffee
bit my dream
I stirred your cream

If I dress to seek you
will I know where
passion gallivants

You haunt me with
your many haunts. I
feel a phantom kiss
and miss the bliss from
flesh and ardor, belief bones
troubles massaged in a love whisper,
soothing music
melodic compassion

I am out to find you
driven like the mating birds;
walking, I hear the coos
but let them fly unknowing
for I have a gift for us:
wait ’til you
see me smile
everywhere I know you

But then Chloë is to call and my body is at attention…

Promises

    I was thinking the other day, sitting under the Dome of the Endless Light by the K’ut’mbletaw’i River, that Utcoozhoo promises many spectacular things to Zawmb’yee, but it’s always in the future. When she wonders if anything he says is true, he always tells her the story of Tpiqlat’ng who was everywhere, nearby, and beneath all things at the same time. Nobody believed Tpiqlat’ng either. The day Tpiqlat’ng returned with great treasures for everyone, rather than be grateful, they demanded to know where he got it. He was nearly beaten to death when he told what they thought was a grandiose lie:

    “I rode the river to the place of the Gods where I was given the honor to ride with them on a flying mole in a fire tube under a great ocean to the Rocky Mountains.”

He begged for one last chance to prove it to them. He said, “Whoever is as brave as they are angry, come meet the Gods.” The few volunteers he took to the K’ut’mbletaw’i (means, “They say it speaks to wash away false beliefs”). They rode it out to the surface and beyond, transferring to a new vehicle. All but the meanest one came back with great wonders. The Gods left the arrogant one behind — they say by his choice.

    And then after all that babble, Utcoozhoo won’t even tell her what treasures and who was left behind for what purpose. Now doesn’t that just become another spectacular story promised for the future?

    She says she wants to talk to me about one of her homework assignments. Gee, I don’t know that I can be of any help….

I Saw the Pfambuuwisen

    The mystical things always sound so calming, and yet so dangerous. I fear she may be seeing too much before she’s ready to understand it.

    Zawmb’yee always seems to come out of nowhere when I’m writing by the K’ut’mbletaw’i. Poor Zawmb’yee — another disappointment, or delay.

Homework

    She broke into my musing with “I saw the pfambuuwisen, the blue dream-stars shining on glistening water like crystal and all that, but now Utcoozhoo gives me a puzzle: ‘How are we like blue sheep?’ He says you know.”

    “I know? How do I know…Um oh yeah, of course?” I lowered my voice to a whisper of authority, and I hugged myself like I wished she would. “I’ll give you ‘my best tongue in the wind’ as they say.”

What Does Her Assignment Mean?

    I’m working on it. OK, I see I’m not really doing this diary thing very well, because some days I don’t write very much. I’m just not that talkative, and I never did this before. Some people kept diaries since they were kids. I never did that sort of thing. I didn’t even like reading much, though strangely I wanted to write a novel (I guess everyone does). Quite a contradiction: to want to do something I have no skill or talent to do. Zawmb’yee seems more like the type who could do it quite easily… ah, phooey, I’m getting tired now and I haven’t really said anything. I’m supposed to write down all my thoughts, I suppose, but they fly by too quickly (most of the significant ones, even the ones not ineffable–{hmm, double negative — is there “effable”}. What was I going to say — I forgot…

    I can see why Zawmb’yee is in turmoil. Everything is a contradiction. Utcoozhoo wants her to learn the dominant culture to blend in. If she does that, isn’t she assimilating into the mainstream, and adopting their ways. I would think she’ll just become another sap (as Utcoozhoo calls them). But yet he wants to teach her the traditional ways.
    He’s trying to get her to see the pfambuuisen, yet Zawmb’yee just seems to have the blues nowadays. Another contradiction: blue in a vision — a spiritual light, but brimstone burning blue — a devilish thing. (The devil is in the details.)
    Exposure to the modern world could destroy the ancient culture. Hmm, I was reading about the last Buddhist Kingdom of Bhutan. They just introduced satellite TV because they believe the young people must know about the outside world. But some elders worry that their culture will be corrupted and lost.
    Bhutan’s an interesting place with diverse climates and habitats. Aha, I think I have it — blue things in Bhutan. They have the same dilemma as we do: to assimilate, accommodate, or stay isolated.
    Zawmb’yee needs 12 ways to answer the question, “Why are we blue.” Well, I think I have one:

Blue Sheep In Bhutan

Have I sinned
to love snow leopards

I have heard
rock-and-roll
and blues too

Scampering up cliffs
blue sheep make me cry
freezing to hide

Snow leopards
must eat –
I will not look

Kayaking down the Mochhu
I see only splash
only sky

Blue is clean
red I deny

Prayer flags on the mountain
let me be of slate color
hiding my friends

Can I sing the blues
in the sorrow of the lamb
with only wool to give
in cold comfort, or

must I be the tiger
to growl at my hunger
to dominate

    The dominate culture is like a tiger. We are blue sheep hiding? No, that doesn’t sound right. Aaah, well, that’s the best I can do for now… I mean, it’s her homework. Why do I have to do it? Yeah, I’ll just say I’m giving you a clue, and pretend like it’s some deep profound strategy to get her to think, even though it’s just hogwash, ’cause I don’t know. I’m not wise — I’m just confused… maybe she won’t notice the difference…

What Do Chloë and Zawmb’yee Want?

The Apprentice

    So now I’m torn already. I’ve only had a few dates with Chloë, and I’ve only alluded to my first date that will be part of my research paper about person Mekibota 1. But now I’m infatuated with the future High Priestess who is now an apprentice to Utcoozhoo. She is disappointed that her studies are going so slowly. She, not yet with a title, my friend, Zawmb’yee Nuje, is unofficially explaining her studies to me.
    Utcoozhoo never thought that his new apprentice would get into trouble so fast being with me. But Utcoozhoo was cranky.
    You’d think he would have been happy, because he finally got an apprentice to pass on the oral history – they do a lot of chanting and humming. I said to Utcoozhoo, wouldn’t it be easier to just write it all down. He said, the language of the Gods can’t be written – only seen.

Is There An Ancient Drilling Machine?

    The only thing that interests me is that odd saying, “The wearer of the hat can stab through rock with an endless spear.” Oh hell, I think I’m just going to explore the chambers beyond the dome of the endless light. I can’t see what these superstitious curmudgeons are afraid of. They’re waiting for the Gods to return. I can’t wait for that – it could be a thousand years from now or never. If there is some kind of drilling machine, I could use it to finally hook up my computer in the cave.

Zawmb’yee Reveals Some of Her Training

I finally got Zawmb’yee, Utcoozhoo’s apprentice, to open up a little more. She says she finds the exercises exciting but tedious. Utcoozhoo doesn’t think she’s ready for any ancient secrets. She’s been practicing the “seeing of knowledge”.

“Huh?” I said. “Exactly what are you doing?”

“We walk past the glass wall, around the sword of the silver-red stalagmite. I turn my back while Utcoozhoo opens the ngtqua entrance…”

“He has a key or code of some kind? It looks like solid rock…”

“I don’t know. I don’t look. Sometimes it takes too long. He tells me to be quiet so he can concentrate. It’s so boring — I sit down with my back to him, put on my headphones and listen to music. That annoys him sometimes — says how can you get into a mystical mood listening to rock music. I laugh — he says no pun with “rock”. But anyway, when he’s finished yelling at me, I sit down with my back to him again and he does whatever…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, and then what?”

“We go down the golden steps into the darkness to the floating bed…then there’s meditation…”

“Yeah?”

“I can’t tell you anymore. You know, ‘secrets are sacred’ and all that. Bring me a gift and maybe I’ll tell you.”

She’s a tease.

Zawmb’yee Might Reveal More Secrets For A Token

Hmm, Zawmb’yee wants a gift. I don’t know; I don’t have any money right now. I spent all my money on Chloë, but I could write a poem for Zawmb’yee. I don’t know if she’d accept that as a gift; I think it depends on whether when she says, “gift” she means gift or bribe. There’s good news and bad news, I think. If she wants a bribe, then I can easily find out stuff, but then she’s really not trustworthy to receive the wisdom of the ages. On the other hand, if she really wants, umm, me as gift then… oh, Gods, she is beautiful… I must compose a poem for her, but she is too spiritual for my crude verse. I mean, Chloë, I think, is easily impressed by my poems of green pastures, but I don’t think Zawmb’yee will fall for me that easily. Meanwhile…

Chloë Was Mad

    I could hear my phone ringing all the way down the hall as I came in this morning. By the time I got in the door it must have been ringing more than 10 times. Chloë was mad. She says you’re never home. Well, actually, I would say (but never tell her) that the cave is more like my home than is my apartment.
    Yeah, I know I promised to install a cable in the cave so I’d have an Internet link there, but I think it’s probably much too complicated and expensive.

