for the uninitiated, there is often a period of confusion, as if one
were suddenly in a different climate and ecosystem altogether.
The following Folk Opera is a relative of the Rainbow of Desire
Ellemnopy Cuares-tiuvi
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To: alohathelion@gmail.com
The First Page is a turtle with six strange fractal shapes arranged in a symmetrical circle on it's shell. It is seen in relief, an angled perspective from above and behind the turle to it's right. It is a land going creature with strange details around the mouth and nose.
There is no text on this page.
The second page has several images as well as some words in English.
There is a tree exhibiting a high degree of bi-lateral symmetry superimposed over a circle depicted so as to show the roots, trunk and branches with clouds of leaves.
Beneath it is a strange black fractal shape suggesting a shadow of two crows, above a cross made up of stylized letters. The Horizontal word MOTHER intersects at the H with the perpendicular downward word PHARM. The A is made up of three lines with arrows on both ends pointing out. The Lines intersect to make an equilateral triangle within a white circle, off set on the triangle to make the two legs of the A longer. The shadow outside the circle is of a heart. The Rs are both eyes of Horus - the other one to the left and mother one to the right.
Below the cross are these words :
P.H. ~> I regret that I have only one life to give for my country.
aninvisiblepirate ~> I give thanks that I have but this one life to live with humanity.
The third page has a large image of a treble clef made up of bubbles with a stylized swan flying before it above the words Bad Folk Orchestra made into a strange tri-perspective logo. To the right of these images are these words written in fancy cursive :
GNOSTIC QI
_____________
Ellemenopy
Cuares
Tiuvi
dreams of
the
Mother
Pharm
while learning
to cure
cancer with
a banjo
_________________
Beginning with The fourth page there is no drawing . Every line of the multi-colored, solid and dotted lines that came standard on this elementary school-penmanship primer is used to write these words:
"My dreams have changed since we've been at sea together," she told him, over a breakfast of egg-in-a basket like in V for Vendetta with apples and Swiss cheese.
He was holding his coffee cup to his face with two hands to enjoy the aroma. In the back of his mind the wheels were turning - like the one on Wheel of Fortune - dozens of neurotic associations of the words 'dream','change', 'we' and 'together'; all pi-ed out radially with a little spike of probability clicking against his toggling indicator of reality.
One thing he'd learned in his new meditations was to let the wheel stop spinning before he chose a course of action. If he waited, he was much less likely to ruin a good thing by mis-anticipating some other good thing.
"Is this the start of a Dear John thing, " he asked, mischievously facetious while laying his real insecurities out for her to see.
"Oh John, you're a dear. No. So get that deer in the headlights look off your face. It's Elizabeth."
The wheel stopped turning on a pie piece that bore an image from a dream of his own. A wizened old black African man with ebony and gray hair corn-rowed on his skull - wearing only a simple pair of breaches and playing a drum.
The drum is large and chalice shaped, resting on the ground beneath his feet. He stands in a crazy right angle - legs straight, torso bent perfectly at the hips - wide hands with fingers splayed, spread as he plays the head of the Djimbe.
"Does she still smoke pot with you in your dreams, " he asks, then takes a taster sippy-slurp - still too hot.
"Want some cream to cool it down, " she asks - hands to the table, preparing to rise.
"No. I'd like to let it happen naturally. Tell me about Elizabeth - it'll be just right temp to drink after a little chat."
"Eat your eggybread, beloved, " she said, smiling & sipping her water. " Yeah, she still puffs mad blunts in her boudoir to try to
(page 5)
control our environment. the thing that has really changed is that we've been playing cards. Not like spades, or blackjack - and not really Tarot - it's more like some weird role playing game with a map. She calls it the Mother Pharm project."
"The Mother Farm Project?"
"No - Mother Pharm - Pee Aitch, like the alkalinity metric."
"That's what I ... wait , you can hear the difference."
"It's more of a feeling."
"Yeah, Okay. I love you. The card game then..."
"She has this stack of hand painted cards, some kind of heavier paper circles - about six inches in diameter. Each one has a different aspect of some part or another of the game.
Only it's not really a game. It's more like a flow charty divination tool that follows some standard rules of game play."
The coffee is still too hot.
"There's one for my drum, one for my guitar, one for me just singing. There's three more of me - one with a hoe, one with a piece of paper I'm writing on with a feather quill - and one, " she stops, looks out the window at the rising sun obscured by clouds - expels a breath in a whoosh through a circle of pursed lips, " and one where I'm pregnant."
"You've been pregnant in your dreams before."
"And in other people's. I don't want a kid. To spend 20 years raising someone just so they can discover I've really played a mean trick on them by forcing them to choose whether to be alive - If they decide I'm so important they need my genes for something, they can clone me. But it's just a card. There's six cards of me, and each of those have six cards associated with it by colour."
"How long has this been going?"
"7 nights. The first night was all about the 6 Me cards - then one after another they were amplified by their six constituent cards. There's always a Truck, a building, a song, a pregnant woman, one that has a type of disaster depicted on it, and a plant."
The wheel in his head started spinning again when she said pregnant. clickicklicklick clik clik clik
(page 6)
at the top of page six is a pencil drawing of a triangle superimposed over a circle with a parabolic three petal flower. beneath it the text continues as before.
slowing gradually, but still going, and it stops on his own interpretation of her sitting and writing with a feather quill.
"Did you try drawing them, " he asks.
Her eyes pop wide and she smiles, " why didn't I think of that?! This is why I keep you around. You can see the simple things."
~8~8~8~~8#8~~8~8~8~
She rose & crossed the cabin floor to grab some art supplies. He thanked God once again as she did for the gift of her in his life.
She'd instituted a policy of shipboard nudity during mealtimes. It saved on laundry.
And he loved her picturesque flesh, even down to the tattoos. He didn't always like tattoos - to him they were unnecesary adornments. But as a husband who strove to accept his wife's every aspect unconditionally, those inky illustrations were the stuff of the most sublime mystery.
"So do you think she's trying to help you with the banjo project?"
"I call it Gnostic Qi, " she amended.
(page 7)
"Yeah, well, is she?"
"I hope so. Must be, I guess."
~8~8~8~~8#8~~8~8~8~
Vancouver, WA is not trendy. The calm, northern sister city ofPortland, OR is often forgotten, misplaced in people's awareness. The BC cousin named after the same explorer gets most of the attention. Portland gets most of the tourists as they visit Astoria, the Dalles and Mounts Hood, Ranier and St. Helen's.
Confused junkies and hipsters out looking for the next third party infusion of authenticity will sometimes stumble up from P-Town and wander about looking for their fix. Bur on the whole Vancouver gets overlooked by the high in society and such.
She looked over the bulwark, turned and said, " look, bumhole - that's my new insult comedy pronoun - I'm looking at you. All I see right now is a
(page 8)
shitstorm of irrational numbers."
He looked at her as if she were a painting - it made no sense to him - this shitstorm thing. They were alone at sea, had been awhile. Who else but him? Why?
"I dream of being instructed by Elizabeth Tudor, bumhole. Everything I see is a tragedy - you're the only person I ever loved who didn't die.
you are the only sane thing I know. ANd yOU have taught me to sail by interviewing Sir Francis Drake in your dreams."
He looked at her palpable exasperation undulating in the space between them. It was a diffuse, opaque thing, made of whimsy threads and hot breath in the rumbling of the sea. She was so different. " Who could hope to really understand another, " he muttered.
"It's not you, " she was close to him now. " No it'll never really be you. I wouldn't even know it was a shitstorm were it not for the contrast of having you... no, wait. man, that sounds even worse. Some of it is the shit I did to myself when I was drankin, but this dream thing....Bess is doin some
(page 9 is blank)
(page10)
crazy psychological horticulture on me - she wants me to do impossible things."
"Did we steal this boat?"
Suddenly closeness and distance became very relative terms. She was pressed entirely against him ( the effect of the momentary diffusion of the shitstorm in a Coriolis effect generated by the spinning wheel ) but three thousand miles away as the crows flies. Well, if a crow were to fly that far. Maybe an albatross.
"Not really, " she whispered across the chasm of inches. " No one really owns it."
He delighted her with a quick kiss and said, " It's registered in Ishmael's name."
"We're bringing it back to him. If we keep sailing west, we'll get back to Cape May."
~8~8~8~~8#8~~8~8~8~
She cut out 43 circles of cardboard from a stash in the bow and got out her pack of fancy sharpies and mechanical pencils.
For four days she drew and ate and slept and sailed. Her charts showed Barbados another four
(page 11)
days away.