On the other hand…

I had a dream about Zawmb’yee. She was teaching me meditation, but it was weird like a loss of identity — some sort of blending process. She opened the ngtqua by herself and we floated in. I’ve been thinking about that gift for her. I did write a poem about “gifts.” Maybe it’ll do. It’s based on the story “The Gift of the Magi”, but it has my own twist. He buys her a swing for her tree so she can grieve over memories. He has to sell his carving tools to get money to buy it. She cuts down her tree to give him the perfect block of wood for his carvings.
    Maybe it might be “spiritual” enough for Zawmb’yee. I don’t think Chloë would like it. They are so different, but I don’t know who’s more exciting…

My Reverse Anthropology Study Of New York Continues


Reverse?
It’s reverse because the “primitives” are studying the Anthropologists’ culture. Immersion is hell.

Up And Down the Culture Gaps

I’m trying to learn how to study both the pure Mekibota and the Ojdispekib, of the up-top world. Several of our major secret entrances to the caves are located in the New York region.

Secret of the Gods

    Y’know, despite their claimed sophistication, some of the Ojdispekib, our people who assimilated long ago, don’t want to scientifically examine some of our traditions. They think it is mere superstition and would embarrass them if held up to scrutiny. Utcoozhoo, especially, knows that the late-period migrants to the up-top world are ashamed of our traditions and secrets. So these are not as modern as they think they are — not open minded, not willing to examine all possibilities in an objective way… But I’m annoyed that Utcoozhoo allows their ridicule and doesn’t debate with them, and will not reveal the secret of the Gods that would astound them. They in their way are backward and stubborn in spiritual matters, but so too Utcoozhoo is stubborn and backward in not embracing the best of the modern age.
    I have a computer in an apartment outside the cave. A word processor helps with the writing. I’ve tried to save my thoughts in rhyme, to be the Ut’ishsih poet laureate, but it’s so tedious coming out of the cave, though I know the maze of passages, just to post at a computer, so far, so foreign to me, an artist not a hunter, perhaps a proto-shaman who still cannot do routine traipsing like a meditation, who feels no ontology snaking around stalagmites as a native not a tourist, bored. Maybe I should run cables into the caves, pirouette a line around lime and trouvère. I’ve heard the ancients say there are silken spider ropes below the floor. Now that sounds like cables from the Gods, but the ancient technology doesn’t seem likely to be compatible – doesn’t seem wise to ask the Cable man to hook up to “this” and not ask any questions. I’ll have to come out of the cave to post.

Choosing Identities

Geez, I’m going to get all mixed up with pseudonyms, and with secret informants for my Anthropology study, while winding up slipping anyway.

It is a challenge to elaborate.

So I didn’t really give all the details about my date with the city woman. Oh, this is ridiculous… So then this wonderful city woman, a.k.a. up-top girl, or Mekibota 1 for the academic paper, has the name Chlöe. She wants me to embrace the modern age. She’s telling me to be more civilized like the Ojdispekib upper-class snobs who we, before the language change, called the hunter class. I call you all the time, she says, you’re never home, you don’t answer e-mails, don’t pick up the phone. Yeah, I know — mostly, I’m not in my apartment. I’m in the cave. I can’t lay cable in the cave to connect to the Internet — can I?

Should I quote Sigmund Freud: “What do women want?”

Oh but he’s been discredited. Right? Well, I don’t know. It seems that all of psychology is primitive and spiritually ignorant. That seems to be the underground chatter and background in the collapsing Mekibota society.

DRILLING THROUGH ROCK

What Does Chlöe Want?

    Chlöe beseeches me to e-mail, to be phone touching, encore calling. She says she’d lend me a cellphone, an earful, but I haven’t told her the cave is too deep for signal.
    Oh but, let the Gods lay me a cable I say. Might I lay aside the ancient prohibitions with a toast to modernity if the Lady needs a cable in the cave?
    But it is said, “Secrets are sacred. Don’t approach the Sun Fire, or the growling spears of the sacred spider until the Gods return to sear the rock with silk.”
    Hey maybe I’ll just flip a switch or something, drill through rock, and voilà: e-mail, cell phone reception, redemption. End of tension (right?).

So People, what do women want?
   What do you thing about the new start to the Kvizee Doug blog?