In his dreams, John was sailing the same stretch of seas with Drake, and in hers Elizabeth was pushing her to make the cards. The intuitive rituals of sailing were more restful than her sleep - now she longed for the days when she had not understood Elizabeth.
Simple Times - but the truth was that then she had thirsted to know why she dreamt as she did. My how green the pastures in other valleys!
He entertained himself with her guitar. He'd been working hard at it, and was getting much better. He'd even written a few tortured testaments to his love for her.
In these four days he'd written:
about the disturbing distance between them :
And as her wisdom dawned on me once again
She was shining with a light that came
from some other direction than the sun
I was left Speechless
by the Breech in the laws of Physics and
Creation became So very evocative
She was shining with a light
From Some
Other Direction than the sun
She did provocative dances while playing her blues.
She was learning to cure cancer with a banjo"
Which he played as bar chords descending from B Minor to A to G then ascending A to B minor again with a double beat skank like Watchtower. He repeated the last line three times while remaining in B minor with crazy chicken scratch funk leading to a tremendous crescendo.
And he wrote the differences in their views on philosophy and science :
C - F - C - G7
--------chorus-------------
Everywhere I look I see Geometry.
Shapes of flowers, shapes of hearts, spinning in infinity.
--------chorus---------------
The hand of love draws us all
together, wherever, forever
the organic dynamic, pragmatically romantic
graphs the curve the servants deserve.
(chorus)
Electrical impulses define the nerves
the design of the mind defies and deifies, yeah
hypocrisy is ubiquitous
seems like errors and hunger is all we share
(chorus)
the circle, the line, the triangle
tetrahedron and the pyramid
lifeseed expanding, cells dividing, demanding
anarchy and hunger are the very same thing
(chorus)
the fiery light in the sky
hits the rods and the cones in my eyes
the fire burns i cannot discern
anyone else unless I face the shadow
(chorus)
the hearts are all breaking, the flowers are fading
knowledge is a myth I tell my
self in the shadow
I spread the rumor of the light
in the darkness of the shapeless night
and then my deformities, they all conform
in the prison of the prisms
I chase the shadow
(chorus)
energetic particles
X-Rays I can't explain
Neglected expectations and
reflections of pain
The fiery light from the sky
keeps defining all of these shapes that I cannot escape
in the prison of the prisms
I chase the shadow
(chorus)
wish I could see the light.
wish I knew wrong from right
Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight
Wish I may, hope I might
take off society's blinders and
learn to grow in the light.
(chorus)
And now we go back out the way we came in."
----------------and then he would sing the verses back again, quicker, in reverse order, without the choruses - until a chorus at the end with a reminiscent crescendo of the final line of the last verse.
(page 12)
Page twelve has several images - symbols, really, and a simple chart at the top.
The image at the top left is of a six pointed star ( Israeli flag style ) inside a multi looped parabola with four corner bubbles creating a cat eye like effect around the star of David.
The chart next to it is two categories descending from the titles "Leptons" and "Quarks" above a sold line - between them is a vertical line that bisects the solid line - separating the categories of things listed. Between the six sets of types of quantum particles are a series of geometric forms expressing rational integers.
between electron and up is a circle,
between muon and down there is a diagonal line,
between Tau and charm are a triangle,
between electron neutrino and strange are a y shape that may be intended to represent a tetrahedron ( may also be the nose of a lion. hard to say),
between muon neutrino and bottom beauty is an X,
and between tau neutrino and top truth is a double looped parabloa with six intersections.
At the middle left hand margin of this page is a rhombus with five lines of words -
PHOTONS
GLUONS
W's
Z's
GRAVITONS
this box rests on a line that has the words STRONG FORCE centered on it. below it in descending lines it says
ELECTRICAL FORCE
QUARKS HELD TOGETHER
BY GLUONS
GAUGE BOSONS CARRY MESSAGES
FROM QUARK TO QUARK ABOUT FORCES
"FORCE CARRIERS"
QUARKS MAKE UP HADRONS
THE PROTON IS A HADRON
(page 13)
On this page is an enlargement of the bilaterally symmetrical tree from the cover pages. This time there is no circle and no clouds of leaf clouds. Instead there is a series of symbols describing the transpiration cycle as a progression of six steps. The steps are identified by the Greek letter Omega - and each has a letter as well. Between them are words. The first Omega is in the root of the tree - above it is an omega with the letter M in it. The letters rise up from there L E P T O N then an omega with an O inside, followed as you enter the trunk by Q U A R K S then an omega with a T where the branches begin, then, T U R + L E omega H , S P I R I T where the leaves would have been (omega E) D H A R M A floating in the sky like it had had it's MC squared and then (omega R) has falling beneath it a spray of marks which could be rain, could be the side of a can of spray paint telling you which way it's gonna go. It has six lines, the first with one mark ( at the top of the pyramid ) the bottom with six.
(page 14) is a return to the previous arrangement of naught but words on yon flat sheaf.
"So how is the banjo project coming, " he asked, leaning over the guitar towards her.
She looked up at him.
"Elizabeth tells me I'm tuning my guitar too high. She had me play for her on a lyre, I tuned it by ear, and that led to a bunch of things."
He strummed a D minor Chord then A7, back and forth continuing and said, "432"
"137," she responded.
"137?"
"It's an unlikely, but consistent result of certain quantum experiments. 432?"
"It's an older, obscure common tuning for A - before it was standardized at 440 in the 1930s."
"Globalization. Hmf. 432. That'd be pretty flat. Do we have a chromatic tuner?"
"There are settings on the audio
(page 15)
recorder software that can be calibrated to 432."
"Who came up with 440?"
"NAZIs."
"really?"
"Weird," he concluded. "But we can't tune the harmonica," he said, shaking his head.
"We don't need to, I don't think. Maybe, I don't know, but maybe the difference is important."
She looked at him carefully. She thought they'd had an unspoken agreement not to talk about the tumor nestled between his abdomen and pelvis. Then he went and wrote that song, and was becoming more focused on the 'Banjo Project'.
Like it said in the song lyrics - she was learning to cure cancer with a banjo. As if that wasn't hard enough, she didn't even have a banjo. She was simulating one by playing guitar and harmonica at once.
~8~8~8~~8#8~~8~8~8~
(page 16)
The old black man with the drum was Diego. He'd been sneaking into John's dreams. Whether this was an effect of close proximity to Ellemenopy, their activity of circumnavigating the globe in a stolen ship, just the regular Freudian cigar, or an actual event of transmigration of thoughts and meanings across the bounds of time and space via some realm of dreams was not yet clear to John.
Nor was it clear to Diego...Neither Nor'easter nor what ?
What was clear to both of them was there was obviously something wrong with the man out of whose eyes John looked, with whose mouth John spoke.
The first night of the change John woke in a strange, creaking, rocking darkness. He sat up to a series of sights and smells unlike anything in Obamanation era Paramus NewJersey.
Except for the sticky sweet smell of
(page 17)
canibus - which was being smoked in a large tobacco leaf blunt by an old man next to him. THAT is a smell that has accompanied civilization from it's onset. It was a room made entirely of wood - floors and ceiling - and after his eyes adjusted to the flickering lantern light, John realized he was in a ship.
a ship at sea.
An old black African man with salt and pepper beard and cornrows was sitting next to his bunk smoking a marijuana filled cigar.
"Billy, got a remedy for that sickness, in ya, brotha," as he puffed and tried to pass.
"No thanks. I'm not Billy, " he said, finding this to be the most thoroughly lucid dream experience of his life.
"Of course, of course. Forgive me, brother. We call you John Drake, and we call me Diego, and we call the Captain Francis.
(page 18)
But you and I know you are young Bill Stratford what rafted away from his daddy's illiterate life of labor and favors down the Avon to read the scripture to El Draco! Our auburn tressed Governess Bess's own Red Bearded Privateer. An I am Drake's Hand. I give you the remedy. Take it and I will pay more attention to the names."
Inspiration, like a wind, tossed the flag on the mast of his heart as a precursor to the gust about to fill the sails of his most unlikely thought. He spoke his thought aloud.
"Shakespeare."
"Ya mon. We leave that name behind in Plymouth. But what is this, you don't look as sick as you've been. The fever broke - no more sweats or other bad humors. But the look in your eyes is strange to me, brother. Have you had some strange dream?"
~8~8~8~~8#8~8~8~8~
In the course of several late night dream sessions while suffering a heavy fever for days, John discovered that young William Shakespeare had met Drake in the hulk of the ship similar to the one in which he'd been raised. Billy had run off with a Bible and a blanket. Drake loved it.