The “Primitives” Come to Study the Anthropologists

[photo from Pexels]

Anthropology Studies In Reverse

    I’ve been living mostly in the secret caves of my Ut’ishsih people. But I must come to the surface at least once in a while.
    You might say that at least in the distant past that the typical stereotype that the general public in the up-top world would have would be that an Anthropologist studies “primitive” people and indulges them in their foolish ways to learn about their culture (I’m not saying that professionals have that bias anymore, or do they). So one might imagine that an Anthropologist would come down here to study us. But as a “primitive person” and Utcoozhoo’s anthropology student, I must go up-top to study the Mekibota, the Homo sapiens. Although, basically, our genes are mostly the same. It’s just that the cultures are radically different as is the official language, which, of course, is the point. So as a common person down here I will attempt to be the grand Anthropology grad student looking to immerse himself in the “primitive” culture of the surface world.

I suppose that anxiety is a common trait

    This modern era is very uncomfortable for me. Would someone forgive a shy caveman his tentative introduction to the modern world? So maybe I should just be poetic with that up-top girl, and talk about Cirrus clouds. I could say to her, “Deep is the puff of your word, the tuft of wispy breathless love, a dear cloud for my sky I use as pillow to sleep in; it’s your fluff without rain enveloping it.” “Cirrus-ly,” I’d say, “could we be cumulus?”
    Nah, who cares about fluff pieces (Hey, is this colloquial enough — haven’t I mastered idiomatic English enough to pass as not caveman? I think it’s approaching conversational without affectation. I’ve gotten to use those careless redundancies and a few Y’know’s — right?)

Shall I begin making notes?

    OK, so I’m sort’a making a diary here. What do I do now? I guess I can just begin with a Dear Diary:

    There is some disturbing news on American television: some Ojdispekib, the ones who assimilated long ago, are beginning to appear on talk-shows and bragging about their special powers. They may have accumulated money but they have neither boyish charm nor savage enchantment.
    I would have preferred to remain in the cave and woods, but with modern media, there’s no more hiding, and I probably should establish myself outside the cave where the Grand Council has no jurisdiction — Utcoozhoo seems to think their benevolent dictatorship is about to transform itself into a malignant evil that might even threaten the up-top world, but politics doesn’t interest me. I’ve been to the city, and I can see why they call the city a “concrete jungle”. But the women are beautiful and graceful like deer… and I am like a caveman lost in the forest. There would be uncertainty on the forest’s edge, my spear would seem not steady, a stone’s throw away from the missing red deer who’ve gone with the cattle, fenced by plank woods, and tamed. I, lost caveman, still feel frozen out. On edge, I’ve lost my säng-froid beyond the Ice Age.
    She is a red deer who will not stray, stays deep in the jungle; it’s hard to ambush her heart when I am edgy, my spear heavy. Supercilious, she will not touch the edge of my brow, the forest of my desire, unless I meet her for coffee at the Antelope Hotel minding my manners – small spoon on cantaloupe.

The Up-top Girl

    I’ve made a date with her. I guess I should keep her anonymous — otherwise, she’ll be a laughingstock. I’m not quite comfortable yet doing a full diary. I’ll work into it. I’m not sure about the protocols for a Blog.

Good News Going To Dinner

    Her roundness astounded me, and a glorious ballet danced her to our table, ecstasy tableau. The mâitre d’ hôtel knew about her kindness, and smiling at us, served mixed pleasures without a raised eyebrow – he was a fine shaman, uncorking champagne and venison. She took me home.
    Gorgeous was the evening when she spoke to me as if I were a hunter of love, and she knew my appetite profoundly. She stroked the hair of my back, my buttocks, raised me right with sheep skin on my rod to save my genes for a future cherished child when glory would be our name, we, dancers of wealth sharing with every child who’d cry, a kiss. Never have I seen such a feast like we had this night of lore, and I wish for more.
    She is a smile, and I am a sigh, my hug was accepted. Yes, I am we, we sing, and I would say to ring the tones of me forever.

I don’t know: should do colloquial English?

I guess it might be simpler to say, up-top girl contrasted with cavegirl Zawmb’yee Nuje. Is Zawmb’yee going to be jealous. Geez, I forgot. I actually have two studies. One is with Zawmb’yee about Ut’ishsih history and language, and the other my assignment up-top from Utcoozhoo. I think Zawmb’yee is going to have a surprise for me.