He joined the crew of the Pelican as Drake's brother to keep his Father's good name from being sullied by association with Pirates.
His body was in a hospital bed in
(page 19)
Princeton, NJ. His mind was learing to sail from the smoothest fools what ever played a drum out on the ocean all the way around the earth. Chanting songs of Joy and Thanksgiving - doing nothing but what seemed blessed, and experiencing many miracles. This was his life at sea in his dreams.
It was in the hospital where he was learning to tie ropes and hitch rigging and read charts from the little spark plug of a man the virgin queen seemed to so enjoy spending time alone with ( who had learned to sail from the seamen who came to hear his father preach the Gospel in English in the burnt out hulk of a ship that was his church, school and dorm.) It was in that hospital, at that time that John and Ellemenopy learned of the cancer.
They didn't stop and try to live virtuous lives.
They took a mute vow to break all of the rules of grammar.
They didn't tell Ishmael about the cancer a week later, when he invited them to see his new boat, a 65 foot trimaran specifically built and outfitted for a 2 person circumnavigation. It was his anniversary surprise for Maggie.
When they went aboard the ship, and spent a night - John was able to get Diego and Drake to explain the workings of the ship they slept in.
(page 20 )
In the morning Ishmael left them there to go play a series of gigs in the midwest.
John had sold his house and made out his will two days before.
She asked him why, and he asked her to teach him to play guitar.
He wrote an insane funk dirge ( if such things are allowed ) barring the sixth fret and occasionally dropping a finger on the A string in the 8th fret.
-----------Chorus__________
And still she hesitates to mention
the nakedness the nakedness of her soul
_________________________
unclothed yet unbeholdable
betrothed at birth to this flesh
this body always unfolding
from breath to breath until death
----------chorus----------------
these bones are a haunted house
home to some unwanted mouse
the rodents that scurry within these walls
know nothing but hurry till winter falls
------------chorus-------------------
outside on the lawn sits a painter
describing unsuspected saints
that hide from the longshadowed day
in dawn's first premonition of light
----------------chorus---------------------
the canvas sits drying for weeks at a time
as the oils in layers slowly hide
first the blank, the the hinting at blurred faces
till details define and freeze all in stasis
------------------chorus--------------------------
the image of a pilgrimage half forgotten
the fleeting greetings beauty gets lost in
a picture of laughing dancers in fallow fields
unaware of the worrisome cost
------------------chorus-------------------------
In the Caribbean he finally put some of his love into blues, using a glissando effect
F - A - A# - and a chorus of Cm - F - C
------chorus
I just wanna hold her hand
and understand the moon (2x) -----------------
I'm looking for a lady
that I don't even know
And I'm kind of lazy,
so it's going slow
---------chorus------------
she'll be wearing sensible shoes
when she wears any shoes at all
she'll know what it's like to sing the blues
to smoke weed and to drink alcohol
----------chorus--------------
I think I'm going crazy
she's gotta wanna come
She'll balance my equation be a
whole number when I wanna sum
-----------chorus----------------
in the Straights of Magellan they were on the same beach on the day John dreamed the trial and beheading of Thomas Doughty.
Observing the southern cross from sea, as it rose over the Andes, he began to understand the beauty of the world he was part of.
He started with chorus and just kept simple in the key of G.
"And There are as many cells in my body as there are stars in the sky.
Evidence of the mess that was necessary of the blessing.
And there are as many cells in my body as there are stars in the sky
In the middle of the empty space on a mountaintop
the view of the stars from space does not stop
and there are as many cells in my body as there are stars in the sky
all those amazing waves frozen in place, oh the stars
wrinkles make ridges on the mask on god's face, oh the stars!
And I am Burning! Burning with them!
Turning! Turning with them!
Oh the stars, oh the stars, oh the stars!
And now, past Hawai'i ( iALOHA!), as they sailed toward Indonesia, he sang to her of God and Women
It was just a jaunty little walking tune, with an egg shaker in his hand while he pushed the riff across her ears in a simple A D E on the fifth fret
Would you like to come with me tomorrow
and feed on lust we have made
we'll rise up throughout the evening
and dance with ghosts of yesterday
we'll do the rumba for Jehovah
Tango with Zoroaster for Ahuru Mazda
Shake and Shimmy with the kachinas
The Sacred Hula with many hoops
crying Haere Mai Aroha Nui
to Wonka Tonka and Quetzalcoatl
If Krishna is like the milk of loving kindness
to remind us of that sweet mamas breast
then Shiva is the cheese that you get
when you drop some ac id
in the supreme dairy metaphor of the godhead
Don't forget Bruce Lee
He could manifest the Qi
but if you look closely you can see
a beautiful woman dancing lightly
dressed only in the text, girdled in the words
she whispers
she tests
(page 21)
Then he was too weak to play.
~8~8~8~~8#8~~8~8~8~
Her own dreams had been nothing but details from Elizabeth to help her complete the playing cards.
It seemed like a bunch of unnecessary hokum, this thing Elizabeth was forcing down her throat. But it must be something she herself would give to Elizabeth to relay back to her. And so, you know, endless irrational numbers.
So she spent more time with her guitar and harmonica - trying to cure John's cancer with harmonics.
Deigo had told John in the dreamspace that a man in his original home town had cured many cancers with music.
The trick was to play first one of the instruments to make the noise of the unhealthy body - then another to make the noise of A HEALTHY BODY that you desire. Then carefully shift them into harmony so that the dissonance
(page 22)
resolves.
It had been two months. They had no complex medical instruments with which to gauge their progress.
The email they'd gotten from Ishmael was very concerned about the whole stolen boat thing. So they'd told him about the cancer.
He wished them well, and asked them to meet him and Maggie In Indonesia. They were flying to Jakarta.
That reunion should be in mere days.
In the hold of the ship, she held him.
"....You were too hot for me, baby. I've been consumed.... " he whispered.
She wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"...Your headlines were so bold, I assumed so much. I really only read half the articles..."
she tipped the bottle to his
(page 23)
callypso theatraholic string
cold lips so that he could drink.
"...You must be so tired of this..."
She smiled , " you give me peace and energy at the same time."
"...No, I mean, I'm just another one - all of your men, consumed by the sea..."
"stop"
"...No Really, I need you to hear this. Bury me at sea. There's a weighted body bag in the hold. Under the extra sails."
Anguish burned her eyes and constricted her throat.
"...shitstorm..." he whispered.
"Yes, thank you.
and no. NO. I won't do it. I will not toss yu out to sea.And. ANNNDD FUCK YOU FOR ASKING ME TO!"
~8~8~8~~8#8~~8~8~8~
Theoretically a 65 trimaran is an unsinkable boat.
(page 24)
They lay in the hull together - with her singing and playing and doing all of the nursing, etc.
And the unsinkable ship drifted along strange currents of the south pacific.
Days on end she played so many different versions of his healthy body with every instrument she had or could image from the things on the boat.
She didn't notice when they drifted into the bay. She hadn't been topside without him since he asked her not to leave him, when he could no longer rightly stand anymore.
She hadn't noticed when the ships systems had automatically kicked in the heater. If you're going to steal a boat, steal a fancy Rock star Boat paid for with Pirate stories. That's Booty Cubed. DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDdd
She saw only her music, like some holographic extension of her hopes, reaching into him and healing.
But the illusions were all just that.
Then the sea began to switch, the boat to pitch, and that is when the door to the deck swung on it's hinge.
(page 25)
She shot out through the hatch - it shouldn't have been able to swing open like that, except under the most extreme conditions.
It took a long time for her to recover from the shock of the light.
It was so brightly reflected by the snow mountains and roiling water.
Roil.
What a wonderful word.
I wish we had time to contemplate the synonyms and such, the rhymes and cadences - but the water was roiling... you know, time was suddenly real again -....-
End Streams of crazy bubbles
Crazy bubbles and now also krill!?!iIi!
And then the first nose crested the water.
This is the thing the humpback whales do when their babies are young.
They migrate to Antarctica to feast on plankton and krill that blossom wildly in the all night sun of the antipodal summer. It's like a cetacean truck stop with an all you can eat buffet.
The whales get together with a bunch of lungs full of
(page 26)
air.
They form a circle beneath a bountiful spot , and release bubbles. The bubbles make a column that holds the tasty water creatures in place - and the whales rise up through the column.
Which one goes first, you may wonder? ...And is going first a privilege or a chore?
Turned out to be lucky this time. The next 4 whales each surfaced with a shock.
The first came up directly between the main hull and the starboard hull. The entire side of the vessel lifted some 15 feet in the air - launching a number of items when the ropes holding them snapped.
And then the second whale surfaces, striking the aft hull, lifting that side 6 feet in the
(page 27)
air.
All the parts were now wrenched about. There were no more parallel lines.
The Starboard hull was now mainly detached. Bot whales were badly concussed. But nothing compared to the third, who rose up between the two - directly into the middle of the center hull as it dropped the half dozen feet it had risen from the water.
You can't imagine the noise. Try. You'll get it wrong every-time. But try, again and again. All right, that's enough.
There were no longer the appropriate number of hulls - the trimaran should have three keels - the center seal-able, somewhat submersible.
The Fourth whale came up in such a way as to strike the broken center hull and forcibly separate it from both outer hulls while also completing the center breach begun by the third. The whole was so damaged now as to be clearly
(page 28)
unfix-able.
Ellemenopy saw all of this from the safety of a yellow life raft . She and it had been tossed clear in the repercussion of the first blow - it inflating in the air as they flew, she landing in it and crumpling.
The whole event took less than 5 minutes. The ship was gone. And with a whisper, she began to wail...
...WE WERE LOST, JUST GOOD CHILDREN FROM THE ISLE OF VIEW
WE USED TO DRINK THE RHYTHM HYMNAL AT THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
NOW CRY CRY CRY THE TAIL THRENODY
AND REMEMBER THE TRUTH
THE BANSHEES SCREAM
THRENODIES FOR THE YOUNG DEAD
THE BANSHEES WAIL
REGRETS AND THINGS LEFT UNSAID
And as she sang this, over and over, staring at the place where the unsinkable boat had sunk, young mother whales floated close to her with their calves.
Their breath and bodies kept her warm.
Clicking dolphins and squeaking Penguins joined her song, and Rainbows played prism games on the yellow boat, refracted by melting icicles in her dreadlocks.
~8~8~8~~8#8~~8~8~8~
Exposure
Sunburn
Frost bite
dehydration
Its a miracle she lived.
Or is it?
A film crew had arrived to study the whale bubble columns. They found her floating near the mainly now half consumed carcass of one of the four whales that had struck the boat.
For some reason, it had not sunk.
She came to for a moment as they took her aboard ship, and looked one in the eye - saying, " don't wake me. Let me sleep.
Perchance to dream.."
~8~8~8~~8#8~~8~8~8~
She awoke aboard that ship that once had been the Pelican, but had been redubbed the Golden Hind.
They told her they'd taken her aboard as an amnesiac found on an atol where they'd gone for fresh water.
She'd been aboard ship 2 days, and when she awoke, it was to a lightly bearded face that looked at her in wonder.
"She stirs. My whimsy blurred beauty awakens, " he mutters to the side, then looks right into her eyes and says clearly, " Softly. Would you rather water or wine."
(page 29)
"I'd rather wine but I'd better water, brother."
He poured water into a metal cup from a pitcher on a table near her bed.
"I occupied this bed myself, when I first came board ship. I was horrible consumed by a humor of confused doubt in a fever.
When I over came my doubt, I got much better. And yourself? Pray tell, what foolish notion governs your illness? Is it your forgetfulness - your body is as healthy as a man could hope a woman in his company would have - what is it that you have forgotten?"
"My name is Ellemenopy Cuares Tiuvi"
She took the water from his hand and drank.
"Elle," he whispered."Oh what is truth?"
"John, " she said, swallowing the whole cup in one tip, " if that is you..."
And it was. He rushed over to her
(page 30)
arms - and they celebrated their reunion with hugs, laughter and kisses. When Diego entered the room she was playing his Djimbe and Drake's snare drum together between her wide spread legs - and John the Mandolin that was generally housed in sick Bay of Drake's ships. He was a musical fellow.
"Ah, the lady is rejuvenated!"
"Diego, tell the captain we'd like to marry fore the morrow."
"Antes del Moro, Anted Del Mundo! El Corazon Viven! Finally a purpose for this beautiful problem of the forgetful maiden," Diego laughed before he delivered his message. He had entered to call out land ho! Drake had survived the Western Route to the Far East.
A week later Drake sailed away. leaving that strange young woman behind - and taking with him the treasures of contacts and cargo that would found the Bank of England. Especially that load of booty from the CacaFuego.
He also took with him the brightest of all these gems - the now despondent and confused young man who just kept muttering ,'shitstorm', but would overcome this strange delusional period to write his way into that future from whence he had sprung.
But before there could be a future, there must first be a gift presented...
(page 31)
That night he played for her on the mandolin a response to the song she'd been singing when first he'd seen her.
He was just barring the second fret and sliding to the fourth - with innovative picking in the midst -
"I READ A STORY BOUT AN ELEGANT SUBTERFUGE
AFTER I READ IT TO EDIT FOR THE TRUTH
AND IT WAS A SONG ABOUT A WOMAN IN WHITE
SHE WAS UNTRACEABLE LIKE THE WIND
THERE WAS NO WAY TO FOLLOW HER NO WAY TO BEGIN
SHE WALKED IN THE SUN BEFORE IT SET IN THE SEA
AND HER WHITE DRESS LOST ITS OPACITY
THEN HER TATTOOS TOLD THE STORY OF THE TRUTH
VINES ENTWINED ENTANGLING HER LIMBS AND SPINE
THE LEFT SIDE WAS SCIENCE
FROM THE ANKLE TO THE WRIST
CHEMICALS & CHLOROPHYLL THE
COLOR-CODED DOUBLE HELIX
THE RIGHT SIDE WAS FLOWERING THE AESTHETICS OF GRACE
RED, GOLD, & GREEN WITH PURPLE
PERVASIVE IN THE NEGATIVE SPACE
HER TORSO BORE THE INKY IMAGE FROM THE NAPE OF HER NECK TO THE PELVIC DIVISION
OF THE SILVER SISTER STANDING
ON THE MOON WITH TRIBAL STARS IN HER CROWN
BABY IN HER BELLY AND THE DRAGON BEARING DOWN
SHE WAS NOT DISTRESSED
SHE KNEW SHE WAS BLEST
A PLACE HAD BEEN PREPARED FOR HER
IN THE WILDERNESS
THE TATTOOED WOMAN IN GOSSAMER WHITE
PASSED BY ME TWICE
SMILING ALL THE WHILE
IT WAS SO NICE"
They made love and passed unknowingly into blissful sleep breathing each-other's heartbeats.
She awoke to see Ishmael and Maggie.
"She stirs, " Ishmael muttered to Maggie. " My whimsy blurred Mystery awakens," then he said to her, " would you like some water?"
~8~8~8~~8#8~~8~8~8~
The only usable remains of the ship had been the watertight chest in which all the art supplies were kept.
It had been found floating beneath the corpse of that whale - the surreal, irrational ballast.
In it were her drawings of the
(page 32)
playing cards Elizabeth had described for her and John's pages of lyrics.
She sang those songs that day.
For a month she would not converse, using her faculty of speech solely to sing his songs. For better or worse, she had no dreams - no Elizabeth, no John, no Zimbabwe Joe.
Then she laid out the cards on a big table, and set about building the Mother Pharm.
~8~8~8~~8#8~~8~8~8~
Oh yeah, about the whales...
...they had followed her quite a ways. It was the mixture of sounds, noises and thumpings amplified for quite some distance by the unique shape of the trimaran.
The pregnant mommas, having mated in the Northern Hemisphere waters ( some near Vancouver, WA), then swam to Indonesia to birth their calves.
Mama and the calves then followed the currents to Antarctica's strange garden waters of the bays (page 33)
which had been iced over during the endless night.
The mamas are feeding their calves the whole way - but haven't had a good meal themselves since the birthing .
The mamas on the way south had run across their own moms, coasting south beneath a strange shadow above.
They were singing to the shadow - which was in turn singing a wild song, not specifically in response - but to which the new grandmas were harmonizing. This is not common - this harmonizing with boats thing.
It sang of pain and hope, loss and growth, love and death.
They sang to it of their pain, their acceptance of it, and the natural cycles.
There were four of them.
They did not really understand what it was to be in a boat. The nature of the creatures above bewildered them.
They knew that she would need their help - that she could never honor his wish to be buried at sea.
I'd like to say that this was a fulfillment of some deep cetacean prophecy prognosticated before the dawn of man -
(page 34)
but really, you know it was just that spinning wheel in John's head
clikliklklikliklik
click click click
Whales don't need prophecy
they're with the band
~8~8~8~~8#8~~8~8~8~
